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"The digital tools offer students new opportunities, no doubt, but they still need to be intentional in the way that they craft their pieces of digital writing."  This quote sums this article well.  Despite the new technology, teachers and students must be intentional in the ways they approach writing.  The article discusses Troy Hick's book Crafting Digital Writing.  The book looks very interesting.  Part of the article also discusses some of the arguments against digital writing with Tony's counter arguments.  There are also some great links within the article to various writing resources.

This article points out the significance and the approach to the digital writing in a dialogue style with Troy Hicks, an associate professor of English at Central Michigan University. He uses 'MAPS' heuristic -- mode (genre), media, audience, purpose, situation -- to help writers "intentionally" and "deliberately" think through composing digital texts. He also suggests teachers give themselves and students the opportunities and permission to play (and possibly fail) with the tools, as this can serve as a model of overcoming learning curves and digital writing process. This reminds me of the idea, 'dabble' with the tools, brought up by Jeff Utecht(2013).

This blog contains the first 3 steps (out of 7) for website evaluation.  The author is using letters to represent each step.  Thus far, he has A for author; B for bias; and C for currency.  Each step is explained and a poster is included for teachers to print and use in the classroom.  This is very important information for students in order to become responsible digital citizens.  Students need to think about who is writing, why they are writing, and when they are writing.  I am anxious to see what other steps the author will include.

Very useful resource for teaching information and digital literacy. The idea of A to G is brilliant and inspirational! I think the break-down steps of each aspect can be truly helpful for students to understand what exactly they're looking for in terms of author, bias, or currency (and soon more). For teachers, each aspect could be introduced and focused in each topic or project, and the posters can serve as visual prompt in classroom.

10 Ways Digital Slowpokes Can Catch Up! By Ann Handley Even though this article was written for owners of small businesses, I think it is worth reading to stay up on what is happening out there in the "real world" of marketing and persuading people to choose their business *(using all those wonderful persuasive writing skills learned in school!) It also addresses anxieties of people all over who are overwhelmed with how fast technology is moving and encourages them to just "do something now."

This short article explains a new Pew study which explored the affects of broader access to the internet and social media and student performance. The article speaks of both the positive and negative affects that they are seeing as per standardized tests and teacher feedback.

I found this very interesting as our school goes to a Bring Your Own model and the entire High School becomes a 1:1 laptop zone. Many teachers have asked questions about this and the Pew study is something I plan to share with them.

Throughout the ages of educational ideas and philosophies teachers have been big fans of having their students keep a journal. Journals are kept in language arts, foreign language classes, and I have seen them in science classes. Students don't particularly like doing them unless they enjoy writing. If given a choice between keeping a journal in their spiral notebook and keeping it online, I would wager that a majority of students in this digital age will prefer to keep it online. So why not give them the choice and tool of Penzu.

One of a series of posts on different types of internet based tools and their use in education; backchannels engage students who otherwise might not contribute, evens the playing field; students ask questions on the fly without interrupting; gives teacher feedback on the level of understanding or confusion in the class; does not recommend twitter for classroom alternative backchannels teacher can manage ; It will improve writing and a student's ability to articulate themselves quickly using text. Students must have Effective Digital Communication Skills in order to be successful in the 21st century. One digital communication skill that is needed is to have the ability to articulate quickly and succinctly using text.

The days of the traditional cover letters and resumes sent through the mail are over. Today, people/students find jobs through social media sites -- Linkedin, FB, even Twitter. As we talk about digital communication, this is a "real world" application in how students need to know these tools as well as how to present themselves in a digital forum. This is the type of situation where all the writing skills and presentation skills taught in high school count, and we need to be sure our students can do this in a virtual environment.

This is a useful article! Gone are the hard copy resumes printed on nice, heavy weight paper with matching envelopes. Thanks, Christine.

An intriguing article delineating several useful methods to bring online classrooms to life. While text and self-teaching methods were the way of the past, we now have a multitude of means to engage the student both visually and audibly via an incredible assortment of tools and resources just brimming with creative potential.

Using online math course as the example, this article provides teachers and students with a lot of technology tools to create a rich online learning and problem-solving environment. With these digital tools, students get more engaged in learning and become more creative thinking. It's a good reference for subject teachers.

This article asks how we teach students the tools to learn how to talk, read, write, and think online. It mentions many of the media literacy tools presented in one of our readings.

This article attracted my attention due to my affiliation with Graduation Portfolios for our district. I loved the idea of students taking ownership of their Portfolio in terms of linking it to an electronic format they could *present* at the end of the school year. One of the apps listed ("Three Ring") sounded really interesting, and I hope to model it with next year's Seniors.

This article was great. Our high school students should be creating career portfolios and some of the programs like Evernote and Three Ring seem to be great ways of collecting and organizing career information. Employers are now looking at what students have accomplished over a paper resume. Some employers want to see you digital resume' with examples of a student's work. These two programs seem to be a great way to help students be prepared for the new way employers might require for job interviews. One other website is a great resource for Student Portfolios and that is MassCis. Not only does it have the ability to upload exemplars, but it has lessons teachers can use that are aligned with the standards to help students explore their career interests. Imagine, career information, career inventories, goal setting activities, resume writing, college and financial information, teachers' lesson plans and student portfolios all on the same website. Each student can create a portfolio and have it from the middle school through high school. Check it out: www.masscis.intocareers.com