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In Technology a Key Tool in Writing Instruction the author, Maya Prabhu, explains how a report done by the National Writing Project and College Board shows that "teachers play a critical role in driving the use of technology, to teach writing." For this report nine teachers, who were selected for various reasons, were observed by a writer for a day and then interviewed. Results showed that the use of such things like blogs, podcasts, and other software can actually increase students' engagement and improve their writing and thinking skills in all grade levels and in all subjects. These results help fuel the argument that more teaching needs to be done with technology in this new digital age. The NWP and College Board claims that there are ". . . three things [that need to] be done to meet the challenges of teaching and learning in the digital age at all levels of education." A child cannot learn or be impacted by technology if they do not have access, so therefore it is suggested that a child have one-on-one interactions with a computer or some time type of similar technology.

In "The New Writing Pedagogy" the authors, Angela Pascopella and Will Richardson, discuss how technology and the Web are creating a new emphasis on student's writing process. This is creating teachers to no longer fear upcoming technology, but embrace them within the classroom. Due to this teachers are using "Web-based social networking tools like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook as digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences and linked conversations among passionate readers." Furthermore, "The New Writing Pedagogy" has many comments and quotes from professors and teachers of all levels that comment on how they are adapting to "this new pedagogy" and how we are the creators of it.

In the article Maine's Laptop Initiative Improves Student Writing written by Anne Miller tells of a program that started in Maine's middle schools, every teacher and student had constant access to a laptop that was provided by the school. While also providing programs for the teachers to help them with using laptops in this new way, hoping to improve their students writing skills while also moving into the 21st century.

Interesting article about students' perceptions of the visual and the implications for teaching.

In the book The Trouble With Boys, author Peg Tyre discusses boy's problems at school and what parents and educators must do. By interviewing hundreds of parents, children, experts and teachers, Tyre offers diverse explanations and facts on why the educational system is failing boys. This book is written in 20 informative chapters that provide important facts on ADHD, the necessity of recess, the vanishing male teacher, single-sex schooling and boys and literacy. In Chapter 11: Boys and Literacy, Tyre begins with scary statistics showing that boys have consistently scored less well than girls on tests measuring reading and writing. She also argues that the "male literacy gap" is not a new problem and may be spawning a national crisis. This is becoming a national crisis because "high-level reading and writing skills are essential not only to economic success but to economic survival" (135). Tyre then asks who or what is to blame for "the male reading deficit." Is it biology? Is it culture? The only clear answer is the "small differences get amplified by the careless, and sometimes crushing, messages that boys often get about the importance of reading from their parents, teachers and communities" (142). Boy's conclusions about reading and writing are shaped through schooling and home attitudes towards literacy.

They have even looked at a study called "Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study" and have found that the number of errors found in writing has remained the same for around a century. In this study Andrea and Karen Lunsford found that the number of errors was in the range of 2.11 to 2.45. The type of errors has changed though. Spelling errors have lessened and wrong word choice has taken the top spot. One explanation for this could be spell check not catching the wrong usage of nouns. Technical writing and composition professor Cindy Raisor said that the only change that she has seen is that students have stopped caring if they make mistakes.

In National Writing Project National Reading Initiative Keywords Project by Marcie Wolfe with the New York City Writing Project, there are many "keyword articles" that have to do with education. The keyword that is most applicable to my research project is assessment. In this article Wolfe compares what peoples views are about what the definition of reading assessment is. She describes it as "data, interpretation, and formal evaluation." She emphasizes on student work over time like a portfolio.

In Yasmin Kafai's article Playing and Making Games for Learning, Kafai claims that if one individual were to write a history on the development of child education, they would be forced to include the impact video games have made on child learning. Kafai writes that teachers have picked up on the fact that video games capture children's attention and have tried to use this to their advantage by incorporating video games into their teaching style. There are many ways to incorporate video games into the classroom, but Kafai generalizes that there are two main categories of thought when it comes to teachers integrating video games into the curriculum: instructionalists and constructionalists.

Article by danah boyd from the journal First Monday. Abstract from the site: ""Are you my friend? Yes or no?" This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites. Participants must select who on the system they deem to be 'Friends.' Their choice is publicly displayed for all to see and becomes the backbone for networked participation. By examining what different participants groups do on social network sites, this paper investigates what Friendship means and how Friendship affects the culture of the sites. I will argue that Friendship helps people write community into being in social network sites."

In the article "Why Youth Love Social Networking Sites", Danah Boyd writes about Social network sites like MySpace and Facebook create a bridge for your social life and online life. Her article examines how these students use Social Networking websites to interact with their peers. She also addresses the issue of privacy and how it can be altered with in a social networking setting.

This article the author talks about how the different social networking sites have brought students together. A place where they can communicate with their peers and meet others. She addresses that fact that it allows the public to gather.

In the article Why Youth Love Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life by Danah Boyd is all about the way social networking sites work and how that connects to a person's real-life identity. Or in other words, how a person can form his or her own identity through social networking.

The article, Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century, is arguing the point that the types of literacies are expanding every day, and people need to be kept up on them. The authors, Barbara Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne Flannigan, state that to be a fully functioning member of society, you must acquire and understand a new literacy; a digital one. They also state, "Today, we still seek better communication methods, only now we have myriad more choices, along with new tools and strategies and greater knowledge of effective communication". Technologies will not just be used to communicate though anymore, it is being to "create, to manipulate, to design, to self-actualize". In the New Literacy and Education paragraphs, it is stated that classrooms today are less advanced for the students who are being put in them. Almost all of these students are digitally literate, but teachers are presenting ideas in the ways they always have. Maybe, it is not just the classrooms that need remodeling, but the teachers need to attend workshops and become more accustomed to dealing with these new types of literacies. Schools who are looking to hire teachers need to look at what background the interviewees have, or require a pre-requisite for computer literacy. The authors also state that today, students are "digitally savvy". They don't believe that teachers should be re-typing overheads into PowerPoint's. There are so many different technological ways to teach things to students. It just isn't the same anymore to just use a whiteboard and an overhead projector. "As an example, now teachers can do a PowerPoint presentation with streaming video, instant Internet access, and real-time audio-video interaction, and they can do it with relative speed and ease".

Barbara Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne Flannigan in their article "Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century" state the reason the definition of literacy has gradually changed through time, will always be changed, and that the history behind why it has changed leads to the definition itself. They assert that through the technological advancements the thought processes in the humans mind have drastically changed; and in order for literacy to keep up with this rapidly changing "E-generation" Jones-Kavalier and Flannigan express that our minds need to be open to this change. They state that "vision combined with practical, recognizable goals and incentives that encourage people to embrace new digital and visual literacy skills individually and collectively" will allow there to actually be a change universally.

This article discusses how literate once meant a person's ability to read and write. Now that technology is rapidly changing, our society is learning to adjust to it. Now, literacy has a new definition. According to the authors, "Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media (text, sound, images), to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments." Older generations are having a more difficult time adjusting to it than the teenage generation. Learning technology is starting to seem like learning a new language. Although, it's a priority for society to learn to acclimate to these changes in order to learn and communicate effectively.

In The Future of Thinking, Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg question the typical learning practices that we've grown accustomed to today. Before delving into the chapter I planned on writing about, I read a bit of the books introduction and overview, titled The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. One particular line that stuck me was "How do laptops change the way we learn? And how should they change the way we teach?"(2). Their main focus here was to discuss how technology, and our sources of information has changed drastically, but that our education system hasn't.

In the Chapter "What Should We Teach? Rethinking Literacy" from the book Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, by Henry Jenkins with Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robison, it contemplates what to do about new literacies. The book talks about how it is just as important for students to learn old literacies, like reading and writing, than it is to learn new literacies as well, digital media. They describe the new literacy culture as participatory culture.

In "using the technology of today, in the classroom of today" authors Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, Jennifer Groff, Jason Haas start to give basis to the argument that technologies such as videogames and social networking sites help shape learning. They focus on how they are learning outside of school but in completely different ways than teachers focus on. They argue, "Nearly all institutions- business, industry, medicine, science and government - have harnessed aspects of these technologies for decades. Games and simulations have been a key component of training doctors and military personnel, but even businesses like PricewaterhouseCoopers used a game about a mining company in outer space to teach its employees about derivatives. Although that may seem a bit "off the wall," the fact is major corporations, the Department of Defense, and the medical community would not use these tools if they were not highly effective" to illustrate how corporations use videogames so the educational system shouldn't reject it them as a learning tool. They point out how videogames can serve as a simulation for real life just as mining in outer space can teach about derivatives. Videogames are also a highly interactive learning environment. Instead of being told information, students are right in the middle of the action and the learning. They also discuss how social networking is a new way of collaborating with other about a wide variety of subjects including school work. The authors write, "Of course, educators have long been aware that learning is a social activity, where learners construct their understanding not just through interaction with the material, but also through collaboratively constructing new knowledge with their peers" but teachers reject the use of social networking as means of learning because of the other aspects included safety or privacy. But what teachers can learn from social sites is that "'knowledge cultures' assembled in these o

This article is very rich with information that has to do with how digital games, social networks, and simulations can be involved in classrooms. With the involvement of them is more than just entertainment that children or people actually learn stuff from them.

In the article "Serious Games: Incorporating Video Games in the Classroom", Leonard A. Annetta (and other writers) write about Generation N, "N" standing for "net". Annetta claims that this generation has grown up with computers, technology, and the Internet to the point were its just normal to have it around; they have never known a time without it. This creates a generation gap between student and teacher. The students (especially k-12) are becoming more and more interactive with computers and can relate to learning better through the use of technology. However, the teachers often lack this technological knowledge that the students share, leaving the teachers in a game of catch-up. But according to Annetta this is a game well worth playing.

Kindergarten teacher Chris Gathers tells about his experiences integrating technology into the learning experience of his students. He first teaches the children how to use the mouse and eventually progresses to making simple art projects and writing on the computer. The kindergarten students gain independence and confidence in themselves and their use of technology