Digital Writing Practicum

Engaging students in the 21^st Century

SUMMARY

REGISTER here: http://digitalteachers.net/register.12.13

Overview: The aim of this course is to help teachers shift to or deepen their shift to the digital age to enhance their instruction of writing in all curricula. This course is aimed at learning by doing in two online communities: with colleagues taking the course and in their own school digital classrooms which will be provided. The course emphasizes community building, peer-to-peer learning/feedback, digital literacy, writing revision, commenting, use of multimedia, operating a digital classroom. The practical knowledge gained will be a road map to personal learning exploration, using digital media and writing instruction techniques suitable for all curricula, including Common Core. Instructors will provide ongoing support in school and via Web conferencing, email and telephone.

This course is open to all teachers in all curricula. Teachers who have taken previous Practicums are welcome -- the course is sufficiently different AND special independent projects can be set up.

Electronic syllabus:  http://digitalteachers.net/syllabus.12.13

.pdf of syllabus: attached below

Instructors: Geoffrey Gevalt, Director of Young Writers Project; Barbara Ganley, former Middlebury College and Middlebury High School teacher; veteran digital teachers Nick Brooks, Darcie Abbene, Kathy Folley and Cindy Faughnan; Lisa Italiano, director of National Writing Project.

Primary contact: Geoffrey Gevalt (802) 354-9537 or 482-5625(h), ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org

Mailing Address: Young Writers Project, 20 Winooski Falls Way, Suite #4, Winooski, VT 05404

Classroom Location: There will be at least four sections of this course and the course meetings will be held within an hour of your school: Chittenden/Franklin, Lamoille/Washington, White River Junction, and Springfield/Brattleboro. A fifth section in the Rutland area will be held if enrollment warrants. Classes will be held at a convenient location to be determined with WiFi. Participants should plan to bring their own laptops. Much of this course will occur online: course work will center on private space in digitalteachers.net and on a working digital classroom that they will be expected to use with their students during the year.

Credits: Three Master’s degree credits from St. Michael’s College.

Schedule: This course has an essential all-day session on Aug. 15 or 16 (participants choose day that works best) in Burlington (details will be provided to participants) that will provide a foundation for the year’s work. If attendance at that event is impossible yet there is deep interest in taking the rest of the course, contact Geoffrey Gevalt. Class meetings, usually 2.5 hours long, will occur in regional locations five times during the year in 2nd week of October, 1st week of December, 3rd week of January, 3rd week of March and last week of April/May. Participants will receive consistent feedback and support through their online course classroom, four in-school visits by YWP instructors and Web conferences during the year. 

Deadline for enrollment: August 8, 2012  |  Register here: http://digitalteachers.net/register.12.13

This course is based on the belief that teachers – and most students – learn best by doing with guidance from instructors who have deep expertise in writing, the instruction of writing and the use of technology and Web spaces to enhance learning. This collaborative practicum will provide participants with a dynamic, hands-on learning experience, instruction in making best use of leading Web apps and resources and development of strategies to improve the writing of students in grades 4 through 12. As many teachers have said in prior years, this is a challenging but transformative experience.

The course is unique in that it provides a working digital classrom for use in school and includes considerable one-on-one time directly connected to teachers’ direct work with their students, so instructors and Young Writers Project Coaches will be helping teachers with technical questions, brainstorming and problem resolution during the course through in-school visits, Web conferences and communication by phone or email.

Register here: http://digitalteachers.net/register.12.13

DIGITAL TEACHING 

To fully integrate digital technology into your teaching, you have to transform what you are doing rather than just use technology as a way to do what you did before. You need to stay on top of changes, be adaptive to enlisting your students to help and give to them some control of the learning process. All of this, of course, comes against a backdrop of new iniatives, not enough equipment and not enough training. So this ongoing and changing collection of resources, organizational tools and cool apps are intended to help you in your endeavors; while YWP doesn't specifically endorse these applications, we have checked them out and we've chosen these over dozens upon dozens of others to save you a little time. Our biases are these: That the application works, that it is low cost or free; that its relatively simple; that it has use in a digital writing classroom enviroment.

This is a wiki, a document editable by other members of this site. If you wish to add your links, please do so. This is a living breathing document that will be updated on a regular basis. -- geoff gevalt, director of young writers project, inc.