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New ways of communicating challenge us to rethink the ways that we define both the acts of writing and the texts that are created. How can technology be constitutive for reflective and interactive writing during field practice in higher education? This paper reports on a study in which six student teachers wrote logs in an asynchronous LMS-based discussion forum that offered a practice of online interaction between the students, their mentors and lecturers. This resulted in discussions dominated by a two-way interaction between the lecturer and the individual student, but also the achievement of prolonged forum reflections and students' acquisition of theory. This paper examines some of the challenges of the instructor role in collaborative online learning environments. Keywords learning management system (lms), discussion forum, collaborative learning environments, facilitator strategies 1. This article is based on data from an ongoing project, SKRIVUT 2012SKRIVUT -2015 aims to establish and develop collaborative learning environments in different digital formats, to enhance the interplay between practice and theory in the teacher education program at Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag (Dons, Klemp, Nilssen & Strømman, 2013).

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Digital technologies have the potential to shift literacy practices, as the act of writing involves great semiotic and technological complexity. This paper examines the reported capabilities of iPads and writing-specific apps used in writing activities in a Norwegian elementary classroom. A written assignment was designed to inquire into students' perceptions of creating texts using iPads. The analyses of 42 student essays and questionnaires yielded three categories that contribute inherently to the description of writing with iPads: functionality, interaction, and multimodality. This paper presents how affordances of iPads and apps facilitate the writing process, enhance co-creation and sharing of texts, and help shape multimodal representations in students' writing. In relation to these themes, this paper discusses how iPads and apps offer possibilities for writers, as well as presenting challenges and limitations for them.

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