Writing teachers working to stay ahead-of-the-code
Who are we?
We are teachers who teach writing and use writing as a way of learning across disciplines. We are, in effect, a blogging circle.
All of us are part of the broad and diverse National Writing Project (NWP), a network of educators across all subjects and disciplines, K- university, working both in and out of schools begun at the University of California in 1974. As part of the NWP, we are used to working together in local writing project sites and in our national network to think about teaching and learning with an inquiry stance, improving our practice together and learning from research in the field and also our teaching experiences. We also write and learn about the teaching of writing by being writers ourselves.
On this blog, we are trying to “stay ahead of the code.”
What do we mean by ahead-of-the-code?
AI. NPL. Machine learning. Writing assistance tools. Stuff we haven’t even named yet. And the stuff is already ‘here.’
In summer 2020, with a support and partnership from The Learning Agency, our set of roughly 35 educators committed to forming a blogging network to reflect on the growing use of AI-powered writing assistance tools in our classrooms. We found little public writing by teachers about these rapidly developing technologies, and the absence of teachers’ and students’ perspectives, grounded in real teaching situations, is a real problem. It is a problem for technology development, a problem for educational decision-making, and a problem for the teaching profession: where there is no conversation, there are likely to be no pathways for serious product or leadership development.
So we wanted to jump-start a conversation. And we want to keep it real. Real questions, real classrooms, real student reactions.
So what are we up to?
Our idea is to observe, reflect on, and study (along with our students), the potential of this growing area of educational technology to benefit or to limit student learning. We imagine it can do “both/and,” and predict that as with most things in education, “it depends.”
We have decided to do our thinking and inquiry in public, both on our individual Medium pages and through submissions to this group publication. Our writing is likely to be tentative and exploratory, and each of us might change our minds numerous times. Perspectives, unless otherwise labeled, belong to the writer. If your interest is in more refined and definite perspectives or in NWP organizational statements, you will have to wait until we better know what we think. But if our questions interest you as well, we invite you to converse with us.
As a blogging network in the NWP, we are affiliated with no specific set of tools, technology companies, or reform networks. We generally work with technology tools that have been chosen for us in our districts, configured according to district administrative mandates, though some of us may have some leeway to make local choices. We have greater latitude in what we choose to use as adult consumers, so we will reflect on our experiences as writers as well.
In general, our aim is to live up to the spirit and mission of the National Writing Project:
The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation’s educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners.
Thanks for visiting.
