Digital Notebook

Sometimes the best lessons happen spontaneously. Today, Julia asked to stay in from recess. I don't usually allow them to stay in so I asked her what she thought she would do if she stayed in. "Well, I thought I could write on that paper that shows the writing on the computer (digital notebook). My first thought was "Yeah, she wants to write," and then I thought "why not try it". So, she stayed in and I set her up on the computer and notebook, but before I walked away to do prep work for the next lesson, I pressed the 'record' button. She did not even know the computer was recording her pen strokes and she just wrote away (she wrote for 20 minutes without stopping. When the kids came in from recess, we gathered on the carpet and I pressed the 'play' button. To her amazement and her classmates, her writing started to show up on the screen. We saw how she formed her letters, paused to think, edited her writing and so much more. From just watching her free writing, I could tell what she knows about writing. She knows to make her letters from the top down (very important), she uses known sight words and beginning, middle and end sounds, knows "ing", leaves spaces between her words, writes from left to right, rereads what she has written and edits, knows that it is ok to change her mind and start over, and I could go on and on. Of course, now everyone wants to do it. I am thinking that I will let one person each day stay in to write and record their writing. I will be able to assess everyone's writing and learn what they know about writing. It is much less time consuming than my old assessment technique. The other benefit is that I can save their writing and look at it when I record grades. The next thing to think about is how I could create digital portfolios that can be shared with parents.