Using Technology to Support Writing as a

Complex Activity

Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Ed.D.

San Antonio, Texas International Reading Association

Using Technology to Support Writing as a

Complex ActivityThomas DeVere Wolsey, Ed.D.

San Antonio, Texas International

Reading Association

Using Technology to Support Writing as a Complex Activity within the Disciplines

• In this session, participants will explore two aspects of working in digital environments: How to work with digital sources to inform their writing and How to bring together digital images and composing processes, as means for increasing language learning. Participants will learn how to use online tools their students can employ to draw or reuse images found on the Internet in service of writing as a means of learning. Examples of digital stories that combine images and words will be provided, and participants with computers or smartphones will have the opportunity to try some of the tools. By linking the parts of the brain that process images with those parts that process language, written work improves and so does student learning.

Six Shifts

• Increase Reading of Informational Text

• Knowledge in the Disciplines

• Staircase of Complexity

• Text-based Answers

• Increase Writing from Sources

• Academic Vocabulary Source: EngageNY

Cognitive Flexibility Theory

• The domain of writing is ill-defined encompassing

• topical knowledge, • procedural knowledge, and• conditional knowledge.

• (Spiro, 2004; Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 2004; Spiro, Feltovich, & Coulson, 1996)

Communication Model Approach

(e.g., Kinneavy, 1971).

Shared Knowledge and Cognitive Processes Model

• Content Knowledge

• Metaknowledge• Language

Features• Procedural

knowledge• (Fitzgerald & Shanahan,

2000)

Source: S-Photos

Common Substrata of Processes

New Literacies

• Speed• Deictic • Multiplicity of

tools and dispositions

• Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and Cammack (2004)

Digital Texts

Source: AZAdam on Flickr

Choosing Resources

• Evaluating resources

• Type of resource (genre or mode)

• Readability • Working with

Multiple Sources

• (Wolsey, Lapp, & Fisher, in press)

Source: zapatopi.net

Digital Reading Earns an F

Source: www.clickrmedia.com/

Watch

(Nielsen Norman Group, 2000)

Close Reading

• “Close reading is characterized by the use of evidence from the text to support analysis, conclusions, or views of texts” (Wolsey, Grisham, & Hiebert, 2012, p. 2)

• Slow Reading (Newkirk, 2012)

Transforming Writing with Digital Images

Impromptu Folder

Impromptu Folder

Write Me a Picture

Draw Me a Story

Images and Words Together

InfoGraphics

Write Me A Picture

Michael P. Garafalo

Haiku Marching Cat Footprints

Mariachi

Draw Me A Story

SketchUp

http://sketchup.google.com/

Artpad

http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

Pixlr

http://pixlr.com/editor/

The school photography project

Through The Lens

Student-Created Images

• Drawing – SketchUp– Artpad

• Photography– Pixlr – PowerPoint and the digital camera

Using Words and Images Together

http://lexipedia.com/

Words Arranged Visually

http://visual.ly/coffee-flavour-wheel

Infographics

• Data meets graphics meets words

• http://visual.ly/

Images to Inspire Words

Images to Inspire Words

Digital Storytelling

• Animoto

• Voicethread

• Example Digital Story in Voicethread

CAST Image Collector

http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/tools/imagecollector.cfm

Composing MultiModal Text

• How do words function to “anchor” and give an interpretation of an image?

• How do words function to “relay” or contribute to the meaning of an image?

• Where will the image be placed in relation to the words and why?

• How much of the frame-space will the image occupy compared to the words?

• Is the focal point of the text on the image or on its words and why? (Choo, 2010, p. 172)

Resources

Choo, S. S. (2010). Writing through visual acts of reading: Incorporating visual aesthetics in integrated writing and reading tasks. High School Journal, 93(4), 166-176

• More about Writing and Images: • http://literacybeat.com/2012/05/17/dr

aw-me-a-story/• http://delicious.com/tdwolsey

(keywords: graphics, visualization,

Contact and QR Code

Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Ed.D.MSED Literacy Programs Directortom.wolsey@waldenu.edu