I was recently asked to join two very established professors in the field of composition — Charlie Moran and Anne Herrington — in launching a book proposal that looks at the convergence of technology and writing. This book proposal stems directly from a conference that the Western Massachusetts Writing Project co-sponsored last spring at the University of Massachusetts that centered on how technology is being used in writing classrooms. The conference was called Conference on Writing, Teaching and Technology and featured a wide range of presenters.
Charlie, Anne and I would like to take it all one step further by focusing in on the stories of what teachers are doing in the classroom to adjust to these changes in grades 4-13. We are still working on the initial proposal for article abstracts (using Writely for collaboration, by the way) but the three strands of focus will be:
- How is technology changing our perceptions of writing;
- What are teachers doing to integrate these new perceptions of writing;
- And how are teachers measuring the outcomes/assessment of student writing.
We hope to have a call for proposals out in the next few weeks and I want to tap into the Technology Liaison network for possible submissions. For myself, I feel honored to have been asked by Anne and Charlie to help edit this future collection that I can see being a very valuable resource for many classroom teachers.
Peace,
Kevin
