18 Digital Tools and Strategies That Support Students’ Reading and Writing. Teachers in Littleton, Colorado — like teachers in many places — are increasingly asking students to read and write online.
Free tools like Google Docs have made it easy for students to work on the same piece of writing at home and at school, and have allowed teachers to explore collaborative writing assignments and synchronous editing with students. There are also many digital tools that can support students as they learn how to read deeply, take well-cited notes, and navigate the writing process.
While many teachers are finding efficiency in allowing students to write and submit assignments online, not all students or teachers want to use the exact same set of tools. Don't Reinvent the Wheel, Add Rims! - Using the SAMR Model in the Foreign Language Classroom. As many schools continue to become one-to-one schools, or at least begin to increase the availability of laptop carts and computer lab use, many educators are becoming overwhelmed.
The feeling that they need to completely redo their curriculum, figuring out a way to make sure the students are using laptops every day, and the pressure from administration and parents to prove the laptops are worth having can put a strain on even the most seasoned veteran! However, after a year’s experience in a newly one-to-one school, I can assure you of a few things. First off, the parents and administration are there to be supportive, and the students are learning the ropes just as much as you are, and no, not every activity must be done on a laptop.
And most importantly, there’s no need to completely throw away your old lesson plans and start from scratch! Tools, Apps, & Ideas for Learning Grammar. “Who climbs the Grammar-Tree; distinctly knows Where Noun, and Verb, and Participle grows… “- Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Satire VI With digital devices, learners are writing and speaking everyday.
Often, our learners communicate with an international audience. Quill.org — Interactive Writing and Grammar. 6 Good Tools to Generate Writing Prompts. All writing starts with an idea which is then expanded and elaborated, but coming up with ideas to write about is not always easy particularly when you have to teach different classes.
This is where digital writing prompts come in handy.These are web tools that you can use to generate ideas and story starters for students to write about. I have compiled some of these tools for you below , check them out 1- Things to Think About Kids’ Things to Think About provides 100 prompts to spark thinking for written responses and encourage conversations about ideas and issues for kids. Created by students and teachers in Michigan, it can be used in classrooms or with families by allowing children to explore the prompts and by using them to guide a discussion or lesson.
This is a good tool that can helpyou generate new ideas to be used for writing short stories, plays or any other writing task. Writing Helper. Grammar Girl. Mignon Fogarty is the creator of Grammar Girl and the founder and managing director of Quick and Dirty Tips.
A magazine writer, technical writer, and entrepreneur, she has served as a senior editor and producer at a number of health and science web sites. She has a B.A. in English from the University of Washington in Seattle and an M.S. in biology from Stanford University. Mignon believes that learning is fun, and the vast rules of grammar are wonderful fodder for lifelong study. She strives to be a friendly guide in the writing world. QR Code Culture in a Box. This is a simple twist on a great project that many schools have done before for those who use mobile technology.
Basically, schools have sent each other (participating schools are from Finland, UK, USA, Romania, Dubai, & Spain) gifts that the children think represent their respective city. Shaw Wood Academy in our sister city Doncaster, after a lot of discussion and research about their local area, decided on play money (British pounds) to represent the shopping that can be done at the Frenchgate centre, animal masks to represent the local wildlife park as well as a small ball to represent Doncaster Rovers Football Club. Attached to each item was a QR (Quick Response) code created by the children that linked to the website of the place that it was representing. Therefore through the technology students have been able to harness more information about the different places.
Blogging With Students. Skip to content Blogging With Students This series guides you step by step through the process of class and student blogging.
Excellent Tool to Enhance Students' Reading Comprehension. November, 2014 Rewordify is a great web tool that you can use with your students and kids to help them read difficult passages.
Rewordify simplifies complex passages and render them reader-friendly. Students can paste in difficult sentences, paragraphs, or whole chapters and then click on "Rewordify text". They will then get a paraphrased version of their text with a simpler and easier vocabulary.The reworded words are highlighted which means that students can click on them to hear and learn the origin harder words. Rewordify also allows you to obtain a simplified version of any web page. Just paste in the URL of the webpage you want to read in the yellow box and hit 'Rewordify'.Watch the video below to learn more about how Rewordify works.
A Handy Assessment Rubric for Book Trailer Activities. Excellent Tools, Apps, and Tips to Create Educational Book Trailers. November 12, 2014 There are several ways to use technology to engage students and enhance their literacy skills and one of them is through creating video book trailers.
Yes, they are similar to movie trailers we see now on YouTube but they are different in scope. A video book trailer is a concise review of a book created with the help of a variety of digital tools that include : images, text, clips, voiceovers, recordings, and music. Why include book trailers in your instruction? Ngram Viewer. Building a Culture of Blogging. Over the last 3 years, we have built a thriving culture of blogging in our elementary school.
Each class (Pre-K to Grade 5) uses a blog as a hub of learning, literacy and reflection. Writing, photos and videos are added weekly, and often daily. In the upper years, students own individual learning blogs, to document the inquiry process. We are gradually training our parents to peek through these digital windows to see what their child learned this week! Why? Google Docs Features to Support the Collaborative Writing Process. Sharon J. Washington, executive director of the National Writing Project, said: “Today’s young people are using a range of digital tools to compose and create in new and exciting ways. The Power of Digital Story. Telling our story is an essential part of our humanness. It allows us to feel part of the community that knows our story, and it fosters empathy for those that surround us.
Story is a powerful force in shaping mental models, motivating and persuading others, and teaching the lessons of life. IB English A: Language & Literature: InThinking Sitemap. Easy Languages. Learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and English for free. Languages Online. Voki Home. 10 Social Media Tips for Reaching World Language Learners. Feeling outdated, not connected, or even totally lost in the digital age? Well, let me assure you, droning on and on about grammatical structures is a surefire way to quickly lose student interest in the world language classroom. Instead, embrace something which truly interests the millennial student: social media. Mix It Up! Authentic Activities for the World Language Classroom. Do you ever feel stuck in a rut while planning your language classes? Perhaps you spend a lot of time lecturing at the white board, use the same activities with different vocabulary for every unit, or rely on teaching students grammar because that's how you were taught.
No matter your "go to" activity, we are all much more engaging when we vary our activities and make them relatable. If the speaker is engaging, a good lecture every now and then is enjoyable. 15 Outstanding Websites to Learn Languages Online. If you are reading this you are probably already convinced by the benefits of learning a foreign language! But learning a language is a really challenging adventure that everybody approaches and challenges differently. Indeed, there isn’t any universal method that will make you fluent overnight by instantaneously downloading knowledge into your brain – Matrix-style (if you guys know how to do this, contact me right now!). You will have to put a lot of effort and commit yourself with a thorough schedule to end up speaking the language. But don’t worry, there are many apps and websites that will help you to make your way to fluency as easy and natural as possible… and for free!
Let me walk you through this list! World Language Resources. Lingro: The coolest dictionary known to hombre! Englisch ⇔ Deutsch Wörterbuch - leo. Deutsche Grammatik - Lingolia Deutsch. Online-Aufgaben Deutsch als Fremdsprache.