1P+KISS-IT+Writing+process+for+Early+and+Middle+Years

WHERE TO START
The Role of Technology in Early Childhood Programs By Francis Wardle, Ph.D. We are always looking for the magic bullet, something that will solve all our problems. And, today this magic bullet for education is technology. It will solve all our problems! It will increase academic skills, reduce dropout rates, eliminate the racial and social economic divide in academic performance, and increase SAT scores. And it will make the lives of teachers easier. Well, it may not accomplish all of these goals, but educational technology does have a place in early childhood. Right? It depends on an early childhood program’s overall program goals and objectives, and the program’s goals and objectives for each student. And it depends on how computers are incorporated into the early childhood curriculum (Haugland, 2000).

As we are all aware students develop the skills to be part of our digital world at an early age. By the time they are in middle school many students have IPods, Facebook & Twitter accounts, instant messaging proficiency etc. These very advanced skills are developed all on their own! Students are managing and communicating in complex social networks with hundreds of members and developed the skills to do so with only their peers as guiding mentors/supporters!!! (With a bit of online help as well-but essentially on their own)


 * Today’s students read and write more than they ever have. All of the texting and social networking they do is good for our students. It may not be the reading and writing we are used to, but when was the last time you wrote anything in the style of W.S.? "To be or not to be" is not the question.The question(s) we should have as educators are:**


 * 1. How do we exploit this new found “interest/love of reading and writing”???**
 * 2.** How **do we cultivate/exploit the technolgoy skills that students have to do more than to “instant message speak”???**
 * The answer is simple - We have to get involved with our student’s writing in a digital context at an early age! **

So lets start ……….write something..............

1. Brief Outline of the Writing Process and Technology - [|The Integrating of technology and the Writing Process.doc]

2. The writing needs to be real. A) Letters to parents for field trips etc. should all be done by the students. B) WHO IS DOING THE WORK AND WHO IS DOING THE LEARNING??? C) What are some other real writing activities you can do in the early and middle year’s classroom?

3.We have to ensure that the digital material we are using is: A) Authentic and verifiable - knowing what's what and what's not - The 5 W's and 1 H of Cyberspace B) We can use it without copyright infringement C) Google as a research tool??? D) Can use it to find material to use and share. E) Use Google to search for plagiarism F) Appropriate for our students - safer searches

Once we have the writing process in place and students engaged in the process we need to start looking at where they publish their work to an authentic audience and how? Some good web links: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">1) Canadian Encyclopedia  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">2. Tools to help put ideas together like Wordle - A word cloud generator   <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">3. Tools to help with vocabulary - Visuwords an Online graphical dictionary