English at the Crossroads
I recently read English at the Crossroads, OFSTED’s latest publication about English. There are some interesting statements about the use of ICT in English with the main thrust being that the most effective schools are the ones that recognised ICT had fundamentally altered reading and writing. As technology changes so do the literacy needs of the children.
As we are just about to launch into a project focusing on boys and writing, these thoughts are particularly pertinent to us. From the research into boys’ writing we have drawn out some common points that seem to have an effect upon their writing and then thought about the sorts of ICT that might support in that area.
Working collaboratively - tools that will support this way of working would be wikis, Etherpad, myWebspiration and Google docs.
Readers responding to writing, providing feedback - blogging, use of a visualiser and email
Presenting work in different ways – News generator, Glogster, Prezi, Jing, Xtranormal and piclits. There are also a growing number of sites where you can choose an image and incorporate your own text on it. These would be useful for younger children who are writing captions or labels or children who will not write much.
Planning - MyWebspirations, Photostory 3 and some 2Simple software such as 2Create or 2Create a Story
Bridging writing between home and school – blogs and wikis.
Writing as an expert - blogging, creating own wikipedia and creating own websites. If you know of a safe, free place where children can create a website please let me know.
Retelling texts prior to writing - Audacity, Gcast and digital dictaphones.
Note collecting - Edmodo, Wallwisher, MyWebspiration and Evernote for older children.
Visual literacy – there are so many suggestions for creating books with images plus the use of film and computer games. There is also the area of graphica and creating comics and cartoon strips online.
What have I missed out?
Linked posts: Digital Storytelling and blogging
July 19th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Would love to hear more about your upcoming project re boys and writing as this is a particular interest of mine as I work with ebd boys and have been trying to use ICT to overcome their hugely negative attitudes to writing partly due to their depressed literacy skills.
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July 20th, 2009 at 3:08 am
I look forward to hearing more about your up and coming project too. I firmly believe we should be embracing the technology available in children’s education – indeed it is how they will be communicating throughout their life. However I also believe this should be balanced with having the fundamental skills of literacy – being able to read and write. My youngest son is very adept in using technology but even he cannot read his own writing! In pursuit of enhancement we need to remember the basics are important too.
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alijoy Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Hello ebd35 and Jeanette
I will definitely keep you informed about the project through this blog.
Teaching boys to write is the main purpose of our project – it is just the tools that we are using to do that. We want to explore the notion that reading and writing of text is not just a paper based exercise. Young children go through an emergent phase of writing whcih is traditionally done on paper but does it have to be?
I agree Jeanette that quite often when people add technology to writing the focus moves from communicating so that others understand to the novelty of the tool. Tihs will be another thing that we will want to explore. It will be interesting to see if we can manage it.
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July 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 am
Link writing to what the kids are reading. Some of the publishers and writers have engaging and/or interactive activities on their web sites which motivate kids to write eg Scholastic, Lemony Snicket. Also, some of the online prompt generators can spark ideas to get young writers started.
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