Digital Learning

Reading, Writing and Revising in Digital Spaces: Oakland Writing Project’s Literacy Webinar Series

Summary: In partnership with the Oakland School District, the Oakland (MI) Writing Project developed and hosted an online webinar series focused on revision. Links to all of the webinars, resources, and related readings for the 2015-16 series (Revision: the Heart of Writing) and 2014-15 (Reading and Writing in Digital Spaces)...

Math Blogs: Fostering Voice, Ownership, and Understanding Online

Author: Howard Rheingold Summary: This article describes how a mathematics teachers became a connected educator, and how he and his precalculus students in Winnipeg began blogging. Students took turns with daily scribing — reflecting, summarizing, and connecting with each other locally and, serendipitously, with others beyond their school, e.g., a...

Making Classroom Writing Assessment More Visible, Equitable, and Portable through Digital Badging

Author: Stephanie West-Puckett Summary: Educator Stephanie West-Puckett describes her experience using collaboratively designed digital badges as a networked, contextual, and participatory form of writing assessment in a college first-year writing course. She describes how this “community-based assessment” supported diverse conceptions of writing and prompted critical discussion about what constitutes successful...

A “Connected-Learning” Style and Fashion Program for Adolescents Leads to Career Opportunity

Author: Kiley Larson, Erin Bradley, Tonya Leslie, Bryan Rosenberg, and Nathan Reimer Summary: This case study features two Hive Fashion hubs, in Chicago and New York, in a youth program for adolescents interested in fashion as a career field. The program design is built on the recognition that young people...

Professional Development in the Digital Age: A Virtual Conference on Digital Literacy

Summary: This short article on the 4T Virtual Conference on Writing could be the perfect starting point for sites/leaders looking to integrate online learning into a program or those ready to make the jump to a fully online conference/professional development experience. Key to the success of the 4T annual online...

Bioethics, Informed Consent, and Open Networks: The Story of Bioethics Day

Author: Jennifer Smyth Summary: This collection of materials, inspired by a shared reading in English and Biology classes of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, describes the planning and presentation of Bioethics Day as a “day of learning” for students from three high schools. The materials include explanatory videos and...

Teaching Writing in the Digital Age

Author: Joel Malley Summary: In this brief video showing myriad facets of digital writing, teacher Joel Malley documents the ways in which his classroom provides opportunities for students’ deep learning and significant growth as writers. He shares his students’ immersion in content, and their collaboration, response and publishing through social...

Chocolate and Change: Gaming for Social Justice, from Assessing Students’ Digital Writing

Author: Christina Puntel Summary: In this sample chapter from Assessing Students’ Digital Writing: Protocols for Looking Closely, a teacher-consultant shares insights from the collegial feedback she received on a student-led food justice project and the implications for her instruction and assessment. For teachers whose students engage in complex projects, this...

Students as Writers and Composers: Workshopping in the Digital Age

Author: Troy Hicks and Franki Sibberson Summary: In this collaborative conversation between former middle school teacher and current National Writing Project site director Troy Hicks and third-grade teacher Franki Sibberson, they consider a range of teaching and learning practices that “guide students to consider themselves multimodal text-makers who combine words,...

Literacy, ELL, and Digital Storytelling: 21st Century Skills in Action

Author: Yumi Matsui and Clifford Lee Summary: This inspiring video documents how an English and a history teacher collaborated to have their high school history students created digital stories as part of the American Immigration Project. The semester-long multimodal project incorporated interviews, transcription. discussion, writing voiceover scripts, and digital production....