Wow! Never wanted to go to the Wisconsin Dells until I saw this event! Too late now but looks like the site is an awesome resource for all things Google Apps for Education. Now I need to find out when the Google Summit Northwest will be.
Conference Sessions – Midwest Google Summit.
We do peer editing in our class, of course. Sometimes I feel like the kids are going through the motions of looking for missed capitals or punctuation but are not really returning drafts with effective feedback. This, to me, is understandable when my 5th graders are really still learning to write themselves. I’ve been trying to think about how I can make this a deeper learning experience for all the students.
I started to think about how I could use “text -to- speech” apps or websites to help my students critique their own writing. So far, I started with the Speak It iphone app($1.99 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speak-it!-text-to-speech/id308629295?mt=8 )and have tested it with my own 8th grade son. I loved how it worked. He heard his own writing being read back to him and it was much easier for him to determine if he was making sense. The voice automatically pronounces words, so if a word is misspelled it was not understandable so he immediately knew to go back a correct the word.
Then I start to think this would be even more fun in Voki or sites like that. It’s not perfect, of course, but I think it could take my students’ writing to the next level. I wonder if anyone out there peer edits in this way? Any tips or tricks?
TESTING. TESTING. 