Write or Die 2 Here Is An Excellent Web Tool for Creating Classroom Newspapers February 2, 2016 Printing Press is a great web tool from ReadWriteThink that you can use with students in class to easily create beautiful newspapers, flyers and brochures. The tool is very easy to use and students will definitely love working on it. Printing Press provides multiple pre-made templates to choose from when creating a newspaper. To start using Printing Press, click on ‘get started’ from this page.
Explain Everything Drive Concrete Writing | A Descriptive Feast for the Senses “One of the cornerstones of powerful writing is the use of concrete details that can tell your story for you. I don’t care if you’re writing a sales letter, a blog post or a short story for The New Yorker, you need details.” ~Sonia Simone, Copyblogger.com This article contains affiliate links for products we’re confident your family will love! Concreteness transports us into a story like nothing else. It’s the key that unlocks the door of the reader’s imagination. If your teen’s paper is vague and sketchy, what happens? Choose Words Wisely Concrete writing engages the senses. Robust nouns and active verbs always pack more punch than weak ones that are simply preceded by a string of adjectives or adverbs. Search for Word Pictures It’s fun to ask your students to search for descriptive, concrete passages in the books they’re reading, such as this excerpt from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Notice how Tolkien paints a haunting image of Gollum as he makes his wily approach.
Learning Markdown: Write For The Web, Faster Table Of Contents §1–What is Markdown? §2–How Markdown Works §3–Learn Markdown In 20 Minutes or Less §4–Exporting and Printing Markdown Documents §5–MultiMarkdown Tutorials §6–Using Keyboard Shortcuts and Menu Items §7–Automation and Shortcut Tools §8–Markdown Editors for Mac, PC, iOS, Android, and Web Applications §9–Conclusion: Where To Go From Here §–Appendix: Cheat Sheet 1. There’s a wealth of articles about Markdown on the Internet, but many of the resources are not useful for how to get started using and laying Markdown syntax. Markdown was developed in 2004 by writer and blogger John Gruber. What Is Markdown? Markdown is essentially a syntax language for formatting text as you write. Formatting text in Microsoft Word, and other traditional text editors, can take a while. Additionally, the formatting done in programs like Word use a lot of code for formatting – code that can mess up articles intended to be published online. Some people, knowing this, use HTML formatting directly instead. 2. !
How Stories Change the Brain Ben’s dying. That’s what Ben’s father says to the camera as we see Ben play in the background. Ben is two years old and doesn’t know that a brain tumor will take his life in a matter of months. Ben’s father tells us how difficult it is to be joyful around Ben because the father knows what is coming. Everyone can relate to this story. A recent analysis identifies this “hero’s journey” story as the foundation for more than half of the movies that come out of Hollywood, and countless books of fiction and nonfiction. Why are we so attracted to stories? Why the brain loves stories The first part of the answer is that as social creatures who regularly affiliate with strangers, stories are an effective way to transmit important information and values from one individual or community to the next. Think of this as the “car accident effect.” To understand how this works in the brain, we have intensively studied brain response that watching “Ben’s story” produces. What makes a story effective?
21 Grab-And-Go Teaching Tools For Your Classroom 21 Grab-And-Go Teaching Tools For Your Classroom by Lynn Usrey Every teacher wants to be able to make his or her classroom environment the optimum place for learning, interacting and engaging. Today, there is a wide assortment of free technology options available to enhance your instruction. The tools are changing… quickly. How about starting with lesson creation? 1. 2. Need something for instant polling? 3. 4. 5. Connecting with home learning? 6. 7. 8. 9. Current Events and Video Sourcing – There are great well-known resources at YouTube and CNN Student News, but have a look at: 10. 11. 12. The Less-Is-More Approach (And Tools 13-21) Since technology is always changing, don’t hesitate to explore new tools and ideas. For later grade levels, there are tools such as Hippocampus and Vocareum with a emphasis on secondary education.
Using our senses: A descriptive writing lesson - WriteShop ONE OF THE most difficult aspects of writing is perfecting the art of description—the thing that really brings a scene, image, character, or feeling alive within a piece of writing. While younger children often love using imaginative language, many struggle to find the most appropriate and engaging words to put down on paper. One of the best ways to engage students in descriptive and imaginative language is through the use of the five senses. Try out this fun and simple lesson to help your students experiment with descriptive language that is unique and full of life and movement. 1. It is through our five senses that we experience the world around us. Talk about sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.Collect words from your students that fall within each category. Talk about why it is difficult to come up with sensory words in this manner: Writing with your senses means you have to really take the time to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste what you are trying to write about. 2. 3.
An Unofficial Guide to Goodreads for Readers and Writers Sortable: This customizes an order in your bookshelf. This can be useful for your favorites shelf (organized it from most-beloved to least), a ‘tearjerker’ shelf (from ‘drowning’ to ‘drizzle’) or whatever you come up with. First select the sortable option and then return to that book shelves page. Sticky: Bookshelves are ordinarily displayed in alphabetical order however stickied shelves will always top the list.Exclusive: Books can only be in one exclusive shelf at the time. 3.1.7 Organizing Your Books’ Columns Your ‘My Book’ page, by default, displays your books’ cover, title, author, avg. rating, rating, shelves, date read, and date added however the displayed information is customizable. To adjust these columns click the ‘Settings’ link located to the right of ‘Batch Edit’. Select or deselect the information that is interesting to you. 4. 4.1 Book Recommendations 4.1.1 Goodreads Computerized Book Recommendations Goodreads recommendations are not like Amazon recommendations. 4.2 eBooks
Ideas for adapting group lessons to working on Zoom As has happened in much of Europe, Poland has now closed schools, universities and other places where people might gather in the hope of reducing the spread of coronavirus. Our school had its last normal lessons on Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday dedicated to training our teachers how to use Zoom. We start teaching on Monday 16th, so my total experience with Zoom so far has been in the training process. Useful links International House World arranged a live session run by Shaun Wilden on Tuesday 10th, in which he introduced us to Zoom. I’d also recommend Ceri Jones’s posts on the Cambridge University Press blog: Other useful posts: Zoom’s updates on which countries they’ve lifted the 40-minute free limit for.Graham Stanley on keeping learners’ attention when remote teaching.Advice to those about to teach online (mainly aimed at university lecturers). There’s a very active hashtag on Twitter called #coronavirusteaching, which you can view without having a Twitter account. Playing audio
Describe an Imaginary Place or Strange Land Summer is a season of travel, a time of sandy beaches, hypnotic sunshine, stamped tickets, and the excited laughter of children visiting out-of-the-ordinary places. Summer vacations—and the summer months—fill our minds with those moments of wonder and imagination so natural to childhood and keep us connected to our own children. But sometimes the household budget doesn’t stretch quite far enough for exotic adventures. What to do? Go anyway! Here’s how! Start with a Map Gather your family around the kitchen table with paper, pencils, pens, and an atlas. Set Your Imagination Loose It’s time to describe an imaginary place! What color is the sky? Are there trees or flowering plants? Place yourself there. What kind of person—or wonderful being—could you allow yourself to be there? Create Your World As ideas shape themselves around your kitchen table, have your children create colorful maps and illustrated “travel guides” of their visionary worlds. Enjoy your magical travels this summer!
10 Great Tools for Creating eBooks July 10, 2013 by Ronda Bowen Today, eBooks are popular tools for content marketers who want to get their message across to a wider audience. Not only can offering a free eBook be helpful for building a mailing list of prospective customers and clients, but a well-crafted eBook can also demonstrate that you have the knowledge, resources, and skills your customer needs. There are a number of tools available to help individuals design professional-looking eBooks. Some of the apps on this list, such as Evernote, are best suited for pulling together your thoughts and ideas while others, such as PagePlus, are excellent layout and design tools. Evernote Evernote is a popular program for organizing thoughts, notes, websites, images, and PDF files in one place. You can keep track of your ideas, outlines, and to-do lists in one place, treating the program like an electronic filing cabinet. One of the neat newer features of Evernote is Evernote Business. PagePlus Scrivener Issuu FreeMind Vook Ommwriter