iWrite: Using Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories in the English Classroom »

Dana Wilber, an avid blogger and user of Facebook and Twitter, is not only a credible expert in both digital and print domains, but is also an authority in both theory and practice in education. She is an Assistant Professor of Literacy at Montclair State University in New Jersey and a former middle school balanced literacy teacher from Colorado.

The power of Dana Wilber s insight is in its simplicity. Students are texting, networking, and blogging i.e., writing and reading all the time, everywhere, just maybe in places we aren t necessarily paying attention to. Build on their authentic interest and motivation using the technologies they are already committed to and you ve won half the battle. You won t believe how engaged they are; they won t believe they re learning for school.

In iWrite, Dana shows you how to guide students through the complexity of new literacies, including:

• how to discern between media
• how to account for audience and voice
• how to choose appropriate genre
• and how to harness what they already know to be more successful in school.

Dana deftly elucidates the lives of Millennials, those students growing up around the turn of the 21st century, and the technologies embedded into their everyday reading and writing. She shows us how three accessible tools wikis, blogs, and digital storytelling can be used to scaffold learning for our students. And she demonstrates how they can help us address 10 key issues in the literacies of today s students:

• Safety
• Authenticity
• Practice
• Relevance
• Meaning and identity
• Interest and inquiry
• Cognitive development
• Community
• Process
• Motivation

Let iWrite show you how to capture students daily literacy practices and develop them for the kind of writing we want them to learn.

Acknowledgments VII

Introduction: It's a Brave New World IX

Chapter 1 What It Means to Teach Reading and Writing Today 1

Chapter 2 New Literacies for New Times 20

Chapter 3 What Are Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories? 43

Chapter 4 The Nuts and Bolts of Creating and Using Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories in Your Classroom 63

Chapter 5 Using Technology to Address Ten Key Issues in Reading and Writing Instruction 78

Chapter 6 Upcoming Technologies That May Make a Difference in the English Classroom 93

Conclusion 107

Appendix: Helpful Online Resources 113

Bibliography 129

Index 133