Task 5 On Line Writing

I spent some serious time looking at the links provided. The "We tell Stories Fairy Tales" link was a great place to begin. Simple and easy to use, I see this as a powerful tool to introduce story writing and the use of language to all students. Teachers can use it in variety of ways from descriptive language to comparisons to fairy tales elements. I could see many class applications.

The Historic Tale looked good on the surface and my mind immediately jumped to 5th grade applications and their units on medieval history. However, the more I looked at and played with the site the more frustrated I became. In short, I did not find it to be user friendly and after about 30 minutes of playing with it I got frustrated and gave up. Creating a story seemed time consuming and I wasn't able to come up with a final product.

Myths and Legends, Read Write and Think (where I was able to quickly and easily create cartoons) and Comic Creator II all were intriguing and offered many classroom possibilities. So the sites for on-line writing are there but now lets talk philosophy.

Being able to communicate clearly is a crucial 21st century skill. In my mind, perhaps the most important skill students need to develop. Too often programed writing, with formulas and predetermined schemes graded by rubrics, dominate the curriculum and inhibit the actual writing process. We all know of the dreaded 5 paragraph essay. These requirements can actually keep students from exploring and sharing unique, novel ideas and methods of writing. Students who can and are allowed to create in their minds and then find the medium to share what they create, either on-line or the old fashion way, are well on their way to mastering--although mastery probably isn't achievable---a critical and crucial skill. Any tool that encourages and helps motivate students to imagine, create and then record will be valuable in the classroom PROVIDED that the tool itself doesn't distract from the process.

The one concern I did have as I looked at the tools was that if not monitored and used properly, students could get tied into all the bells and whistles the sites offer and lose sight of their goal which should be to communicate what they have created in their mind.