One
challenge in writing a textbook on technology integration is knowing
when to stop including things. You do not want to drift into areas
covered in other courses (e.g., Methods) or to extend your comments
beyond your areas of expertise. Of course, you also want to include
enough information that what you do write leaves learners with enough
guidance that they feel they can act on the information provided.
One
of our core recommendations has long been a modification of writing
across the curriculum or writing to learn we have labelled authoring to
learn. We extend the area of writing to learn in to include approaches
that involve multimedia authoring. We contend such recommendations are
concrete, efficient, and thoroughly researched as a strategy that lends
itself to various implementations of project based learning.
In our most recent edition, we explore the role online tools such as Google docs
offer in developing writing skills and applying writing to learn
strategies. A key component of effective instruction in either area is
the revision process - writing is an iterative process that moves toward
a higher quality product and a deeper level of understanding when
revision is emphasized. A reality associated with such benefits is the
time intensive nature of supporting revision. Ideally (although some
might question the use of this superlative), teacher review and guidance
would offer the best approach. However, heavy use of writing to learn
tasks would also place what might be unrealistic demands on teacher
time. Peer editing may offer the solution. In addition to the advantage
of a division of labor, peer editing should offer a way to develop
editing skills. Improvement in editing skill not only would benefit
peers, but would also the writing skills of the “editor”.
Our
content on this topic already reviewed the challenges of developing
skilled peer editors and provided references both supporting this
approach and identifying issues that can occur when peer editors are
“turned loose” without preparation and training. Our suggestions for how
to support editors offered general guidelines, but did not provide
specific examples. This is the issue of straying into the area of
methods courses and limitations in our own personal experiences we
mentioned earlier.
I
have finally located a resource that offers the kind of concrete
suggestions to explain the general guidelines we provided. This is a
lesson from the ReadWriteThink site. The PowerPoint that can be downloaded gives very specific suggestions for what young editors should do in reacting to the work of their peers.
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