Literacy with ICT

So the question is, how do you ensure that students are truly taking their writing to a new level? How do you make sure that instead of just participating in low-level recall, students are moving on to the higher levels of analysis and reasoning that we want them to reach? One way is to rethink how you pose your writing topics. Here are some ideas and examples:

The unique qualities of a 3D virtual worlds can provide opportunities for rich sensory immersive experiences, authentic contexts and activities for experiential learning, simulation and role-play, modelling of complex scenarios, a platform for data visualisation and opportunities for collaboration and co-creation that can not be easily experienced using other platforms. Second Life is completely user-generated 3D environment that comes with relatively easy-to-use building and scripting tools that anyone can learn. This makes it an ideal platform for engaging students in creating their own learning activities, experiences and environments, and not just be passive consumers of learning.

Flipz TV is a really useful piece of free software for creating entertaining audio-visual materials

TumbleBookLibrary is an online collection of animated, talking picture books which teach young children the joys of reading in a format they'll love.

The US Congress has given the go-ahead for a new centre to explore ways advanced computer and communications technologies can improve learning.

The project is designed to investigate how social networking services can and are being used to support personalised formal and informal learning by young people in schools and colleges

What would your classroom be like without your students cracking open their oversized textbooks everyday? Probably a lot more interesting, especially for the kiddies. There are so many other resources out there for teachers to use, online and off, that teaching without textbooks is becoming more and more acceptable. If you don't believe us, scroll down this list of over 100 different resources - including websites, iPod lectures and field trips - that will encourage you to toss out your textbooks.

Mixbook.com is web-based but sets itself apart from the previously mentioned tools. It allows us to use storytelling in a way that we all are already comfortable and familiar with. The process does not create a new media, such as a podcast, a video clip uploaded to YouTube or a VoiceThread embedded in a blog or wiki, that most people are still getting comfortable in handling. Mixbook is a tool that allows anyone to tell a story by creating and publish it as a book!

Great blog post on using Google Maps in the curriculum.

Creating your own audio stories with and for your student is easy with the free audio editor and recorder called Audacity.