Writing for your Digital Lapbook

Communicating well through writing is an essential skill for students today. E-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, commenting, text messaging on their phone-- the list of new ways to communicate through writing seems to grow daily.

Having an audience and reason for writing is a great way to motivate your homeschool student to write well and present their best to the world.

Word Processors

OpenOffice is a wonderful suite of software that is open source (free!) and includes OpenOffice Writer as a word processor. It looks and works similarly to Microsoft Word or Works. You can save your files in the Open Office format, as a Word document, or a pdf file.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a free online word processor and spread sheet creator. It is fairly basic in function, but it does have the advantage of being able to collaborate on documents with other users online. The files can be saved online (through your free Google account) or to your computer as a Word document, Open Office document, or PDF.

AbiWord is another free word processor. It is not an internet app, but a downloadable, full featured word processor.

Typing

Typing is a very important skill for students these days. If your student is still learning to type, a fun online typing tutor can be found on the BBC School site.

Creative Writing / Collaborative Stories

A great idea for creative writing is to use a simple wiki to create a collaborative story. You can create the first chapter and then invite other homeschoolers that you know to add in more chapters.

Research and Notes

Diigo
Take notes, bookmark sites, add highlights to websites -- plus you can keep it all private.

Google Notebook
Another great online way of keeping track of research online. It is free! Just download and install it. Then when you are on a site that you want to remember, just highlight a section and right click. Then you choose "add to notebook".