Sharpen up your writing skills together! Social Writing Edtech Platforms

Image courtesy of Erich Stüssi

Today I’m sharing edtech websites and apps that can help students improve their writing. I’ve gathered edtech resources that promote better writing through social learning. These resources provide users an online space to practice and share their written work. They encourage peer to peer learning by allowing users to give feedback on each other’s work. Writers can also learn from each other by observing the written works of their peers . These edtech tools are great for teachers who want students to learn better writing through their peers. 

Here are a few social writing platforms to get you started:

Write About

What this Resource has: Teacher Feedback Tools, Student Activity Dashboard, Student Social Features, Teacher to Teacher Collaborations
Grade Level: 3-12
Audience: Teachers & Learners
Platform: Web-based
Price: Free
What it does well: Write About is a great online writing community for teachers and their students. Teachers can facilitate writing assignments and provide feedback for all students in their classroom. They can also receive support and ideas from their fellow teachers on the site. Students can view their classmates’ written work as well as the public works of students from other schools.

Story Bird

What this Resource has: Writing Platform, E-book Library
Grade Level: 3-12
Audience: Learners
Platform: Web-based
Price: Free
What it does well: Story Bird is a family friendly website that allows its users to create stories with great visuals. In addition to writing students can also read the written works of other users. An interesting aspect is Story Bird is that it categories its library by three categories: stories, poetry, and blogs. It also allows writers to use tags that will make their stories easier to find.

Write the World

What this Resource has: Online Community
Grade Level: 3-12
Audience: Learners
Platform: Web-based
Price: Free
What it does well: Write the World is an online writing community for young writers. Some interesting features of this website that makes out stand out include writing prompts, challenges, and competitions. Through these learning features the site helps its users get the ideas and encouragement needed to start writing which I think it’s the most difficult part of the process.

Widbook

What this Resource has: E-book Writing Platform
Grade Level: 3-5
Audience: Learners
Platform: Web-based, App Store, Google Play
Price: Free
What it does well: Widbook is an online platform where users can write and publish their own e-books. One notable feature of this writing platform is that use do not necessarily need to complete their e-book before publishing. They can receive feedback from other users as they’re writing their story. Widbook also allows users to insert images, videos, and links into their e-books. 

So there you have it four edtech resources that promote better writing through social learning. If you have any similar edtech resources that weren’t mentioned on this list then please share in the comments below.

Check out this Pinterest board full of edtech resources that can help improve your grammar and writing skills.

http://www.pinterest.com/edtechfunction/grammar-writing-english-edtech-tools/