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At NaNoWriMo, we provide the support, encouragement, and good old-fashioned kick in the pants you need to write the rough draft of your novel in November.

inklewriter is a free tool designed to allow anyone to write and publish interactive stories. It's perfect for writers who want to try out interactivity, but also for teachers and students looking to mix computer skills and creative writing.

Our goal with Duolingo is to provide the absolute best language learning service out there (and also make it 100% free!). In this post I want to talk about something that we believe is fundamental towards this goal: students must be able to read and write complete sentences and be given immediate detailed feedback about their answers. When we started working on Duolingo we noticed that most language learning methods outside of the classroom didn't do this. Some never provide you with any feedback (think of books or the audio tapes from the 1980s), while other more "interactive" ones only provide you with feedback on single words or multiple choice questions. As any educator will tell you, having students read and write complete sentences by themselves, and then get detailed feedback, is significantly better for learning.

"...a pedagogical alternate reality game we developed over the course of two years under the aegis of The University of Texas at Austin's Digital Writing & Research Lab. Battle Lines offers a compelling game experience that allows student-players to develop rhetorical, community-building, and digital literacies, crossing boundaries between academic and ludic practices."

As the world of mobile apps is expanding beyond comprehension, demand for better and faster apps shoot up. We need applications that perform easily, have a magnificent look, simple to create, and can be implemented rapidly. All these necessities are difficult to satisfy as high performance, related to native apps, set aside enough time for the advancement. Then again, faster deployment, related with cross-platform applications, trade-off, no less than a bit, on performance. Therefore, aching for better languages, tools that help top-notch hybrid apps development, and frameworks keep developers on their toes. One such resolution, which quickly changing the universe of versatile applications is Facebook's React Native. It is a JavaScript library to assemble a UI that enables you to make versatile mobile applications and work easily as native apps. It even gives you a chance to reuse the code over the web and mobile platforms. You don't have to develop for Android and iOS, independently, as one code is sufficient for both the platforms, saving money and time. Let's look at some reasons that point towards React Native taking the center stage in the future. Supports Both iOS & Android - 'Supportive' Because of the two different operating systems which are majorly being used by the customers across the world, the primary challenge for the mobile app development companies is to choose one ahead of the other. But Facebook made it easy by introducing React Native. It supports both iOS and Android making it convenient for the app developers to use the same code for both the platforms without writing it from the scratch. Reusability for better development What makes us to state that REACTS is the eventual fate of application development? It is the reusability of the components. You don't have the Web view components anymore for hybrid apps with React native. The essential code for this framework will easily be reused within the native apps, and you'll easily compile it

"Highlight and Speak The fastest, simplest way to give high quality feedback on writing."

(via @rmbyrne)

"Zopler is a social network where writers, authors and students can easily collaborate on writing stories together as a group."

See what it's like to collaborate with famous storytellers. In this interactive demo of Google Docs you are presented with the words used by a famous author from which to write your own story.

Try out Google Docs new demo that lets you write collaboratively with your favorite dead famous writers. Then you get to save and share your creation. As Next Web explains: A "famous writer" will start typing and then it's your turn. Once you've typed in the next line, the writer takes over

"Write, read and share! The social network to find books, publish your own, create shelves and spread ideas."

via @rmbyrne

"Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. You don't need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you're ready. Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes. "

Another tool that might provide an different entry point to coding and logical thinking for those who might initially feel they're not that way inclined.

New tool for collaborative writing. Promising.

A helpful discussion (allowing for comparison) of 5 free writing apps that could be used by students of varying age groups.

A reminder of some simple and effective ways to use Google Drive to develop literacy and 21st century skills

"Children who blog, text or use social networking websites are more confident about their writing skills, according to the National Literacy Trust."

Interesting research about the literacy connection to social networking.

The Zimmer Twins is a fun way to incorporate technology into the classroom. Watch your students expand their vocabulary, practice proper writing habits, and become junior movie producers all at the same time! Take a few minutes to explore the Zimmer Twins and so you are familiar with the site before using it with your students. Includes tips for teachers.