I am presenting ways to use technology to enhance writing and I would love to share some of the ways that you incorporate technology into your writing. For example: I have my students take their Pourquoi Tales (origin tales such as how the skunk got its stripe) and they create PPT books with pictures and buttons to advance the "pages", etc.

They can even record their voices and create a talking picture book. Another way I use technology to write includes Inspirations software and using clay animation to interpret poetry.

How do you and your students use technology when it comes to writing? As always, I highly value your input and ideas!

Response:  My students did three large web building projects during the course of the year. The first project was a poetry annotation project on a poem of their choice written by a Native American. The second was a biography web on a famous American, and the third was website dealing with African American culture or history.

You can see samples of these at http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html. They also composed stories, etc., at the keyboard, did power point presentations, magnetic poetry, etc.

We have used online guides such as www.paragraphpunch.com. The kids LOVE to use any form of technology.

June 2003

I'm curious how any of you might integrate technology into your Language Arts/Reading/English classes. I am currently taking a graduate class involves technology in education. With the exception of using Word and PowerPoint with my kids, I'm struggling to find was to integrate technology well. Thanks.

Response:  Have you investigated WebQuests? They are a wonderful way to integrate Web resources, reading, writing, and any other language arts skills you are working with.

Check out these sites:
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/ (The WebQuest Home Page)
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/matrix.html (Sample WebQuests)

Here are some I have written:
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/mysteries/ (Unsolved Mysteries— introduction to research writing)
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/jp/webquest.html (Jurassic Park—information literacy)
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/pocahontas/ (Pocahontas & John Smith—history vs. Disney)
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/calliope/ (Calliope, not really a WebQuest but integrates technology into vocabulary instruction)
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/myth/ (Intro to myth, not really a WebQuest but uses the Internet as a source of information)

Have fun!

Response:  I integrated technology in a number of ways. First, I had students create websites, choosing a topic to inquire about within the broad themes these projects were situated in—Native American history and culture, America biography, and African American history and culture.

During my last year in the classroom, I also had students posting regularly to an e-mail discussion list. This was wonderful, by the way. Some of my students had computers at home and could post from there, but many of them posted from a school computer. They did so either when my class was in the computer lab—during the last 10 minutes of class. Or, if we weren't in the lab and a student had finished what we were doing on a particular day, he or she could use the computer in my classroom that was networked and connected to the internet.

Students actually stayed after school willingly to work on their web projects or to post to the class listserv. Some even came up to the lab during lunch to work. 

Response:  Check out my website www.englishink.net. I have online integrations that I use with my classroom such as discussion boards, online portfolios, and the online textbook. I also use an elmo unit extensively. An elmo is a digital projection unit. I can place books and papers under the digital camera component to model writing etc.; I can hook up my laptop to make PowerPoint presentations, model writing, surf the web etc. on the computer; I can hook up my vcr or dvd player and play video clips for viewing and representing. With a set of computer speakers I can turn my white board into a classroom theater. The digital camera is always there for pictures and projects that the kids use. The digital video camera is there to capture presentations or create movies. Every project has a low tech/ high tech option.

Response:  A million ways from simple hypertext to cyber classes. Go to my website at http://ps044.k12.sd.us and you will see tech integrated in almost all of my lessons. Email me a lesson and I can show you how to integrate technology into it. E-mail Ted Nellen or Nancy Patterson or Dawn Hogue or any of the other gurus of technology in language arts. Check the archives which are full of technology rich lessons for the last five years. checkout readwritethink.org for many of our lessons using hypertext and other computer based technology.

April 2003

I am looking for samples for anyone out there who has integrated technology into their curriculum. Perhaps a PowerPoint presentation, class webpage, WebQuest, etc. I will now be making the switch and mostly be working with middle and high schools, but would appreciate any samples from the elementary level, as well. I would like to use these samples in a workshop I will be facilitating in July to give teachers an idea of what other educators are doing to incorporate technology into their teaching. Thanks for considering.

Response:  Wish I was that sophisticated. I made a PowerPoint presentation to use for explaining special education stuff at staff meetings, but I had to do it with overheads because we didn't have the proper equipment to show it to a large group. My daughter made a PowerPoint presentation on Michaelangelo, but we couldn't get it loaded to a CD, so we had to print that out. The teacher lost all twenty pages of it.

Response:  I made a PowerPoint presentation with my class (billingual 1-2) as we studied spiders this spring. I added a page or two every day starting with the KWL chart info and kept all the information we collected. It was really fun. I have it on my MAC computer at school. I don't know how it would email. I've had trouble with PP files before. But if I can figure a way to get it to you, I'm more than willing. It was a really good strategy for my ELL students especially.

Response:  My class does lots of word processing, typing and illustrating their stories. They also did three PowerPoint presentations last year, one about themselves, one on insects and one on dinosaurs. I was told yesterday that they already updated our hard drives at school, erasing everything. I'm going to go check tomorrow. If there is something still there I'll send it.

Response:  Very interesting. Coincidentally, I'm going to be working two days each week on Resource/Technology in my elementary school. Part of my job will be to teach teachers and students how to use some of the programs such as Earobics and Write Out Loud and other educational programs that might be of use to them. I'm the computer 'geek' on our staff, and I prepare the grade six 'slide show' each year—a PowerPoint presentation that incorporates pictures taken throughout the year. We show it at graduation to the grade six students and their parents. It's a lot of fun to make. Next year I want to work with a group of students on creating a school newspaper using desk top publishing programs like PrintMaster or even Word. The grade four teachers would like me to teach their students to create PowerPoint presentations as projects. It'll be a busy year, I think. [The other three days of the week I'll be teaching my Grade One class.] 

Response:  I have a Power Point presentation my third graders did two years ago and one I did to introduce me to them. I'll send those. I also have this really cool digital microscope which we used when we studied insects and watched our mealworm larvae turn into beetles. I didn't save any of the digital pictures, but I do have printouts of them I could send you via snail mail! 

Response:  I too learned by playing and making slides. I use PowerPoint for bulletin board signs and other signs in my classroom. I also like the ability to cut and paste from other clip art programs various pieces of artwork. I also cringe at the idea of drill and skill to learn this stuff. I was always a MAC person until I met my husband and now I am a PC person. I converted when windows began looking more Mac-like several years ago and I found that most software packages worked the same. 

July 2002