She demonstrated Interchange, the real-time conferencing component of the program, at a recent technology conference at Germantown Academy. Interchange allows users to hold online discussions with groups of any size. It creates private conferencing areas that are easy to set up and manage. McBride said activities of that sort build collegiality and create a sustained focus. Because they have an immediate audience, the level of student writing is elevated, she said.
Students know they are being judged by what they write.
Ceramics students used it in a conference to critique a pot. English students played the characters in Macbeth . McBride said that some students who do not show their best thinking in class discussion may shine in their writing on the computer. McBride uses transcripts of the discussions for class analysis. Claudine Keenan, lecturer and computers and writing specialist at Pennsylvania State University's Allentown campus, is also an advocate of online conferencing in writing instruction.