How to Teach Writing by Using a Computer

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com and I want to talk about how you can teach writing using a computer. The computer or word processor is a great tool for a writing teacher. In fact, it's kind of hard to imagine writing without the computer now. One of the great things about using the computer to teach writing is that it's such a, it so enables cutting and pasting and editing, other kinds of editing, so that you can make so much easier the act of moving words or quickly changing one word to another. It's such a good way to demonstrate how that works. The cut and the paste in a word processing program is similar to an idea that a young writer would've used using scissors and tape long ago, back in the old days. So the features of a word processor to demonstrate some of the basics of writing and editing. Some other great things about teaching writing with a computer are how easy it is to get, to confer with another writer using email. You can teach writer, you can teach your writers about email communication and then have them get feedback over a long distance from another writer that they've connected with. For young writers, some teachers use instant messaging in a close system where they can actually practice communicating and writing by typing instant messages to each other. The third great thing about writing with computers is the opportunities for publication, such as blogs or other online publications where student work can be published. So much easier than submitting something to a print publication. An opportunity for lots of people to read your work and with very little work. That's a great thing about the Internet and what it's brought for our students. So to sum up some of the ways to use a computer to teach writing or editing, communicating by email and getting feedback and publication online."