Just recently, though, I ran across a suggestion to use it with students more directly. I plan to make a video podcast of this tip, and I’ll eventually post that video podcast here.
But since my students won’t be ready for that for quite a while, I thought I’d post the script that I’ve prepared for that podcast here. Because it’s a bit long, intended to be heard, not read, I’ll give you a summary first, then the more involved version.

Summary:

1. Students type their writing in MS Word.
2. Use Spelling & Grammar to check the readability of their own work. At first, they will likely be disappointed to see what a low grade level their writing is.
3. Encourage them to add compound sentences, complex sentences, or more clauses & phrases.
4. Students use the same feature again to see if the readability has gone up.

Here’s an example that I tried.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. = Level 2.3 (meaning 2nd grade, 3rd month)

After sleeping for most of the morning, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. = Level 6.1

Even though he was tired from jumping over the candlestick with Jack, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, who awoke with a yelp. = Level 9.9

More involved version:

MS Word – Readability Statistics
Here’s how to use Microsoft Word to evaluate the reading level of something that you have written.

In Microsoft Word, go to the application menu to access the Preferences. Choose Spelling and Grammar from the left, and then check the box that says “Show readability statistics”
You might have to check “Check grammar with spelling” first, so that the Show readability statistics box will be available and not grayed out.
Once you have done this, you’re ready to go.

In the document that you wish to check, go to the Tools menu and select Spelling and Grammar. This will first spell-check and grammar-check your document. At the end of this process, you will get a window that shows you the readability statistics. It includes:

Counts, which will simply count how many words, characters, paragraphs, and sentences you’ve typed.

Averages, which gives you some other statistics like sentences per paragraph, words per sentence, and characters per word.

Finally, in the bottom section of the window, you’ll see Readability. This is the part that tells you at what reading level you are writing. The number you want to really focus on is the bottom one, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. This example, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” shows that I have written at a Readability level of (2.3).

If I click OK, and then change my writing to include some more compound sentences, complex sentences, or things like that, then I can do the same process again, and see whether my writing level has gone up.

Let’s change the sentence a little: After sleeping for most of the morning, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Now let’s go to Tools, Spelling & Grammar, and see what the readability level is now. (6.1)

Now, what if we add another phrase to the end of the sentence:
Even though he was tired from jumping over the candlestick with Jack, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, who awoke with a yelp. (9.9)

This is just one measure, and not the ultimate answer of the universe about your writing level. However, it might help you to evaluate your writing and encourage you to write at a higher level.

First, we came up with a general scope and sequence of what things we wanted to teach our students throughout the year regarding technology. We identified skills and topics in the areas of:

1. Basic Intro to our hardware, software, rules and expectations

a. Procedures & Routines regarding the iBooks (every 4 teachers has a cart of 30 to share between them)
b. The Anatomy of the iBook

2. Mavis Beacon (the keyboarding program we use)
3. Safari (using a web browser)
4. Renaissance Place (including Accelerated Reader)
5. Basic research (web and otherwise)
6. World Book Encyclopedia
7. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint

Then, we split into a couple of smaller groups to concentrate on our areas of interest and expertise. We created various supports for teachers to teach the above skills and topics. Depending on the topic and need, these supports took the form of:
1. Lesson plans
2. “Kits” of documents for students to manipulate as lessons are followed
3. Templates for students to start from when doing activities
4. PowerPoint presentations to guide teachers through teaching some of these skills
5. Videos (made with SnapzPro) of us modeling some of these skills
6. A video podcast containing these videos in an RSS feed

As several of us said throughout the course of the week, this was a wonderful opportunity to do some things that we just never found the time to do during the regular school year. It never made it to the top of the priority list. It was great to have some time to really do it right, so we know that:

• when we want to teach these things, we’ll really be ready,
• our students will be much more technologically literate, and
• we’ll be ready to take our students to the next level, using our technology tools to foster further engagement and retention with our curriculum, and pushing students above and beyond what we or they can imagine right now!

It was a very stimulating time, and we made a lot of significant progress, which shows a lot of promise.

And finally, it was just an awful lot of fun! Much of our time was spent with us in the same room, each on our computers, sometimes talking/collaborating/discussing, but other times working quietly. At these times, we all seemed to get the same song in our head:
We happened to watch this YouTube video toward the beginning of the week, and we were never able to completely get this song out of our heads, and weren’t able to quit enjoying making each other laugh. There’s definitely something to be said for enjoying where you work, and who you work with.