How technology can improve your writing skills (Online resources)

The writing skill is the one that my students most struggle with and I think it's due to the lack of the knowledge of those tips and techniques that can make their art of writing more attractive.

Here are some amazing effective online tools that can help your students:

 

 

 

ReadWriteThink – Student Interactives

This page is a great source of interactive tools that help students accomplish various goals, from organizing their thoughts to learning about different aspects of the English language. Some of the most popular tools for grades K-12 include Story Map, Persuasion Map, Word Family Sort, Acrostic Poems, Trading Card Generator and Comic Creator. You can choose different tools based on the grade level, capabilities, student interactive type, theme, and learning objective. 

 

 Interactive Sites for Education

This website serves as a resourceful guide to English language arts topics. You can find educational, interactive games and simulations for grades K-5 in the categories of grammar, compound words, capitalization, phonemes and words, punctuation, poetry, reading and sight words, parts of speech, writing and rhyming. These activities work well with an interactive whiteboard. However, you can also recommend them for individual learning at home. 

 

Graphic Organizers 

Young students can hardly manage all the ideas they get if you leave them in front of a piece of paper and saying they should write an essay right away. The process requires pre-writing stages, where these graphic organizers will be of great help. Your students can use them as a way of putting their ideas and notes in order. Then, the actual writing stage will be much more focused. 

 

Teach the Children Well – Language Arts

This website may not be that appealing in terms of design, but it’s a great base of resources that will help you become a better teacher. This is actually a collection of awesome articles related to writing. Every educator should spend time examining these resources as they progress through different teaching methods.

 

Free Writing Resources

Time4Writing.com is mostly known for the eight-week online writing courses it offers. However, the website is also a great source of free resources in seven categories: teaching writing, writing skills, writing sentences, writing paragraphs, writing mechanics, writing essays and standardized-test writing.

 

Guide to Grammar and Writing

This website offers comprehensive lessons on all aspects of English grammar and writing. You will easily locate all materials you need in the Index, which includes links to all resources of the Guide to Grammar and Writing, as well as Principles of Composition. This online source is like the grammar textbook you always wished to have. Now you can use it to make the lectures more accessible for your students.

 

WordCounter

When you assign a specific word count for a piece of writing, you want your students to respect it. This tool will help them achieve that goal. It will not only provide them with a correct number of words in their essays, but will also enable them to locate repetitive words and phrases.

 

Teen Ink

This well-established magazine publishes high-quality essays and other written forms created by students. The categories at the website include nonfiction, poetry and fiction. There is no need to subscribe to the monthly print magazine; all you need to do is recommend the website as a source of inspiration. You can select some of the featured essays and read them in class in order to show great samples of academic content.

 

 My Access! is an award-winning writing and assessment solution that provides immediate feedback on your content, motivating you to write more. The program covers more than 1,500 topics in social studies, language arts, science, and math. When you create the paper, this tool will immediately provide you with feedback in the following categories: Language Use, Voice, and Style; Organization; Content and Development; Mechanics and Conventions; and Focus and Meaning.

 

Odyssey Writer is a convenient tool that makes the process of composing content much more efficient and less time-consuming. The tool will stimulate your desire to work on papers by making writing fun. Odyssey Writer will navigate you through the four writing phrases by using interesting techniques.

 

StoryBird will enable you to express your thoughts more creatively by helping you to create short stories inspired by beautiful art. You can also read other users’ stories on the website, as well as share your own creations.

 

TutorsClass is a tutoring platform where you can communicate with licensed tutors and ask for any type of academic help you need. When it comes to the quality of your writing, you will appreciate the feedback from a real educator who will prepare you how to get great grades from your teacher at school. If you don’t have any ideas about a particular topic and you need a little push, the professional tutor from this service will help you with valuable advice and feedback.

 

 

 

 

Sources:

https://thejournal.com/Articles/2015/06/25/15-Online-Resources-That-Help-Improve-Essay-Writing-Skills.aspx?Page=2

http://collegepuzzle.stanford.edu/?p=3891