Sixth grade language arts teacher Julie Ramsay was disheartened at her students' lack of interest in writing, so she began looking at what they were doing online to see if she could bring some of those experiences to the classroom. She saw that students enjoyed having opportunities to share their experiences with an audience and receive near-instant feedback on their ideas. But students didn't necessarily see these online communications as writing. Once Ramsay guided students to broaden their definition of writing, their attitude changed. They began blogging, often without prompts, about what they learned in class and commenting on one another's blog posts. Connecting with other classrooms motivated students to improve their writing and showed them how important it is to consider others' perspectives when sharing their ideas. For example, the students were amazed to learn that students in a partner classroom in Great Britain didn't know about the American Revolution. These connections also led students to engage in collaborative projects, creating videos and writing public service announcements. Ramsay was able to give feedback as needed as students worked on their writing projects. Students created rubrics together and used those to guide their work as they collaborated, pushing one another to greater heights in their writing.