Digital Writing Workshop

As writing has changed with computer -mediated, networked environments. so too have our conceptions
about what it means to be literate. Troy HIcks website

Background

• In this hands-on session, participants will focus on how students can use digital tools during the writing process. You will learn how you can digitize the writing workshop with sage, free, easy-to-use Web 2.0 technologies and software.
• Without digital writing and networked spaces, certain types of dialogue would have lacked the immediacy that an authentic purpose and audience can bring to the task 
• There is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course or every view of teaching. Quality teaching requires developing a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between technology, content and pedagogy and using this understanding to develop appropriate, context-specific strategies and representations (Punya Mishra and Matt Koehler) 
  

This graphic features some scientific facts about the impact of the act of writing on our brain.  

What would a "new literacies classroom" look like?

• features assignments in multiple forms of representation
• students have opportunities to read and write in diverse mediums
• think-alouds by the teacher who models working through problems using certain medias such as video production, Web design, and print writing
• a mix of individual and collaborative activities

Core principles for writing workshop approach include:

• student choice about topic and genre
• active revision (constant feedback between peer and teacher)
• author's craft as a basis for instruction (through minilessons and conferences)
• publication beyond classroom walls
• broad visions of assessment that include both process and product

MAPS

MAPS = Mode, Audience, Purpose and Situation...add a second M for media.

• Mode refers to the genre of the text, an essay, for instance.
• Media refers to the way in which the text is presented.
• Audience refers to the characteristics of those who are most likely to receive your work and what they value in good writing; the difference in expectations between writing an email to a friend as compared with your supervisor, for instance.
• Purpose refers to the specific action that a writer aims to accomplish with a piece
• Situation for the Writer: as writers, we each have particular strengths and weaknesses in terms of our work habits; this ranges from the genres we prefer to write in, to the type of environment we create for writing, to the technologies that we are comfortable composing with.
• Situation of the writing: Particular writing tasks make demands of us...deadlines, genre expectations, the implementation of new media such as audio or video and those with whom we are collaborating can all influence how well we work.

Videos