Blog Entry # 6: Digital Writing Tools

        It was a great week learning about all of the different digital tools I can use with my students to help them grow as writers.  There were a few digital tools that really stood out to me that would be great to include in my secondary history classroom.  

        Mindomo is wonderful digital organizer I used to create my graphic organizer last week.  I think it would be an amazing tool for students to use to organize their writing in my history classes.  There are a variety of pre-made templates for students to use that include:  research essays, biographies, and compare/contrast pieces.  There are also a lot of ELA templates on the site as well.  The cool thing about this tool is that, once a template is chosen, it gives students guidance about what information should be included in the portions of the organizer.    One reason that I think this would be engaging for students is the ease that they can organize and re-organize their research at the click of a button.  The issue with the app is the cost.  Students can create one free plan – but must delete the one plan to create a new one.  This could detract from engagement if students had to keep doing this.  

 

        Write About This is a great app to get my students writing!  I think that I would use this app for the iPad as a classroom tool – so the $3.99 cost is not prohibitive.  Write About This has a variety of images associated with different writing prompts.  This app could be fun to use with students as a group to get them to do more writing in my class.  Another similar app required students to write their response in a set amount of time.   I think I would do this with the Write About This app – just to keep it exciting.  The coolest thing about the app is that I can import my own pictures and generate my own prompts within the app.  There were other writing prompt apps that I looked at, but this one seemed to provide the most flexibility for my classroom.  

 

        Book Creator was an amazing app to publish student written work.  To me, it seemed like the possibilities were endless with this app.  Students can use templates to create a variety of different publications.  One of the coolest features was that it can be a collaborative book.  I thought it would be cool to create a class textbook for a certain topic in history that we were studying.  Students could complete their own inquiry about the unit.  Then, they can collaborate by adding their completed research pieces to the group textbook.  I could then post the textbook online to a class website.  I think students would be more engaged in the assignment if they knew it was going to be published and posted.   

 

        I also really liked looking at the different real-world writing opportunities for my students.  I think it is important for students to have an authentic audience when they write.  One option for me as a secondary history teacher was The Concord Review.  The Concord Review is a quarterly journal that publishes history research papers submitted by high school students.  It is considered a high honor to have your essay published.  I think many of my students would be motivated by the fact that college professors would be reviewing their work.  The New York Times also has some great writing opportunities for students as well.  I do wonder if the “contest” element would be off-putting for some students.  It would be interesting to try some of these to see how students react.  

    Overall, I really enjoyed examining all of the digital tools to help my students become great writers.  For me, I think it would be best to choose a few to work with.  This way, I can become familiar with all of the components of the platforms so that I can better facilitate my students' learning.