On Thursday, NCTE hosted a Twitter frenzy on #WhyIWrite to celebrate National Day on Writing. I gave myself an assignment spurred on by the many posts I read about Why I Write. I collected quotes and added them to images. I posted a few here. I also tweeted them out throughout the day on Thursday.
I asked my students to write on this topic and tweeted out their responses using Word Swag, an iPhone app.
Any time you use a new application, you have to commit yourself to patience, practice, and persistence. Even my mother is learning about the three Ps as she switches my dad to Mac from PC.
Kids are so much more adept at this than we are as adults. They know right off that anything new will take patience. Two of my 6th grade boys have decided to do a project that uses animation. I was amazed at the concentrated time they spent to get a stick figure to move his arm up and down.
Digital literacies motivate us to put in the practice it takes to learn something new. We all know this, so we seem to have more patience when it comes to learning a new app. Don’t you hate it when your phone updates and something you have become accustomed to changes? I still swipe when I want to access my iPhone, but some genius thought it would be easier to hit the Home button. Persistence. I keep missing it, and by the time it becomes a habit, something else will change.
Face it, we are stuck with a constantly evolving universe of technology. But thanks to Word Swag, my iPhone, and a beautiful sunrise on the bayou today, I can create this quote from Mary Oliver.
Link your digital literacy posts below. Click to read more posts.
Margaret, this was a great prompt to open the discussions today. Please tell Jacob that I love his Word Swag inspiration, especially since it has my word believe in it. I hope the children add their voice to the Autumnventure Gallery.
Lovely, Margaret. Now I think I need to download this app!
[…] multiage class of first, second and third graders. And like Margaret Simon reminds us all in her #digilit post this week, that requires practice, patience, and persistence. Margaret was talking about the use of […]
I’ve been wanting to try this word swag you have been mentioning. If only I had the patience of a 6th grader! Love the quotes.
The images you chose match the quotes perfectly! Thanks for the heads up on Word Swag.