Reflecting on Chapter 4

Chapter four discusses how teachers can support writing with technologies. Writing is not just something we need to do in school, it is apart of our everyday lives. Writing through emails or through other technologies such as Facebook is something that is a part of most people's lives. When writing something, especially papers or formal letters, it is a great idea to organize your thoughts to figure out what to say. Concept mapping (p. 62) is one form of organizing ideas. We learn this concept in elementary school and keep refining it all the way through high school. This year in my college science course, we learned about an online tool that can be used for concept mapping. Cmap is a tool that is free for users and can be downloaded onto any computer. Students and teachers can use this to organize and plan out ideas and explore ideas about different topics. As students use this tool, they could start off by working together to explore broad topics and then continue to narrow them down. It will also help them to synthesize sources of information and find the important things they need.

Supporting creative and collaborative writing can also be accomplished through technologies. Students of all ages like to see their work displayed or published in some form or fashion. Publishing students work on the internet is a great way to get them motivated and excited to write. The book describes a few sites where students can publish their work and I am sure there are many other sites out there. This How-To talks a little more about publishing students' work and this is a site where you can: Student Online Publishing. So far, I have learned that collaboration is key in the elementary classroom. Therefore, we should also have students write collaboratively to learn from each other and see how different people write. Roles could be assigned to students such as editor, reporter or leader and these roles could change when different assignments are given (p. 73).

We all know that writing is something we do daily, but using these technological tools can be useful and will help engage students in the writing process. Students can organize their ideas, create several drafts of a piece, publish their work, and work together through technology.