Toy Stories Project   Collaborative Projects Integrating Technology Home Page

Children Use Technology in a Web-Publishing Project Anne Davis Instructional Technology Specialist Dana Peters ESL Teacher Anne Davis Instructional Technology Specialist Instructional Technology Center College of Education, Georgia State University Dana Peters, an ESL teacher at J. H. House Elementary School in Conyers, Georgia fosters writing in her ESL classroom on a regular basis. Her students write for many audiences throughout the school year. They write for their peers, teachers, family, and the entire student body. At times they have written for the immediate community. This project with her second grade students was designed to share with an even larger community—the World Wide Web. This web-publishing project began with children composing drafts in their classrooms. They wrote stories about their favorite toys. After editing their stories, they illustrated them with drawings of their favorite toys. Then Mrs. Peters brought her class to the technology lab. (At that time, I was the instructional technology specialist at J. H. House.) Mrs. Peters and I team taught during this session. Students used the word processing program, Microsoft Word, to type their stories. They learned words such as word processing, document, technology, font, and windows. The goal was to increase vocabulary usage. The students also learned how to spell check, change fonts and make small proof-reading changes. They took great pride in completing a clear and concise paper. Mrs. Peters and I then scanned their papers; the students observed the process as we used the scanner. Then all of the stories and illustrations were published on the school web site. Mrs. Peters and her class returned to the lab to view the completed project online. The students were elated to see their work on the web. They enjoyed reading each story. Discussion and dialogue about the various stories led to reinforcement of effective writing techniques, listening and speaking skills, and vocabulary extension. The success and accomplishment of each writer was celebrated. Each student had the opportunity to use a large presentation screen that projected a visual display of the child's story and picture. As their stories were projected on the large screen, the students read their stories to their classmates. Contact Anne Davis: adavis@gsu.edu View the Toy Stories, an ESL class project.   Return to: Collaborative Projects Integrating Technology | Home Page TOPICS Online Magazine - ©1997-2007 topics.mag@gmail.com Published by Sandy and Thomas Peters