Haley Ballentine

Creative Writing with Technology

       This presentation was very interesting to me. I have never thought of using technology with the writing process or with creative writing. One of the ideas that was given was using Popplet as a brainstorming tool. Popplet helps to organize ideas as well as promote collaboration. The tool is a “mind mapping” tool and once the Popplet is done, it can be exported as a PDF. There are some kid-friendly search engines that were mentioned as well. Kidrex and Kiddle were two that were named during the presentation. These search engines are by Google and are free. They prompt kid-friendly sites and block inappropriate content which is important in this day and time. Some other kid-friendly sites that were mentioned was Pebble Go 365, Brain Pop, Brain Pop Jr., National Geographic Kids, and Britannica School Edition. Another way to use technology in creative writing and the writing process is to use it to focus on a skill. Some tools that were mentioned were Tagxedo. Tagxedo can be used to review or focus on a specific part of speech. Visuwords was another tool that was mentioned. This is a visual dictionary and thesaurus and it moves beyond just synonyms. For drafting, editing, and revising in the writing process, the presentation mentioned Google Docs, Peer Reviewing, Google Draw, and Visual Brainstorming. My favorite out of these is Google Docs. The presentation gave many examples of ways to publish writing using technology. Little Bird Tales was one of these. This tool is free, and it creates digital stories that can be shared. Book Creator is an app that was mentioned for publishing and it is $4.99 or free on the app store. The stories that are made can be published in the iBook store. Gone Google is another publishing tool that was mentioned that I absolutely loved. It is a digital tool and it is video of people editing a Google Doc as story characters. The example that was given was The 3 Little Pigs story. It was so entertaining and engaging just from watching it. The last tool that was discussed was Storybird. This tool inspires writing by using art. This tool prevents “blank page syndrome” and there are many ways to publish the stories that are written. I cannot wait to use these tools for the writing process and creative writing.