Many of us learned to apply the writing process on paper. Organizing, drafting, editing, and revising. A teacher then provided written feedback, marking up the paper’s margins. When computers entered the equation, the process became digitized. Graphic organizer tools such as Inspiration allowed for planning and students began to draft digitally with word processing programs. It became possible for teachers to offer feedback by inserting comments directly in the file. The process became more efficient and public as works could be published to the web.
With iPads, now the writing process is poised for further improvement. The device allows for writing to transcend and redefine what’s possible.
Using a tablet, students and teachers can organize and draft through handwriting, drawing, text, and voice; collaborate and incorporate multimodal feedback; and create a finished product that can convey beyond what a traditional “paper” can.
With iPads, the digitized writing process has been mobilized. A student who benefits from the tactile nature of handwriting can brainstorm his ideas on paper, capture of photo of his ideas, import the picture into a word processing app, and continue typing his work. Another student may outline by hand with Penultimate, sync to Evernote, and then incorporate Siri to dictate her ideas.
In short, the iPad allows a multitude of options, from using apps such as Popplet and Idea Sketch to capture their ideas to employing ScreenChomp to provide audio/video feedback. Student and teachers can incorporate any or all of the volume of writing capabilities to create a custom writing process that best fits their learning styles.