From Richard Byrne Free Technology for teacher, quoted below:Listen and Read - Non-fiction Read Along Activities Listen and Read is a set of 54 non-fiction stories from Scholastic for K-2 students. The stories are feature pictures and short passages of text that students can read on their own or have read to them by each story's narrator. The collection of stories is divided into eight categories: social studies, science, plants and flowers, environmental stories, civics and government, animals, American history, and community. Applications for Education Listen and Read looks to be a great resource for social studies lessons and reading practice in general. At the end of each book there is a short review of the new words that students were introduced to in the book. Students can hear these words pronounced as many times as they like. Listen and Read books worked on my computer and on my Android tablet. Scholastic implies that the books also work on iPads and IWBs"

Great videos for teaching

" Pete Jones"

Handing Assessment Over to Students I have been giving a lot of thought about how to give my students more of a voice in their learning and in our classroom. Initially, I was focused on increasing their presence on our classroom blog through podcasts, videos, and blog posts. I even gave thought to asking my district IT to unblock Twitter so that we could create a class account (which I am still going to do). But never would assessment have crossed my mind. Fortunately, I took my thoughts to my PLN. Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) responded to my tweet about amplifying students' voices with rich insights and a couple articles that got the cerebral wheels turning. If you like what you read here, be sure to follow Janine on Twitter. Assessment for learning is a pedagogical golden nugget. No one ever said that the teacher had to do it alone. Why not give your students a voice in how they are assessed? It might tell you more about where they are at than assessing your class conventionally. Rubrics are my favorite way to assess student projects. I'm even pretty good at creating them. By doing so, I completely understand the assignment and learning outcomes for any given project. But do my students? Is there a way to better utilize rubrics as assessment of learning where students' voices are intensified. Yes! Allowing students to create the criteria for assessment does just that. It doesn't just serve the purpose of better summative assessment. Student-created rubrics also provides a medium for formative assessment as well. If my assignment is for students to analyze the effects of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on post-war America, I will be able to formatively assess the class' understanding of the main points of this event by the criteria that they suggest this assignment should be graded on. I will know that I need to reteach aspects of this event in American history if students believe that including a description of John Wilkes Booth's escape from Ford's The

60 Second Recap is an awesome new site that has one goal, they want to make the great works of literature accessible, relevant, and irresistible to today's teens. Using short (60 second) video albums, they seek to help teens engage with the best books out there ... not just to help them get better grades, but "to help them build better lives". Looks like a welcome and nice alternative for Cliff Notes and Spark Notes. Check this one out - it only takes a minute.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE AwesomeStories is large resource filled with primary-source information. Its purpose is to help educators and individuals find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, museums, historical societies and government-created web sites. The site is very easy to use and is would be helpful to use with many projects across the curriculum.

Book Drum is the perfect companion to the books we love, bringing them to life with immersive pictures, videos, maps and music It has been a great tool for close reading in my AP Lit class. Love Bookdrum!