Publishing Student Writing Online

Image Source: http://tinyurl.com/he3vkb5

Publishing student writing addresses some of the key points Nanci Atwell discussed in her book, In the Middle. It not only provides students with ownership of when and what they publish, but also the opportunity to interact with a real, global audience.

A key part of the writing process for Writing Project teachers has always been publishing—the exciting moment when writing finds an audience beyond the classroom. In fact, the mere possibility of publishing a piece can strengthen a student's sense of purpose and spark a heretofore hidden passion.Source: The National Writing Project

Over the next few weeks, I'll be visiting teachers at Heritage to write with students and facilitate publishing student writing online. Here are some of the ideas discussed: 

Big Idea:

1. Setup a blog--an easy to edit web site--that will we can use to quickly publish student writing for a global audience.
2. Directions on how to publish student writing--from GoogleDoc, a scanned picture of student writing, and/or recorded audio.

Tools:
We discussed some apps for your iPad; here are some no-cost/low-cost recommendations; click the app name to install it (if you're reading this email on an iPad):

1) iScanner - This is free and provides Scan to JPG image or PDF. A pro version is available for $.99, which makes it easy to save to the cloud. Let's start with free and then see where we need to go from there.  

2) Voice Record Pro - This is a free audio recording app that can be used to record student voices. There are other free ones available for the iPad, but this one works reliably. 

We are aiming for small successes to build student confidence. If you are interested in joining in on this project, please let me know! Catch me via district email, on Twitter @mguhlin or on Voxer @mguhlin. Lots of great possibilities!