Find Out About NWP's Technology Initiative
Resource Topics
Teaching Writing - Digital Writing
Additional Resources
NWP's Digital Is: A Tool for Writing, Learning, Connecting, and Sharing in the Digital Age
U.S. Department of Education,
April 2013
Author Margarita Melendez discusses the difficulty for teachers in designing writing instruction for students in the digital world, and how the National Writing Project's Digital Is website provides a forum for teachers to share and engage with other educators in the field of digital writing.
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New Literacies in an Age of Participatory Culture
February 2013
Henry Jenkins and Wyn Kelley's Reading in a Participatory Culture documents what happened when Project New Media Literacies brought together a multidisciplinary team of media researchers, designers, and educators to develop and implement new curricular and pedagogical models that bring learning practices often found in sites of informal learning into the English Language Arts classroom. In chapter one, authors Katie Clinton, Henry Jenkins, and Jenna McWilliams outline the development of new literacies in a more participatory culture.
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Always Already: Automated Essay Scoring and Grammar-Checkers in College Writing Courses
Machine Scoring of Student Essays: Truth and Consequences,
August 2012
While the possibilities of automated grading are often dismissed, researcher Carl Whithaus argues for a shift in the way we think about technology as an assessment tool. "If our practices combine software's functions as media and tools," Whithaus says, "then we need to reformulate our conceptions about machines reading and assessing students' writing."
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Connected Educator Month
July 2012
The National Writing Project is a partner in August's Connected Educator Month, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education, focused on connecting educators with online communities and learning networks.
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Summer Sessions in Digital Media and Learning
Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning,
June 2012
A collection of digital learning opportunities are available this summer, including online sessions at the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) and curated resources at the National Writing Project's Digital Is website.
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Digital Directions in Professional Development
Language Arts,
June 2012
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Cindy O'Donnell-Allen
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, NWP Director of National Programs and Site Development for the National Writing Project, and Cindy O'Donnell-Allen, Colorado State University Writing Project Director, discuss advances in digital learning and "share their thoughts about how teachers can cultivate technological knowledge and practices as they design classrooms for digital learners."
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Bridging the Disconnect: A Layered Approach to Jump-Starting Engagement
Voices from the Middle,
June 2012
Nanci Werner-Burke, director of the Endless Mountain Writing Project (Pennsylvania), along with co-authors and teacher-consultants Jane Spohn, Jessica Spencer, Bobbi Button, and Missie Morral, discuss how teachers can truly engage students in the classroom to "jump-start" learning, which include experimenting with various digital tools and alternate texts.
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Teachers Teaching Teachers Achieves 300th Broadcast Milestone
May 2012
Paul Oh
Paul Allison of the New York City Writing Project has been hosting a version of the weekly web radio program Teachers Teaching Teachers (TTT) since 2006. May 30, 2012, marks the 300th episode of TTT, a remarkable achievement in the educational technology landscape.
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Rethinking Policies Concerning Mobile Technologies and Social Media
T.H.E. Journal,
April 2012
The policy report "Making Progress: Rethinking State and School District Policies Concerning Mobile Technologies and Social Media," was released by a dozen education associations and advocacy groups. The report illuminates the issues that need to be considered in order to help bring policy in line with the needs of education and realities of technological world in which students live.
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Learning to Write (Again) on Twitter
March 2012
Keri Franklin
Ozarks Writing Project Director Keri Franklin describes how learning a new genre—whatever the form—can remind us of what it means to learn to write. Through Twitter, Franklin is reintroduced to writing lessons, such as reading within the genre and writing to a specific audience.
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Using Wikis at the Primary Level
March 2012
Jason Shiroff
Jason Shiroff, teacher-consultant and technology liaison of the Denver Writing Project, explores the use of wikis with elementary school students. In his VoiceThread, Shiroff shares his students' wiki writing experiences in their own voices and his best practices for integrating technology tools in the classroom.
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Digital Learning Day Mobilizes Teachers Nationwide
February 2012
The first-ever Digital Learning Day included an outpouring of activity from Writing Project sites and teachers, joining educators from across the country.
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Digital Learning Day: Celebrating Innovative Teaching Strategies
February 2012
The National Writing Project, a core partner with the Alliance for Excellent Education, celebrated Digital Learning Day on February 1 with 39 states and roughly 2 million students. Teachers and students showcased work and engaged in conversations surrounding technology-rich teaching practices and personalized, engaged learning.
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Grant Puts iPads in Hands of English Language Learners
January 2012
North Dallas High School is undergoing a $6 million grant-funded restructuring. At the heart of the work is North Star of Texas Writing Project teacher Janelle Quintans Bence, whose English learners will be using iPads to support their literacy development.
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NWP Teachers Bring #whyiwrite into Classrooms
November 2011
Tiffany Chiao
NWP teachers and their students came together to ponder the force that drives them to pen their thoughts and create stories, essays, articles, scripts—and tweets. They joined a national conversation by tweeting their reflections to #whyiwrite.
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Spotlight on Common Sense Media
November 2011
Tiffany Chiao
Common Sense Media helps kids navigate the Internet safely and interact with their peers in a responsible, respectable manner—and provides resources for parents and curriculum for teachers to serve those ends.
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Using Twitter in Classrooms and for Professional Development
November 2011
Every day, more and more people are using well-known social media sites. How can these popular resources be used for good in the classroom? National Writing Project teachers share how they've used Twitter in their classrooms as a means of teaching writing.
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People Across the Nation Tweet #whyiwrite on the National Day on Writing
November 2011
To celebrate the National Day on Writing on October 20, the NWP joined The New York Times Learning Network, Figment, and Edutopia to collect essays from people of all walks of life about why writing is important to them. People also tweeted #whyiwrite—and 23,000 #whyiwrite tweets made it a trending topic nationally.
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Why I Write
October 2011
To celebrate the National Day on Writing, the National Writing Project aired a live radio show to celebrate the National Day on Writing with interviews with New York Times education reporter Fernanda Santos, New York Times Learning Network editor Katherine Schulten, Figment founder and New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear, Figment teen writers, and NWP teacher and author Ashley Hope Pérez.
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San Antonio Writing Project Delves into Digital Writing
UTSA Today,
September 2011
The San Antonio Writing Project hosted a seminar "Digital Writing: Byte Write Into It" as part of its professional development series. The seminar provided educators ways to teach writing using technology.
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Figment Provides Space for Students to Share Writing
September 2011
Katie Robbins, director of educational programming at Figment, an online community where young adults and teens come together to create, discover, and share their own writing and discuss their favorite works, discusses how Figment can be used in the classroom.
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Book Review: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World
September 2011
Amy Gonzalez
Game designer and Director of Game Research at the Institute For The Future, Jane McGonigal, argues that games can change the world for the better. Using theories from positive psychology, cognitive science, sociology, and philosophy, McGonigal connects how game playing can make us happier and more productive.
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NWP Radio—Exploring "Systems Thinking" With Grinding New Lenses
August 2011
This summer, eight teachers from three writing project sites spent a month in Chicago exploring the power of systems-thinking to support students in the way they learn, make, and write. This project, called "Grinding New Lenses," involved teachers in their own learning and thinking about systems, followed by an opportunity to lead a summer camp with youth from the surrounding area.
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NWP Radio: Copyright and Fair Use in Digital Media and Composition
June 2011
Renee Hobbs, author of Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning, discusses the critical issues of copyright and fair use in digital media and composition, while considering together how these support youth voice and learning inside and outside the classroom.
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NWP Teacher Named the 2011 Kansas Teacher of the Year
June 2011
Curtis Chandler, a teacher-consultant with the Flint Hills Writing Project, was named the 2011 Kansas Teacher of the Year for his creative use of technology in his eighth grade classroom.
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Book Review: Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning
May 2011
Renee Hobbs of Temple University's Media Education Lab identifies copyright issues that will help students use sources in transformative, creative, and legal ways.
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NWP Teachers Relaunch Writing with Digital Tools
Education Week,
April 2011
Drawing on the experience of Writing Project teachers, an Education Week article makes a case for digital writing that promotes collaboration, enhances students' voice, and supports skill building.
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Blogging as a Way of Learning in Minnesota
St. Paul Pioneer Press,
March 2011
Teachers across Minnesota, including those at the Minnesota Writing Project, are embracing blogs and other online forums for self-expression to help students grasp the power of words.
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Digital Media, Children's Learning, and Schools
EdTech Insight,
March 2011
How are digital media changing the way young people learn? Top experts, including NWP's Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, examined possibilities for student engagement and assessment at a conference hosted by Columbia University's Teachers College and the Hechinger Institute, Digital Media, Children's Learning, and Schools.
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Tech Tools Used to Boost Literacy
February 2011
Jeffrey Wilhelm, director of the Boise State University Writing Project, and other teachers discuss how technology—such as webcams, audio recorders, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools—can boost literacy in students.
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Is Internet Access a Basic Human Right?
February 2011
Nathalie Bernasconi, a technology liaison with the Central California Writing Project, argues in Learning & Leading with Technology that Internet access is an essential right because of the role it plays in a person's freedom of expression, democratic participation, and economic livelihood.
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Writing Project Teachers Give Advice, Ideas on Edutopia Blog
January 2011
Paul Oh
A trio of Writing Project teachers gain wide audiences with posts to their Edutopia blogs, part of the George Lucas Educational Foundation's influential and resource-rich Edutopia website.
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Writing Project Teachers Earn Awards for Digital Writing and Advocacy
January 2011
The list of 2010 Edublog Award nominees included many Writing Project teachers, whose influence and teacher leadership online continues to grow.
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Tech Tools for Teachers, by Teachers: Video Game Design in the Classroom
Wisconsin English Journal,
2011
Author and teacher Greg Kehring shares his experience of using video game design as a way of teaching the writing process to his middle school students.
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Looking for Sources of Coherence in a Fragmented World: Notes Toward a New Assessment Design
December 2010
Kathleen Blake Yancey
Kathleen Blake Yancey examines the similarities and differences between assessing coherence in print and in digital text and proposes a heuristic key to multiple patterns that both composers and readers can use to create coherence.
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Writing Project Teacher Blogs for The New York Times
December 2010
Amanda Christy Brown, a teacher-consultant with the Boston Writing Project, takes daily news articles and transforms them into lesson plans that she blogs about for the New York Times' blog The Learning Network.
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Definition of Writing Shifting, Maine Teacher Says
Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning,
November 2010
Students of Dave Boardman, Maine Writing Project teacher-consultant, are using video, music, and various multimedia to reimagine the very meaning of reading and writing.
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NWP Website Explores Digital Writing
November 2010
NWP's Digital Is website is a collection of ideas, reflections, and stories about what it means to teach writing in our digital, interconnected world.
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Teaching Writing in the Digital Age
November 2010
Joel Malley of the Western New York Writing Project created this video to document his writing instruction in a digital classroom.
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The Authors of Because Digital Writing Matters Discuss the Digital Directions of Writing
October 2010
The authors of NWP's Because Digital Writing Matters look at what educators, parents, and policymakers can do to help equip students with the technology-related communication skills they need to thrive in school and in the global workplace.
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The Myth of the “Digital Native”: Why Generational Stereotyping Won't Improve Student Learning
October 2010
Fred Mindlin
Fred Mindlin of the Central California Writing Project challenges the idea that those who grow up with the Internet are "internet experts at birth." He says educators' responsibility is to teach students to reflect on the implications of their digital worlds.
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Julie Johnson: The Evolution of a Model Writing Teacher in a Model Writing School
October 2010
Art Peterson
After entering the Columbus Area Writing Project summer institute unsure of her skills as a writing teacher, Julie Johnson achieves an NCTE Award, founds a Model Writing School, and creates a blog used by other writing teachers.
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NWP Teachers Headline Capitol Hill Event on Digital Writing
September 2010
A Congressional briefing on digital writing featured a panel of Writing Project teachers who explained how they use technology and digital writing to improve learning.
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Katie McKay: Changing the World Starts with Just a Few Words
August 2010
Art Peterson
Katie McKay, a teacher-consultant with the Heart of Texas Writing Project, exemplifies teacher leadership in action: an inquiring mind, a focus on creative classroom strategies, and the desire and skill to work with other teachers and her community.
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Born Digital, But Then What?
August 2010
Craig Watkins, a professor at the University of Texas, says that what is really revolutionary about the technology revolution is how young people are using it to tell their stories and share their lives.
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Tweeting in the Summer Institute and Beyond
July 2010
Grant Faulkner
Teachers in summer institutes across the nation connected via Twitter this summer—discovering a social platform to share viewpoints, resources, and connections—as they built "personal learning networks" that continue on.
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Writing Project Leader’s Blog Among “101 Best Websites for Writers”
July 2010
Art Peterson
Monda Fason, co-director of the Great Bear Writing Project, discusses the elements that have made her blog, devoted to writing prompts, a go-to site for writers and teachers of writing.
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Honorable Technology
Inside Higher Ed,
June 2010
Sylvia Tomasch, Joseph Ugoretz
In this article from Inside Higher Ed, the authors discuss how they work with students from the moment they are handed their laptops to train them and to challenge them to understand the responsibility that comes with publishing online.
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Teachers Are the Center of Education: Writing, Learning and Leading in the Digital Age
May 2010
Teachers Are the Center of Education is part of a series of reports highlighting the importance of teachers and the quality of their work. This report features eight Writing Project teachers by spotlighting their innovative use of digital tools for writing and learning.
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Teachers Use Photo Prompts to Spark Writing
April 2010
Gavin Tachibana
Writing Project teachers are exploring new and exciting ways of using photographs as writing prompts to generate thoughtful pieces of work from writers of all ages.
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Michigan Network Learns Together About 21st Century Literacies
April 2010
Laura Roop
Responding to the wishes of many participants at two National Writing Projects of Michigan network meetings, the Red Cedar Writing Project designed a four-day, three-strand capacity-building workshop and invited every NWP site in the state to send a team.
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Writing Project Teachers as Writers and Bloggers
March 2010
Grant Faulkner
Writing Project teachers around the nation are increasingly blogging about their classrooms, their pedagogy, education reform, and other topics as they use blogs as a tool for inquiry and reflection—and as a way to converse with a community of educators.
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Moving Toward the Paperless Institute
March 2010
Eric Hasty, Bob Fecho
Two teachers from Georgia's Red Clay Writing Project document a journey from a summer institute that relied on paper-based communication to one that employs blogs, wikis, online discussion groups, and other technology.
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MacArthur Grant Will Expand National Writing Project’s Digital Media Program
February 2010
The National Writing Project (NWP) announced today that it will receive an $800,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to expand the "Digital Is" program, NWP's nationwide initiative to create and disseminate new classroom practices that use digital media to teach young people how to write.
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Book Review: The Digital Writing Workshop
February 2010
Ken Martin
Ken Martin, technology liaison with the Maine Writing Project, says this book's emphasis on connecting writing workshops to technology tools will alleviate the fear or preoccupation with which many teachers approach new media.
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Book Review: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media
January 2010
Thomas Maerke
Thomas Maerke, a teacher-consultant with the Ozarks Writing Project, recommends this book as a way of developing awareness of the ways new media affects students and their learning.
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When Teachers Read: How the Writing Project Made Me a Lifelong Learner
January 2010
Liz Harrington
Liz Harrington, a fellow of the UC Irvine Writing Project, describes how she brought Nicenet into her classroom, providing students with a tool to engage in a "threaded discussion."
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Learning About Collaborative Writing with Wikipedia
January 2010
Lona Jack-Vilmar, teacher-consultant with the New York City Writing Project, experimented with Wikipedia as part of an inservice workshop, and multiple authors, unknown to her, contributed to her piece almost instantly.
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Teachers Teaching Teachers Focuses on Technology and Teaching Writing
2010
Through a weekly interactive webcast, New York City Writing Project teachers bring together teachers from across the country and the globe to discuss issues of classroom practice with new digital technology and to think through shared curriculum projects.
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Foreword to DIY Media in the Classroom
May 2010
Shannon Decker
This book shows teachers how to bring students' do-it-yourself media practices into the classroom (grades 6–12). In one accessible resource, the authors explain DIY media, identify their appealing features for content area instruction, and describe the literacy skills and strategies they promote.
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Teaching Now: Digital Writing Books
December 2009
In these recent and upcoming books, Writing Project teacher-consultants and leaders share their knowledge, experience, and expertise in the constantly evolving field of digital writing.
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Group Conversations Around Images, Documents, and Videos
December 2009
Jason Shiroff
Denver Writing Project technology liaison Jason Shiroff discusses the deliberate inquiry process he uses with his students when introducing new technology tools—in this case, a wiki—in his classroom. Listen, watch, and even comment on this VoiceThread presentation.
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What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media
December 2009
Educators, parents, researchers, students, and community members came together in a public forum, The Power of Youth Voice, in Philadelphia, to discuss the potential of learning through engagement with digital media.
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The New Writing Pedagogy
District Administration,
November 2009
Thanks to Web-based social networking tools, the next revision of writing pedagogy—one that emphasizes digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences, and linked conversations among passionate readers—may be upon us. Three NWP teacher-leaders are quoted.
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Excerpts from Teaching the New Writing
November 2009
Read excerpts from this innovative guide, in which teachers share their stories, successful practices, and vivid examples of their students' creative and expository writing from online and multimedia projects such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, electronic poetry, and more.
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The Literary Map of Santo Domingo: Mapping Cultural Change
October 2009
Meg Petersen
With the aid of a Google map, the author leads her Dominican students to write about urban places often dismissed by Dominican writers as being too close to home to be interesting. In the process, they learn how to be writers.
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VoiceThread Ties Together Student Voices, Images, and Writing
October 2009
Shullamuth Smith
Writing Project teachers discuss ways in which they've used the website VoiceThread with their students to create online, multimodal presentations that allow for a range of feedback.
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Wikis Foster Scaffolded Collaboration in an English Language Arts Classroom
September 2009
Sarah Hunt-Barron
Sarah Hunt-Barron, a South Carolina teacher-consultant, documents the use of wikis to foster collaborative, project-based learning in her classroom. She describes her rationale for introducing wikis to her students and relates some lessons she learned from their use.
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New Digital Media in the Lives of Our Children at Home and School
September 2009
To highlight the role of digital media in improving lifelong learning, the National Writing Project, the Consortium for School Networking, and Common Sense Media presented at a congressional briefing held in conjunction with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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DC Area Teacher-Consultant Blogs for Family Literacy
September 2009
Art Peterson
A Washington, DC area teacher-consultant establishes a newspaper-supported blog that promotes both family literacy and the writing project.
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A Digital Show to Help Digital Writing: Teachers Teaching Teachers
July 2009
Gavin Tachibana
Hosted by the New York City Writing Project, a weekly webcast called Teachers Teaching Teachers supports rich conversation about teaching and learning in 21st century classrooms.
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Multimedia Composition: A Question of Balance
July 2009
Northern California Writing Project Director Peter Kittle taught himself multimedia composition by creating this video alongside his students. He documents how he learned to be a mountain unicyclist—and relates those processes to literacy learning.
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NCTE Promotes 21st Century Writing
May 2009
Literacy education and literacy practices are in the midst of a profound change. A new series of reports from NCTE calls for support for 21st century writing and writers both in and out of school.
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Spatial, Visual Rhetoric Meet New Media
UANews,
May 2009
The First Year Writing Showcase, which incorporates teachings in writing and visual communication, began at the University of Arizona in 2007 and has since seen exponential growth in participation among UA students, faculty, and instructors.
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Keeping the Promise of the 21st Century: Bringing Classroom Teaching into the Digital Age
April 2009
Over the four years of the Technology Initiative, NWP accelerated growth in its cadre of teacher-consultants, created new classroom-tested practices, produced programs on using technology for teaching, and helped engage students in active learning of subject matter that is tied to meaningful learning goals, reports Inverness Research in this policy brief.
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NCTE's 'Writing in the 21st Century' Calls for New Composing Agenda
April 2009
With new modes of composing comes a new responsibility to develop models of teaching and learning that respond to these 21st century literacies, argues this latest NCTE report, which is part of a series of reports from NCTE calling for support for 21st century writing instruction.
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The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
April 2009
This code, developed especially for the educational community, supports educators in making thoughtful decisions about interpreting the copyright doctrine of fair use to support media literacy education.
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Digital Toolbox: Group-Based Social Networks
April 2009
Group-based social networks like Ning are online platforms that allow teachers and writing project site leaders to create their own social networking spaces that can be focused on particular content.
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English Teachers Find an Online Friend: the English Companion Ning
March 2009
Grant Faulkner
The English Companion Ning brings English teachers a professional community that they sometimes lack in their schools. Teachers discuss books, lesson plans, and a panoply of classroom topics via discussion forums, blog posts, and multimedia.
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Such Stuff as Writing Dreams Are Made Of: Technology in the Writing Retreat
March 2009
Michelle Rogge Gannon
Technology can change the nature of a writing retreat, whether through the way pieces are composed, how they're shared, or how they're responded to. It can also be the subject of the writing itself. Here are some tips that came out of NWP's Writing and Technology: A Professional Writing Retreat.
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Podcasts Contribute to “Whole New Kind of Teaching and Learning” at the Nebraska Writing Project
February 2009
Joe Bellino
In a program funded by a Technology Liaisons Network minigrant, Nebraska Writing Project teacher-consultants first learned about podcasting, then had their students create podcasts in their classrooms.
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Book Review: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms
February 2009
Red Clay Writing Project’s Technology Team
A site's technology team delves into Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, and find themselves warming up to and exploring the possibilities of Web 2.0 tools to support writing and learning in the classroom and beyond.
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Digital Toolbox: Blogs
January 2009
Weblogs, or blogs, are online publishing platforms that support individuals in posting text and multimedia on the Web. This article explains how to start a blog for use in the classroom.
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Digital Toolbox: RSS
January 2009
RSS allows readers of blogs, wikis, and other online forums to subscribe to "feeds" in order to receive notifications of new or updated content in their RSS reader.
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Digital Comics Spur Students' Interest in Writing
January 2009
Grant Faulkner
Fourth grade teacher Glen Bledsoe has his students create comic strips together, which engages their creativity and teaches them writing, critical thinking, and other skills.
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Rural Voices Radio Spawns New Series: Calling America
January 2009
Art Peterson
A new audio series by the team that produced Rural Voices Radio features short segments of writing by authors, young and old, from across the nation.
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Blogging in Place: Writing That Explores New Neighborhoods
Edutopia,
January 2009
Teachers with the National Writing Project are combining place-based learning, project learning, and blogging to connect classrooms, provide an authentic audience for student writing, and prompt students to explore the world outside the schoolhouse doors.
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Digital Toolboxes
April 2009
The resource primers in this collection provide a great introduction to some online technologies being used by teachers in their day-to-day practice.
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Thinking Strategically About Your Site’s Web Presence
April 2009
In considering how to design a Web presence for your site, you'll find here a variety of resources, including case studies that outline the process undertaken by a number of writing project sites. The case studies include a multimedia presentation from the Western Massachusetts Writing Project.
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Literacy, ELL, and Digital Storytelling: 21st Century Learning in Action
January 2009
Produced by the Pearson Foundation, this short video documents a semester-long digital writing project led by two Bay Area Writing Project teacher-consultants. The video follows students through the creation of digital stories about their family members' immigration experiences.
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Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe
January 2009
W. Scott Smoot, Darren Crovitz
Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project teacher-consultants Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot teach students to approach Wikipedia not as a source of truth but as a springboard for inquiry. In this article, they describe Wikipedia-based lessons that develop this approach.
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Digital Storytelling for Language and Culture Learning
Essential Teacher,
March 2009
Judith Rance-Roney
Rance-Roney, a teacher with the Hudson Valley Writing Project, explains digital storytelling, discusses its strengths in promoting literacy, and, by documenting her own multilingual classroom work, suggests a path for getting started with this technology.
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“Twitterdee, Twitterdumb”: Teaching in the Time of Technology, Tweets, and Trespassing
California English,
September 2009
Shelbie Witte
Through "many trials and even more errors," Shelbie Witte, director of research for the Florida State University Writing Project, has found ways to help students make connections between their classroom writing and recreational writing off campus.
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Book Review: Classroom Blogging
RCWP Tech Advanced Institute 2008 Wiki,
December 2008
Red Clay Writing Project’s Technology Team
A site’s technology team delves into David Warlick’s Classroom Blogging, trying out its ideas and visiting the author’s own blog, and concludes that the book offers useful information and insights and aligns with writing project philosophy.
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NCTE’s Writing Now Explores Teaching Writing in the 21st Century
December 2008
Technological advances, changing workplace demands, and cultural shifts have made writing more important than ever, so teachers need to help students meet the challenges of writing effectively for many purposes, according to Writing Now, a policy research brief by NCTE.
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Digital Toolbox: Wikis
December 2008
A wiki is a powerful online collaborative tool for composing and editing text, as well as an easy-to-use platform for developing a Web presence.
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Oregon Teacher’s Songwriting Program Stirs Student Interest in Words
December 2008
Gavin Tachibana
The Deep Roots program turns students into songwriters: professional musicians set the students’ lyrics to music and then record the songs—and in the process, students stay academically interested and engaged. The founder of the program is now taking it to other teachers.
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Teens, Video Games, and Civics
December 2008
Teens’ gaming experiences are diverse and include significant social interaction and civic engagement, according to a study from the Pew Internet and American Life. The study offers teachers of writing an opportunity to explore the possibilities of these games for education.
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Missouri Teachers Create “TechKnowFiles”—Best Practices in Using Technology to Teach Writing
December 2008
Teacher-consultants with the Prairie Lands Writing Project have created “TechKnowFiles,” online units of study related to new technologies and the teaching of writing. The project deepened site capacity and demonstrated how the site has integrated technology into its professional development offerings.
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My New Teaching Partner? Using the Grammar Checker in Writing Instruction
English Journal,
November 2008
Dorothy Fuller, Reva Potter
Reva Potter, a teacher-consultant with the Dakota Writing Project, and colleague Dorothy Fuller report on an action research project which concludes that Grammar Check instruction combined with direct instruction from the teacher can result in significant improvement in student understanding of key grammar concepts.
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Can Technology Make Teens Better Writers?
MSN Encarta,
November 2008
New technologies are broadening the types of writing students can produce and consume. This article quotes former NWP Executive Director Richard Sterling and highlights the digital storytelling work of the University of Maine Writing Project.
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Book Review: Three Books Frame Content Area Literacy in Discussion of 21st Century Literacies
October 2008
Ken Martin
Three books on content area literacy instruction aim to help teachers think about the literacy demands of all content areas while framing their arguments in a larger discussion of 21st century literacies.
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Maine Writes a New Ed-Tech Success Story
eSchoolNews,
June 2008
Maine's decision to provide every student with a laptop has created a number of positive outcomes: equity of access, increased attention to professional development, as well as improved standardized test scores. Sharon Bowman, a teacher-consultant with the Maine Writing Project, is featured in this article.
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Bringing the World to My Doorstep: A Teacher's Blog-Reading Habits
May 2008
Kevin Hodgson
A technology liaison describes how the world of blogs enriches his teaching, supports his tech liaison work, provides opportunities for his students, and keeps him connected both to his NWP network and to a wider network of educators.
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Hudson Valley Conference Focuses on Teaching Writing in a Web 2.0 World
April 2008
Bonnie Kaplan
At a site's technology conference, teachers learn how to use wikis, podcasts, and other technologies to enhance their teaching, allow collaboration among students, and make the educational process more meaningful and effective.
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NWP Teachers’ Writing Featured on Smithsonian Photography Website
January 2008
Works by writing project teachers are featured on the Smithsonian Photography Initiative website click! photography changes everything, a collection of essays and stories discussing how photography shapes our culture and lives.
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Dakota Writing Project Provides a Different Kind of Technology Hotline for Teachers
April 2008
Through a state initiative, teachers in South Dakota found themselves facing classrooms in which every student had a laptop. Dakota Writing Project's hands-on, online E-Marathon gave them some keys to using the laptops creatively to improve students' writing and learning.
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Digital Toolbox: Google Docs
August 2008
Google Docs is a useful digital tool for composing and editing text, as it combines the features of a word processing program with the option of online collaboration, editing, and publishing.
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Digital Toolbox: Social Bookmarking
August 2008
Social bookmarking is a useful digital tool for keeping, marking, annotating, tagging, and sharing lists of favorite websites.
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Maine’s Laptop Initiative Improves Student Writing
February 2008
Anne Miller
The Maine Department of Education is providing a laptop to every middle school student and teacher. And, through programs offered by Maine Writing Project teacher-consultants, teachers learn to use the laptops effectively to improve student writing skills.
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Indiana Teacher-Consultant Creates Popular Website—Web English Teacher
July 2008
Art Peterson
A popular website with a panoply of teaching resources is hosted by Indiana Writing Project teacher-consultant Carla Beard, who credits the writing project with giving her site a new, more effective direction.
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A Technology Toolkit That Is Really an Educational Toolkit
March 2008
Paul Oh
In her column "Technology Toolkit," Minnesota teacher-consultant Sandy Hayes examines the educational possibilities afforded by technology, sharing ways it can allow both teachers and students to view the world with a new perspective.
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Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project
November 2008
This white paper summarizes the results of a three-year ethnographic study, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, examining young people's participation in the new media ecology.
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Technology in the English Language Learner Classroom?
October 2008
Judith Rance-Roney
"English Language Learners as Writers in a Digital Age," an ELL Network-sponsored pre-conference institute held at the annual TESOL conference, engaged teachers of English language learners in filling in the following blank "For English Language Learners, technology can _____."
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Inside the Digital Classroom
2007
David Boardman
In this chapter from Teaching the Neglected R, Dave Boardman, a teacher-consultant with the Maine Writing Project, describes the use of digital technology in his classroom, including cross-country communication with other students, blogs, digital stories, and an online newspaper.
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Space to Imagine Digital Storytelling
2007
Lisa Miller
In this chapter from Teaching the Neglected R, Lisa Miller links the process of digital storytelling to the processes of prewriting research, exploration, and revision, and also explores nuts-and-bolts aspects of story creation.
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Technology in the Classroom: How to Reduce the Glitches
February 2007
Jeff Grinvalds
Grinvalds shares six practices that help technology users deal with the glitches they inevitably experience as they enter the realm of classroom technology.
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Literacy Through Technology: The Power of Digital Storytelling
July 2007
With funding from an NWP Technology Initiative grant, the Maine Writing Project is using digital storytelling as an instructional practice to improve student writing.
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Technology Teams Take Different Paths Toward the Same Goal
July 2007
Technology teams at local sites can serve many purposes, from developing the site's website to bringing technology into its teachers' practices. This article describes how three sites used Technology Matters minigrants to expand their technological capacity.
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Finding a Voice in a Threaded Discussion Group: Talking about Literature Online
English Journal ,
September 2007
Cathie English
English explores the use of threaded online discussions in the literature classroom. The online discussions helped high school students develop their thoughts in greater depth than they could in classroom conversations.
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Heart and Voice: A Digital Storytelling Journey
September 2007
Kerry Ballast
With no knowledge of the genre or the technology, high school teacher Kerry Ballast took the risk of having her students create digital stories from their personal memoirs.
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Digital Storytelling Brings New Dimensions to Reading, Writing, and More
Spring 2007
Can digital storytelling improve reading comprehension, writing skills, and media literacy? An NWP teacher-consultant and technology liaison at Florida Gulf Coast University explores the use of digital storytelling across the grade levels and disciplines with fellow teacher-consultants, students, and colleagues.
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Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education of the 21st Century
2006
Henry Jenkins
Educators today confront an ever-shifting landscape when it comes to Internet technologies and their potential for expanding participatory cultures. Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores new frameworks for literacy through the lens of participatory culture.
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NWP Cyberspace Project Connects Youth Voices
The Voice,
2006
Paul Oh
An online project seeded by a Technology Matters minigrant allows students at three high schools to exchange written and audio compositions along with images; this activity increases their engagement and improves their writing.
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Students Tell Their Stories Digitally
The Voice,
2006
Joel Elliott
Digital storytelling is still very much storytelling. One difference is that when students add a visual component, they are more willing "to write long and . . . write hard."
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Teacher Uses Email to Teach Basics of Written Word
The Voice,
2006
Kristina Torres
A middle school teacher describes how she stepped away from traditional "skill and drill" writing exercises and started teaching students to write clear, concise emails.
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Writing Project Examines Technology in the Classroom
The Voice,
2006
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl
NWP's Technology Initiative and the federal government's E-Rate program allow teachers to reimagine their teaching in a digital environment and to help young people develop as writers on the read-write Web.
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Book Review: Ten Easy Ways to Use Technology in the English Classroom
The Quarterly,
2005
Cheryl Wozniak
Ten Easy Ways to Use Technology in the English Classroom offers techniques for using video, television, movies, and the Internet to present material in a way that engages and makes more sense to contemporary students.
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E-Anthology Growing as an Online Writing and Response Forum
The Voice,
2005
Larry Barton, Peter Booth, Shirley Brown, Cathie English, Frankie Mengeling
The NWP E-Anthology is evolving into the online environment that everyone hoped it could be—a virtual community that assists participants in realizing their own visions for their writing.
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Tech Liaisons Discover a Whole New World—and Themselves—Through Technology Matters
The Voice,
2005
Paul Oh
The coordinator of NWP's technology liaison program describes its origins, its first Technology Matters institute, and some of the exciting projects of its minigrant-funded members.
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Teacher Technology Toolboxes
The Quarterly,
2004
Glen L. Bledsoe
Reacting to what he sees as the increasingly standardized nature of classroom technology and computer instruction, Bledsoe establishes that standardization does not always lead to the betterment of teachers, pupils, or education in general.
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The E-Anthology: A Catalyst for Professional Writing?
The Voice,
2003
Shirley Brown
How can the E-Anthology, established to encourage teachers to write about their summer institute experiences, share classroom practices, and discuss key issues in education, include more professional writing as a platform for discussion?
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NWP E-Anthology: "Strangers" Talk About Writing
The Voice,
March-April 2003
Beverly Simon Guillory, Peter Booth
NWP's annual E-Anthology connects summer institute participants across the country. Booth shares the benefits of responding to writing submitted online, and Guillory recounts how valuable it was to receive feedback from "strangers."
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Traveling with the E-Anthology: Arkansas Poem Finds Its Way to South Dakota Literary Magazine
The Voice,
May-June 2001
Michelle Rogge Gannon
Michelle Rogge Gannon reflects upon the connections that NWP's summer E-Anthology encourages, following the path of one anthology submission from last summer.
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Tackling Technology
The Voice,
November-December 2001
Deana Lew
A busy teacher discovered the benefits of attending an online conference when she participated in last year's Authors and Issues Online Conference with Ralph Fletcher.
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Where Is the Truth In Virtual Reality?
The Quarterly,
winter 2001
Roxanne Barber
A dispute over whether The Quarterly had published an article that inaccurately characterized information on a website sends NWP Communications Director Barber on a quest to evaluate sources, online and in print.
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Why 2K Is OK
The Voice,
January-February 2000
Julia Tucker-Lloyd
Juia Tucker-Lloyd discusses the impact of technology on the classroom.
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Striking It Rich: Finding My Digital Story in Northern California
The Voice,
November-December 2000
Corey Harbaugh
Joining the digital storytelling team for a weeklong summer institute gave Corey Harbaugh a new medium in which to develop and tell a story.
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Talking Through Technology: NYCWP Builds Community Online
The Voice,
November-December 2000
Ed Osterman
Managing the New York City Writing Project's email listserv became the most satisfying and important aspect of Ed Osterman's work as associate director.
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Teachers' Stories Come to Life with Technology
The Voice,
November-December 2000
Six teachers from the Rural Voices, Country Schools network participated in a one-week storytelling workshop in Berkeley, California, producing digital stories of their classroom research.
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Technology Transforms Stories of Teaching
The Voice,
November-December 2000
Sue Willis
Although she had no experience with digital storytelling, Sue Willis discovered a new way to describe of the work of Rural Voices, Country Schools team in Central Washington.
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From a High-Tech to a Low-Tech Writing Classroom: You Can't Go Home Again
The Quarterly,
Summer 2000
Charles Moran
Drawing on his own experience, Moran finds and evaluates significant differences between computer-based and non-computer-based writing classrooms.
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My Laptop Ambivalence: Some Speed Bumps on the High-Tech Road to Writing
The Quarterly,
Summer 2000
Susan Cvengros Mortensen
Mortensen details and evaluates the transition of her seventh grade writing students as they adapt to the use of laptop computers.
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Assessing Computers for Writing: Stepping Back to Move Forward
The Quarterly,
Spring 1999
Stephen Marcus
Marcus considers from numerous angles—and without providing a definite answer—the question "Do word processors improve writing skills?"
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Where's the Beef? Mississippi's Tech-Prep Initiative in Action
The Quarterly,
Summer 1999
John Dorroh
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Book Review: Exchanging Lives: Middle School Writers Online, by Scott Christian
The Quarterly,
Fall 1998
Lacinda Files
Files is impressed by Christian's students, who participate in an online discussion and write with more voice, flavor, and attention to content than one would expect of eighth-graders.
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Teacherless Talk: Impressions from Electronic Literacy Conversations
The Quarterly,
Summer 1998
Karen Murar, Elaine Ware
An online cross-grade conversation about literature encourages students to develop and hone thinking skills such as questioning, clarifying, connecting, interpreting, and evaluating.
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Virtual Reality: Evaluating Online Information
The Quarterly,
Summer 1998
Holly Littlefield
Littlefield teaches her students to evaluate website information using such criteria as authority, accuracy, coverage, currency, and objectivity.
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NWP E-Journal
The Voice,
Winter/Spring 1998
Christina Cantrill, Gary Obermeyer
Cantrill and Obermyer consider the origins, nature, glitches, and strengths of NWP's e-journal.
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Kids Publish On Line at KidPub: www.kidpub.org/kidpub/
The Voice,
Spring/Summer 1997
Peggy Trump Loofbourrow
Loofbourrow recommends websites on which students can publish their writing.
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Book Review: Link/Age: Composing in the Online Classroom, by Joan Turnow
The Quarterly,
Summer 1997
Paul Molinelli
Molinelli finds that Turnow captures the playful possibilities of her students' online conversation, as well as providing ways and reasons to harness new technologies in a response-based writing classroom.
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Surfing the Net: A Writing Workshop for Middle School
The Quarterly,
Summer 1997
Jean Boreen
Boreen makes a case for the need to prepare preservice and beginning teachers to use computers as learning tools in writing classrooms.
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Worth a Thousand Words
The Quarterly,
Winter 1997
Stephen Marcus
Marcus makes a case that photographs and photography can advance the teaching and learning of writing for both students and teachers.
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Picture This!
The Quarterly,
Fall 1996
Stephen Marcus
Marcus writes about the uses of photography both to prompt and to supplement writing.
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Clicking on the Icon: How Technology Helped Amplify Some “Micro-Voices”
The Quarterly,
Summer 1996
Jabari Mahiri
Mahiri writes of his ill-prepared college students who "changed themselves as writers" through a co-created curriculum and the use of computers—inspiring many drafts.
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Video Visits: An Innovation for Learning about Portfolios
The Quarterly,
Spring 1995
Pam Perfumo
Perfumo and her colleague Bob Calfee ask teachers to videotape a discussion around the use of portfolios and mail the tape to them for analysis. They present their findings on portfolio use and evaluate video as a form of research.
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Revisited article: The Wall
The Quarterly,
Winter 1995
Jane Juska
Juska describes the plight of her remedial students and the improvement that using computers brought about and offers a list of her insights to assist other teachers.
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Avoiding Road-Kill on the Information Highway
The Quarterly,
Winter 1994
Stephen Marcus
Marcus discusses such telecommunications phenomena as browsers, hunters, flamers, lurkers, and virtual communities, describes NWP's leadership role in electronic communication, and gives a list of resources.
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Video Resources for the Teaching of Literacy
The Quarterly,
Summer 1993
James E. Lobdell, Sandra R. Schecter
The authors provide an annotated bibliography of videos related to the teaching of reading and writing.
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TR 57. Technological Indeterminacy: The Role of Classroom Writing Practices in Shaping Computer Use
National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report,
1992
Cynthia Greenleaf
This study examines the integration of computers into a remedial high school English class, concluding that the teacher's writing instruction had the greatest impact on student writing and the ways computers entered into writing.
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Computers, Composing, and the Productivity Paradox
The Quarterly,
Fall 1992
Stephen Marcus
Marcus makes a case for a more in-depth examination of the question "Has the use of computers in the classroom improved learning?"
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Voices in College Classrooms: The Dynamics of Electronic Discussion
The Quarterly,
Summer 1992
Gail Hawisher, Cynthia Selfe
The writers report on their study examining the kinds of discourse that characterized electronic communication in their classes and particularly the role of themselves as mediators of this discussion.
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Computers and English: Future Tense...Future Perfect?
The Quarterly,
Fall 1990
Stephen Marcus
In 1990, Marcus made some predictions about what might happen with technology in the classroom during the next 15 years—prophecies that are interesting to examine in hindsight.
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Word Processing and the Writing Process: A Cautionary Tale
The Quarterly,
Summer 1990
Peggy Riley
Riley makes the point that with or without computers, all students are different, there is no single process for writers, and many need "the solid feel of a pencil in their hand."
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Electronic Writing: The Autobiography of a Collaborative Adventure
The Quarterly,
Summer 1989
Jane Zeni
Zeni gives an analytical account of the process through which she and a colleague wrote an article together by communicating electronically. She includes verbatim excerpts from their correspondence.
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Literacy, Technology, and the Underprepared: Notes Toward a Framework for Action
The Quarterly,
July 1988
Glynda Hull
Accompanying this study of a group of underprepared students as they use computers is a plea to narrow the "information gap" and form a "malleable technology," offering it in ways that "direct its liberatory potential."
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Exploring Digital Writing at the Philadelphia Writing Project
The Notebook,
October 2011
Christina Cantrill, a staff member of the National Writing Project and a member of the Philadelphia Writing Project, writes about digital writing and how it is integrated into the curriculum of Philadelphia teachers.
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Why I Write: A Celebration of the National Day on Writing
October 2011
The urge to write can be a mysterious calling. There are so many different ways to understand not only the why of writing, but what one gets out of it. To celebrate the National Day on Writing, the NWP has joined The New York Times Learning Network and Figment to collect the thoughts of people from all walks of life—scientists, reporters, poets, teachers, and students—to discover why they write.
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Teachers Write to Music at NWP's First Music Marathon
December 2010
NWP teacher-consultants from several states came together—in person and online—to write to the same beats in the first-ever multisite music marathon.
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Teachers Must Be Confident with Technology to Effectively Employ It in Their Lessons
College Board Advocacy & Policy Center,
March 2010
Paul Epstein
Epstein argues that teachers who use technology must have a familiarity with the tools of the new media. He suggests that the NWP model of teachers teaching teachers be put to work toward this end.
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Watch Letters to the Next President in the Classroom
November 2008
Students used new Internet tools to publish their opinions about the economy, gas prices, health care, and education on Writing Our Future: Letters to the Next President, an online project sponsored jointly by the NWP and Google.
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Global Classroom Projects Bring Together Children Who Are Worlds Apart
USC Upstate Headline News,
October 2008
The Global Classroom Project, with help from the Spartanburg Writing Project, connects schools in South Carolina, South Africa, and California by having students share their multimedia digital stories and interact via video conferences.
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Zero-Thumb Game: How to Tame Texting
Edutopia,
May 2008
Writing project teachers weigh in on how to harness the popularity of text messaging among teens to generate interest in academic subjects and writing in general.
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Writing, Technology, and Teens
April 2008
Created in partnership with the Pew Internet and American Life Project, this report talks to teens to see what they have to say about technology and the state of writing in their lives. The report looks at teens' basic definition of writing, explores the various kinds of writing they do, seeks their assessment about what impact e-communication has on their writing, and probes for their guidance about how writing instruction might be improved.
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Blogging in the Classroom
WFCR,
February 2006
The Making Connections Project of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project brought teachers together to co-design a writing curriculum using weblog technology. This curriculum was based on the idea of developing a writing community among students from urban and rural districts in Western Massachusetts.
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Digital Storytelling: Using Technology in the Classroom that is Context-embedded, Inquiry-driven, and Socially Negotiated
Fred Mindlin, a teacher-consultant with the Central California Writing Project, writes that Digital Story Telling can build students' self-esteem and ownership of their work and advance their problem solving skills. The work of Peter Kittle of the Northern California Writing Project is described in the article.
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