Students need to develop their writing skills in order to achieve success in their academic careers, professional lives, and personal lives. Because writing is such a complex skill, it is essential that they have access to adequate practise opportunities and instructional materials in order to achieve this goal. Therefore, one of the primary purposes of formal education is to instil in pupils the ability to employ this multifaceted instrument in an efficient and adaptable manner.
In addition to teaching students how to write formally in the classroom, educators should develop their own writing skills and make effective use of the digital tools and platforms that are currently available. After that, the skill can be passed on to their students. Writing provides students with the opportunity to learn all of the rules of their language and the means by which they can better organise their ideas and use the language in a coherent manner.
Writing a blog presents a number of opportunities for personal growth, and this is true not only for students but also for their teachers. Blogging provides opportunities for reinforcement and feedback in the form of comments from readers beyond the immediate community of the classroom. This can be a driver of both self-esteem as well as personal growth and development, as well as confidence.
Medium is one of the better known free blogging platforms. The site features amateur writers alongside well-known writers for major media publications. The site is popular among bloggers because it is free for writers, requires no web design or technical expertise, and its posts are beautifully formatted.
Medium can be an excellent addition to your academic toolkit, whether you use it for a group project or ask your students to submit assignments via its interface. With its WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, Medium simplifies the publishing process in comparison to traditional blogging platforms by putting the emphasis on content creation rather than form.
What are some ways that teachers can use Medium in the classroom? How can educators integrate Medium into their lesson plans?
Amongst other things, Medium gives teachers the ability to:
Receive prompt and timely feedback from the general public or from anyone with whom you share a published story or draft;
Publish a story that is only accessible to your peers or students for a more focused exchange of ideas.
Encourage collaborative annotations and pertinent comments from your peers or students through a relevant assignment or discussion.
Medium’s layout makes readers’ comments relevant to specific sections of your text without visually interfering in it.
Create a unique tag to catalogue all of your course's work and make it simple to locate student-created posts;
Create a publication rather than a tag to collect the work of your students. Publications may collect stories by multiple authors, managed by one or more editors.
Follow specific authors and/or collections that are pertinent to the course (instructor's profile, guest lecturers', students', or even a particular topic);
Look at the following examples of Medium publications.
The world of academia is vast and vibrant—full of exciting anecdotes. This publication presents stories of the trials and tribulations of academics (educators) in their journey to become scholars in the world of academia.
Elemental is a new Medium publication for science-backed health and wellness coverage. Every day, you will find new ambitious and trustworthy reporting on the many ways to live a healthy life.
Watch the following video to learn how to get started writing on Medium.
Create your first blog post. This article reflects your journey to enrol in this course. How do you feel when the invitation letter arrives? Are you prepared mentally? Describe your journey. Share your hopes and aspirations. Add pictures, videos, a photo gallery, quotes, etc.
Publish the article and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your article.
Share the link to your article on this Google Sheet.
Watch the following video to learn how to create a publication (with multiple authors) on Medium.
Create a publication for your course (or a general topic), customize it, and add students (or your co-teachers) as authors or editors (depending on how much publishing autonomy you’d like to give them).
Publish the publication and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your publication.
Share the link to your publication on this Google Sheet.
Want to start your own blog but are worried you won't have enough material to write about? Yes, a lengthy blog post may not be suitable for everyone and it may be a stumbling block for some people to start blogging.
Fret not! The Tumblr blogging platform allows users to create short or long, multimedia-rich posts using their browser or mobile phone. It's a cross between a microblogging service like Twitter and a full-fledged blogging platform like WordPress, Blogger, and Medium.
The idea behind microblogging is to be quick and efficient. The write up is usually short and to-the-point. Image, video, and audio can all be added as multimedia elements.
Tumblr is for people who don't have enough content or time to write a full blog but still want to write and share links and images.
Watch the following video to learn how to get started blogging on Tumblr.
Spend some time browsing my Tumblr, Vibrant Colours of Life.
Choose the template and the theme of your Tumblr.
Google this phrase: 'Quotes on education'. Choose one from the list.
Using the selected quote, create a simple graphic in Canva.
Create your first Tumblr blog post based on the quote.
Publish the article and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your article.
Share the link to your article on this Google Sheet.
Adobe Creative Cloud Express, formerly known as Adobe Spark, is a user-friendly app suite developed by Adobe for the creation of simple graphic designs and other types of content. It features an image editor, a website builder, and a video-making tool, all of which are able to produce content that is uncomplicated yet beautiful and powerful, and none of them require any prior experience with design or the investment of any time in learning how they work.
Take a look at my Travelogue which I created using the website component in Adobe Cloud Express.
Watch the following video to learn how to use Adobe Cloud Express to create a website.
Create a travelogue using the website component in Adobe Cloud Express.
Most people enjoy a well-crafted story. Do you?
Stories have the power to captivate, engage, and make us think. Every culture has its own storytelling tradition: even if the story is the same, the way it is told will have nuances and cultural norms of its own. It could have a variety of origins, translations, and meanings.
A great storyteller can change people's minds and actions by using vivid imagery. "Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader's arsenal," says Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Leaders such as Martin Luther King, M.K. Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela have used their voices and stories to motivate people to action and revolution in recent decades.
I have written a blog article, The Power of Story and Anecdotes. Check it out.
Watch the following video (2.32 min) about the power of storytelling.
Wattpad is a "social story-telling platform," according to its website. It's a story discovery platform.
Wattpad can be thought of as a social network for writers and readers. It makes use of technology and community to assist writers in finding an audience for their stories, as well as readers in discovering new up-and-coming authors to check out and follow.
It's simple to look for stories and add your own; this is a great place for readers and writers to share their love of storytelling. Keep in mind, however, that there's a good chance students will come across inappropriate content; proceed with caution.
Watch the following video to learn how to get started writing your story on Wattpad.
Spend some time browsing my Wattpad story, Sungai, Laut dan Kehidupan.
Create a storybook.
Write one or two short stories.
Publish the story and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your story.
Share the link to your story on this Google Sheet.
In 1979, the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks came to be, bringing with them a new and innovative approach to storytelling. Giving readers free rein to choose how the story goes has inspired a lot of books, games, and even movies since then.
Interactive storytelling is showcasing a story with an undetermined ending. Unlike normal stories, this method of storytelling offers the audience alternative endings depending on their choices. This, in turn, makes them active participants rather than just passive observers or recipients of the story.
With inklewriter, you can create interactive, choose-your-own-adventure (branching) stories. Anyone can use this app to create a story and then share it with others via a unique URL.
It's ideal for writers who want to experiment with interactivity, as well as teachers and students interested in combining computer skills with creative writing. The inklewriter allows you to write while playing, branching the story with choices and then linking them back together.
Create your interactive story.
Publish the story and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your story.
Share the link to your story on this Google Sheet.
Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.
Users with limited or no coding experience can add text and easily create stories. Users with more experience in coding can alter Twine’s JavaScript or CSS stylesheets to change the background colors, add images, audio, and more.
Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes.
Here is an example of how Twine might fit within the SAMR model:
Substitution: Students can use Twine to read text-based stories instead of reading from a book.
Augmentation: Students can use Twine to interact with text, games, and stories to deepen their understanding.
Modification: Students can choose several outcomes of what they read. Students can choose the direction in which they want the story to go and explore different endings.
Redefinition: Students can create their own interactive stories/games on their own to share with classmates.
Create your interactive story.
Publish the story and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your story.
Share the link to your story on this Google Sheet.
Genially is a versatile and powerful online tool for creating visual interactive and animated content without having to learn scripting or coding. It is designed mainly for creating interactive presentations, but for creative content creators, Genially can be used to create a highly interactive story and adventure game.
Create your interactive story.
Publish the story and send your friends or colleagues the link. Request that they comment or provide feedback on your story.
Share the link to your story on this Google Sheet.
eBooks, or electronic books, are simply files that can be read on digital devices such as tablets, smartphones, computers, and so on.
Another important characteristic is that a true eBook should be reflowable. This means that no matter what the size of the screen you’re viewing the eBook on, it will always fit your screen; text will remain formatted with line breaks and chapters and images will resize to fit the proportions of the device you’re reading on.
There are three main eBook formats: EBUP, AZW, and PDF.
Install the Print Friendly & PDF Chrome extension on the Chrome bar.
Select several articles from the Edutopia website for this exercise and convert each to PDF using Print Friendly & PDF.
Using the Canva PDF editor, combine multiple PDF files into a single document.
Using the Canva PDF editor, make additional edits (adding a book cover, TOC, etc.).
Putting together well-organized and visually appealing eBooks is a breeze with the help of Canva. It also does not matter if you have ever designed anything in your life because it comes with pre-made templates and tools that allow you to drag and drop elements. You are able to create an eBook that appears to be professionally published and will capture readers' attention.
You have the option to use a web-based Canva or download it to your computer.
Search 'ebook template' or be more specific, for example, 'ebook wellness', 'ebook travel', etc.
Choose your preferred template.
Customise the content, graphics, etc.
Download the eBook as a PDF.
Book Creator is the one app you need for any subject or class level to bring creativity to your classroom. The app is “The simple way to create beautiful ebooks” as is branded on their website.
Using Book Creator application, you can combine text, images, audio and video to create interactive stories, digital portfolios, poetry books, instruction manuals, comic adventures, etc.
Create a book.
Download the eBook as a PDF.
A digital flipbook is an interactive e-book that looks just like a printed publication, with pages that can be flipped and turned. It preserves the traditional look and feel of a paper book but includes interactive elements like links and navigation.
With the best flipbook software apps, you can create high-quality digital publications that look great and keep your audience engaged. Users can upload a PDF or presentation file and convert it into a flipbook format for a website.
With the best flipbook software apps, you can create high-quality digital publications that look great and keep your audience engaged.
Some advantages to using flipbooks are:
they look like actual magazines, so the format is familiar
can be shared on social media, websites, and/or designated servers
often have embedded multi-media elements
are beautiful to look at
Upload the PDF file of the book and convert it to a flipbook.
Share the link.
There are numerous tools that writers can use to enhance their writing workflow and make it more productive.
Quillbot - QuillBot is an excellent tool for paraphrasing. Not only does it increase your productivity, but it does so without altering the meaning of the original content you are writing. QuillBot is an excellent investment that will save you time and effort when creating new, original content.
Grammarly—From grammar and spelling to style and tone, Grammarly’s suggestions are comprehensive, helping you communicate effectively and as you intend.
Headline Analyzer - This tool assists authors in crafting a title that will entice readers to read their article.