March 2, 2014
Writing workshop as an approach to teaching writing has been around for more than 30 years now, exactly since the publication of “The Art of Teaching Writing” by Lucy Calkins and “In The Middle” by Nancie Atwell. Other proponents of this approach include celebrated scholars such as Donald Murray, Donald Graves, Katie Wood Ray, Jim burke, Ralph Fetcher, penny Kittle. Writing workshop provides a theoretically sound and pedagogically useful model for writing instruction within out classrooms. The main emphasis of this approach is on “teaching the writer then the writing”.
Writing workshop relies on a set of core principles and one of these principles is about giving students the chance to publish and share their works with others. Below are some of the web tools you can use to publish your students work. check them out:
1- Widbook
This is a wonderful web tool that allows you to easily create and publish e-books. Students can import their word documents, use images and videos and share all in one single ebook without the need for any technical knowledge.
2- Blogs
Blogs are another option for students to use to share their writing. Whether it is a personal blog, a classroom blog or a school website, publishing one’s finished pieces in these platforms allows others including his or her peers to interact with it, engage in conversations and discussions around the written piece using the comment form. The student writer can build on this kind of feedback to write other pieces. Some blogging platforms to consider in this regard include:
3- Wikis
Wikis provide student with a public space for sharing, peer editing, and composing different kinds of texts. The archiving feature of wikis allows students to check their editing over a period of time and monitor their progress as student writers. The best wiki platform I would recommend here is Wikispaces.
4- Issuu
Issuu is a free publishing platform that allows users to share thier content in an array of different formats. This service is free but does require a sign-up.
5- Slideshare
Slideshare allows students to upload their PowerPoint, OpenOffice presentations, Keynote, PDF and infographics and share them with others.
