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Communication skills are critical for today's students. Reading, writing and the ability to tell a story set the stage for success. The Hub, a new TV destination dedicated to bringing kids and families together, is partnering with Discovery Education to support teachers in this important endeavor. Here you'll find inspiration to engage and inspire your budding writers. Meet the artists, editors and writers that bring good stories to life-and watch your students' communication skills soar!

Here are five ideas that will help you begin building your own personal learning network. 1. Read blogs related to your passion. Search out topics of interest at http://blogsearch.google.com and see who shares those interests. 2. Participate. If you find bloggers out there who are writing interesting and relevant posts, share your reflections and experiences by commenting on their posts. 3. Use your real name. It's a requisite step to be Googled well. Be prudent, of course, about divulging any personal information that puts you at risk, and guide students in how they can do the same. 4. Start a Facebook page. Educators need to understand the potential of social networking for themselves. 5. Explore Twitter (http://twitter.com), a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables users to exchange short updates of 140 characters or fewer. It may not look like much at first glance, but with Twitter, the network can be at your fingertips.

The Blio eReader software is the new touchstone for the presentation of electronic books, magazines, and digital content. Its feature-rich design is perfect for today's power readers, who increasingly rely on digital content for work, leisure, and learning. The extensive Blio Bookstore was created in partnership with Baker & Taylor, the world's largest distributor of literary content and value-added services, and the world's largest publishers. Enjoy a vast selection of titles, with a superior, color reading experience on desktop PCs, netbooks, tablet PCs and mobile devices.

First and foremost, your ebook files need to be converted into the ePub format. Granted, there are quite a few ways to do this, but one of the best methods is by using Calibre, ...

Every ESL kid, every kid should be using handhelds this way! Reading aloud builds fluency, saving a record of your progress over time, Brilliant!

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can: Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go, Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer, View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen, Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.

Wize reads millions of product reviews across the Web to bring the right products to you. Tell us what you're looking for, and we'll do the rest.

Skype is a free and easy way for teachers to open up their classroom and their students to a world way beyond their campus. With Skype, students can learn from other students, connect with other cultures, and expand their knowledge in amazing ways. Teachers and parents can also benefit from Skype in the classroom. Read below to learn how you can take advantage of the power of Skype in your classroom.

All games here were made by Exuberant Games. Each game goes through important information for a certain subject matter for grades Kindergarten through 6th grade. The math games are great if you need to review your math facts for addition, subtraction , or division. Be sure to check out our new games for other subjects. * English games to review parts of speech * Reading games to help learn sight words * Science tutorials and games are coming soon! via http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/04/fun-4-brain-great-educational-games.html

Nice read

Use zinepal.com to create your own magazines and eBooks. You can select content from blogs, Atom/RSS feeds and other websites. zinepal.com reformats the content into a printable PDF and an eBook for use with the Amazon Kindle and other eBook readers. Now you can take your content wherever you go. Read your zine during your commute, in the park or your favorite coffee shop. You can also e-mail it to your friends or just let them subscribe to your zine feed on zinepal.com.

"Enter technology. Technology can help bring some excitement and creativity to the traditional book report while still displaying students understanding of reading."

"Below are the 7 Signs of a Leader. How many of these do you believe you have? More importantly perhaps, do you look up to someone today that doesn't have many of these traits? Are they really the person to look up to? The choices you make today and the people you surround yourself with will determine much of your path in life; choose wisely."

via http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/09/scootpad-students-practice-skills-from.html#.UGfteO127xp 

Here at Literacy Shed  we aim to provide exciting teaching ideas for the resources that we would love to use if only we had the time to find them.

Lengthy read and UK based but very interesting blog post from the point of view of an ITC