Neligh-Oakdale Teachers Present At Technology Conference

Neligh-Oakdale teachers demonstrated to educators from across the state Thursday how technology can be used to enhance writing.

Five Neligh-Oakdale teachers presented “Writing and Technology” at the 2014 Nebraska Educational Technology Association (NETA) convention in LaVista. More than 2,500 teachers, administrators and board members are attending the two-day event.

Elementary teachers Sharon Kinnan, third grade; Rick Eickholt, fourth grade; and Jennifer Korus, fifth grade; along with language arts teachers Nichole Schmitz and Kristina Nolze presented during the Poster/Playground Session.

Kinnan talked about the Scribble Press App that allows her students to create stories on the iPad. Student write stories, create illustrations and publish them digitally through iBook.

Eickholt said his classes have language warm-up each morning during AYP time with the students using the Promethium board for language arts. He also uses a visual thesaurus.

In fifth grade, Korus said she utilizes Dictionary.com on the iPad to look up a word of the day, listen to the pronunciation, record the definition, use the word in a sentence, draw illustrations and write paragraphs with the new word.

Nolze utilizes Google Docs with her eighth-graders on writing assignments. She said it allows her to see what students were writing and immediately critique their work and add suggestions to the documents.

Nolze said students have benefited from the engagement of the process and quickly improved their writing thanks to the immediate interaction of the process.

Schmitz also uses Google Docs for the writing process and the 6+1 traits of writing. She said students are able to understand the rubric better as they go through the prewriting, drafting, review and writing steps.