A graduate of a modern school who will live and work in the coming millennium in a post-industrial society should be able to be active, make decisions independently, flexibly adapt to changing living conditions. It is obvious that using only traditional teaching methods, it is impossible to solve this problem. Therefore, already now it has become necessary to organize the learning process based on modern information and communication technologies, where electronic sources, primarily global telecommunications networks, are increasingly being used as sources of information. The widespread introduction of new pedagogical technologies will make it possible to change the very paradigm of education, and new information technologies will realize the opportunities inherent in new educational technologies most effectively.
The goals of the use of technology in teaching writing are:
Creating motivation (students will get interesting various tasks in the form they are used to). Improving the quality of education for everyone (the ability to replicate and use the best specialists’ materials in any school). Accessibility without attending school (the opportunity to work remotely with a group of children who are homeschooled). Time-saving (exercises without using technology need a lot of time and efforts). Efficiency (the use of effective exercises that cannot be organized without a computer). Formation of universal skills.
Opportunities which are given by digital technology in teaching writing:
Automatic checking (saves the teacher’s time, the ability to set training dictations to the house). Multimedia (the ability to insert sound, video, in the textbook which helps to better remember the material). Interactivity (involving all students of a group in active work simultaneously saves time). Collaborative project work (the ability to create documents, presentations, mental maps, etc., by a research group of students). Error statistics (save the student time when working with a dictionary, save teachers time when analyzing errors). Diversity (the ability to quickly generate a large and even an infinite number of exercises of the same type saves the teacher’s time, improving the quality of education for the student).
Teaching writing with digital technology
By the use of digital technology, teachers mean only presentations and training videos, the distribution of links to text materials and computer testing. What else can you do? For example, the teacher can: show rapidly changing vocabulary words to visually memorize each lesson; suggest exercises like insert a letter with automatic checking; set home dictations with the recording of the announcer and the automatic checking; offer visual dictations with an automatic timer and checking; offer interactive games for visual memorization of words; offer students create such exercises on their own; create a common text with multiple hyperlinks when analyzing text; create shared presentations; create mental maps; create profiles of literary characters in social networks; create landings – presentations of literary works; create slides with infographics by works and authors; create tag clouds (words for one rule, logical tasks); create blog diaries; analyze texts using computer programs, counting frequency words and expressions, highlighting common elements in different texts, etc.; work with electronic reverse dictionaries for the selection of rhymes and words for one rule; study lexicology with the help of programs that give statistics on the use of words. This list goes on and on. Technologies give opportunities, everything depends on your imagination.
Consider an example.
Exercise for quick self-test. The child must spell the word, then click on the card and drag it to the side. There are a few dozen words in the task. Runtime – 2-4 minutes. If such an exercise was carried out on paper, in order to organize an instant check, you would have to make answer cards on the back. The child would take each card in hand, turn it over, turn it over again. The time to complete the task would increase significantly. In addition, a mass of cards should be kept in boxes. How to improve the learning process and achieve the higher academic performance of your students? A variety of assistive programs and applications come to a teacher’s assistance. One of them – Screencast – digital video and audio recording, produced directly from the computer screen, also known as a video screen capture. With its use, students can safely study a video lesson at home in their free time. If a student misses a lesson, then with the help of video lessons he/she can easily catch up with the missing topics. Windows Movie Maker is a popular free program for creating, editing and converting video, and Microsoft Photo Story 3 for Windows, which allows you to create exciting video stories with photos, images and voice (music). Computer textbooks make it possible to facilitate the assimilation of extensive material due to the complex effects of video and sound (music, noises, narration), as well as through computer capabilities: dialogue with the student, automated control of the mastered material. Interactive whiteboard – the possibility of presenting the material, analysis of the structure of sentences, words, the practice of writing by hand, electronic text typing.
