If you work with student writers, you know that motivation is critical. Are your students motivated to write? Are they excited about sharing their ideas, writing stories, or conducting research and telling the world about what they’ve learned? To make writing fun this school year, the team at Pressto has created a platform to motivate students. And it can help students write critically and learn media literacy at the same time!
In today’s blog post, I’ll share tips for how to make writing fun this school year. We’ll also look at some crucial media literacy connections to consider. You’ll also hear about Pressto and how it can make writing accessible to all learners!
Make Writing Fun
Pressto is a writing and micro-journalism platform for Kindergarten through Middle School. They teach students across the globe to communicate more clearly and process and interpret information in a healthy way. As you can see in the video below, Pressto helps students write, publish and share.
Students can pick a topic they are passionate about and share their writing with an audience of readers. Then, they take on the role of journalist and write and publish their own mini-magazine or zine. Students can jump into the simple platform, choose from just a few templates and get feedback as they write.
Not only are students writing with a clear purpose, but they are learning to strengthen their writing skills, too. If you’ve worked with student writers of any age, you know that timely, relevant feedback is essential. I love how students receive tips as they work through a writing piece in Pressto.
Boost Student Engagement
Whether students are writing about a community project or a favorite topic, Pressto gives them the space to share their stories. Pressto considers the needs of student writers throughout the writing process. Students can combine images and text as they write and have the opportunity to share their writing online or offline.
Are you looking to motivate student writers and boost engagement this year? This digital space allows students to write about their interests and share their creations with others. In addition, you might tie in other standards-aligned goals around informational text structure, crafting topic sentences, or any different topic that is high-priority for your group of students.
Media Literacy Connections
In my new book, EdTech Essentials: The Top 10 Technology Strategies for All Learning Environments, I talk about media literacy in the very first chapter when looking at strategies for navigating online spaces. “Navigating online spaces effectively is an essential skill that is directly tied to media literacy and is a component of media literacy education” (page 6).
To help students understand the importance of media literacy, you can put them in the driver’s seat with Pressto. While students are engaged in writing activities, Pressto teaches media literacy and critical writing skills. Students can think about how they are communicating information to their readers and presenting ideas, so it is easy to understand and decide on the best way to share their writing.
As consumers of content, students are often on the other side of this relationship, reading or viewing what someone else has made. However, as creators of content, students can become better informed about the process and ready to think critically about the content they consume.
Head over to Pressto’s website to learn more about getting started with this writing platform. There is also a page full of case studies to explore that give you a sense of what Pressto looks like in action. As a former NYC public school teacher, I loved hearing some of these stories from NYC teachers using Pressto. I can’t wait to see what your student writers create as you make writing fun this school year!
