Why Write?

By Donna DesRoches and JoAnne Kasper

This week the English Language Arts/Early Language and Literacy Consultant and I, the Instructional Technology Consultant, are leading a workshop on the four purposes of writing and how technology can be used to motivate, engage, collaborate and demonstrate understanding in the writing process. Our agenda can be found on the Learning and Technology Wiki.

The workshop will be broken down into the four main purposes of writing: to describe, to tell a story (narrative), to explain and to persuade.  We will then break each section into three acts: theory, technology and application.

The ELA/EL Consultant will provide a brief overview of each purpose for writing, sharing resources and strategies.  I, as the Instructional Technology Consultant, will give a short how-to on some of the technology tools available for teachers.  I plan to demonstrate programs available on our windows machines, online tools and apps for the iOS devices that are gaining popularity in our schools.

Workshop participants will then have an opportunity to experiment and play with any of the tools suggested while the workshop leaders move about the room supporting teachers as they play and learn.

We have built in reflection on learning in two ways; one is with the use of Padlet to encourage reflection throughout the day and the second is to have teachers respond to this blog post letting us know what they have learned and what they will apply within their classroom setting.

Our hope is that teachers will come away with a deeper understanding about the purposes of writing and greater confidence in using technology to meet writing outcomes.

February 27, 2014Permalink Leave a comment

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