Lesson Task:Chapter 6 /Activity 6 - Integrating Word Processing into Grade/Subject Content

Given the fact that I am teaching 3 very different courses (ELA 10th grade American Literature, Public Speaking, and "Studies in Racism and Diversity"), I have numerous opportunities to integrate word processing into the curriculum. For me, currently and in a teaching capacity, I utilize MS Word to create my lesson plans and post them to a web site for the students, parents, and myself to access. (LESSON PLANS) I also use it to create computer lab lessons that can in turn be posted to a "shared student folder" (SSF) for an entire class of students to access simultaneously for the purpose of directing a focused path of learning for that day. MS Word has been a powerful tool for me in creating web quests/web searches for my students based on unit content.

Pertaining to student use, word processing is being used to record into charts and tables such information as the pros and cons of a topic in a persuasive essay that my 10th graders may be writing. It can be used as a tool to record "response to literature" based tasks whereby a PDF reading piece is posted on the SSF for all students to read and the students are then required to offer commentary to questions posed by me regarding the text. This commentary is then saved to the students' home directory and printed out for me to evaluate. Another use of word processing would be the posting of personal comments by the students on a blog site I have available and the subsequent comments made by the readers of the blog. There are a host of web based sites (tradingcards.com for instance) that offer content based lessons using word processing to create excellent classroom and student "products".
A recent technique where I've used word processing is to use a laptop and LCD projector to create a virtual environment in showing students how to approach and complete specific components of their research paper. One such instance was to construct, right in class, the first paragraph of a research paper that included the context and topic sentence. It was then saved as a document and posted on the SSF the next time we visited the computer lab to serve as a guide in writing the paper.

My intent during the future, as I learn more about the technology available by virtue of taking this EDU 839 course, is to search out exemplary web based content that ties directly to my courses that makes use of having students utilize word processing. Contrary to popular belief, students are not as savvy and comfortable using word processing programs as one would assume - using word processing as often as possible will alleviate this situation.