12 Useful Websites to Improve Your Writing by Johnny Webber 1. Words-to-Use.com – A different kind of thesaurus. 2. OneLook.com – One quick dictionary search tool. 3. How interactive technology is transforming storytelling Let me begin by saying: reports of the death of the book are wildly exaggerated. Likewise traditional storytelling. Human beings have been telling stories around campfires since the first cavewoman struck a flint against another flint and noticed that an interesting spark flew off. Stories aren't going anywhere and nor is the visceral, inexplicable, bone-deep shivery delight of a good tale well told. Fry's Readability Information Teachers often would like to check the readability of a piece of writing. Edward Fry, formerly of the Rutgers University Reading Center, created one of the most widely used, and easy-to-use readability graphs for educators. Thanks go to McGraw-Hill for granting me permission to reproduce this information on the Web. (Taken from Fry, Edward.Elementary Reading Instruction. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1977, p.217) and most currently appearing in his book, The Reading Teachers Books of Lists (2006).
Photo Collages as Writing Prompts In a post on Android for Schools I wrote about using Pic Collage on my Android phone to create a collage to summarize my day. Pic Collage is a free app available for Android and iOS devices. The app allows you to quickly arrange pictures on a wide variety of canvas designs, add text to your images, and add stickers to your collages. From the app you can share your collage to Google Drive, Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, and many other file sharing services.
100 Useful Web Tools for Writers All kinds of writers, including poets, biographers, journalists, biz tech writers, students, bloggers and technical writers, take a unique approach to their jobs, mixing creativity with sustainability. Whether you’re a freelance writer just scraping by or someone with a solid job and more regular hours, the Internet can provide you with unending support for your practical duties like billing, scheduling appointments, and of course getting paid; as well as for your more creative pursuits, like developing a plot, finding inspiration and playing around with words. Turn to this list for 100 useful Web tools that will help you with your career, your sanity and your creativity whenever your write. 9 apps for creating multimedia content Until a few years ago designing an attractive presentation, or any other form of multimedia content, required expert designers. You first had to explain your idea to the designer who would then spend hours in isolation, using complex tools and software, to turn them into reality. Most of the times, however, you would still go away dissatisfied with the final product. However, this is no more the case thanks to different online tools available freely on the internet.
The Sticky Note Approach: Developing Active Readers Editor's note: We discovered third grade teacher Amy Groesbeck of Texas while we were field-testing our sample issue of Storyworks Jr. We skyped with Amy and her teaching colleagues who had been given our sample issue to demo in their third-grade classrooms. We were delighted by a sticky-note activity she used with Storyworks Jr. content to encourage active reading. We begged Amy to share this more developed Genius Teaching Idea with our Ideabook readers. 5 Tools to Convert and Edit The PDF Format PDF files are the digital equivalent of the paper document: made to be shared and read, and occasionally filled in like a form, but not really intended to be easily edited. You could argue the format is outdated in our increasingly post-paper world, but PDF documents aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The Future Is Here - Your Guide to Having a Paperless Life Today The Future Is Here - Your Guide to Having a Paperless Life Today Paperless – a term that is used quite often now days. But what does it mean? And to what extent does it apply? Certainly we all still use paper to some degree despite the advancements...
The Best Infographics About Teaching & Learning English As A Second (or Third!) Language I thought readers might appreciate this collection: Learn English with Kaplan How to learn English via Kaplan Blog Love learning English with Kaplan Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually. If you’re reading this post on an RSS Reader, I think you’ll have to click through to see this next one: