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This Google docs page aligns the apps that can be used to address various aspects of Bloom's Taxonomy. The list is regularly updated by the curates. The "How Do You Use It?" column has lots of ideas for teaching, with an emphasis on creativity and content-based learning. Rich resource. A similar spreadsheet for apps to use with Common Core goals would be very helpful. T/H to A. Burns

Common Core and using questions and scaffolding support for an academic discussion. The Teaching Channel demonstrations also including supporting questions for teachers. Students run their own discussion.

An excellent video of the teacher and students using the lesson plan, this lesson from the Teaching Channel walks you through preparation for a writing assignment. It was developed through an EQuIP Peer Review Panel to ensure alignment with the Common Core standards, and was created by teachers and administrators working with the Massachusetts Dept of Elementary and Secondary Ed Model Curriculum Project. It uses a "Smart Chart" to deepen student understanding of rhetorical devices and has students collaborate in a ranking activity. Has links to a place where you can submit your own lessons for a free EQuIP panel review, and links to other related lesson plans.

Very young learners learning about facts vs. opinion in Social Studies. Students create a poster demonstrating what they have learned about American symbols. Video shows relationship to several Common Core standards.

Whole group (in a circle) of young students (4-5th grade) discuss the non-fiction text. Students ask questions, use hand signals, and probe deeper before writing about the text. The discussion has Common Core standards subtitled throughout, and also allows for brief embedded small group discussions. Although it is a nonfiction text, the teacher helps students probe higher level aspects, such as author point of view.

"Subtext and Tellagami are two amazing free apps that can expand the way you discover information about each student's reading comprehension. By using their combined power, students can produce and publish valuable information about their reading comprehension to help their teachers better understand them as learners." Meets Common Core standards for bringing visual material into readings. Gives students a way to read and answer questions collaboratively, then respond with an avatar speaker in Tellagami. Powerful combination.

Sixth-graders use blogs to express themselves as they learn how to use the technology of blogs and have an authentic audience of others in the class. Students begin with a "paper blog" with comments/responses on Post-it notes. As students finish a book, they talk about the characters and then write about them on the blog, using a specific assignment by he teacher. Includes Common Core standards and suggestions of ways to scaffold the technology for success.

"Socratic Smackdown offers a fun approach to having students practice discussion strategies. Socratic Smackdown is a printable game designed to be played with up to forty students at a time. In the game students are awarded points for using each of six questioning and discussion methods. Students can lose points for interrupting or distracting others." R. Byrne describes the program, with a video tutorial as well. The game includes alignment to Common Core.

"EDUCATOR TOOLKIT News & Media Literacy In today's 24/7 digital world, we have instant access to all kinds of information online. Educators need strategies to equip students with the core skills they need to think critically about today's media. We teach foundational skills in news and media literacy through our Digital Citizenship program, specifically through our Creative Credit & Copyright and Information Literacy topics. Built on more than 10 years of expertise and classroom testing, these lessons and related teaching materials give students the essential skills to be smart, savvy media consumers and creators. From lesson plans about fact-checking to clickbait headlines and fake news, we've covered everything. To learn more about our approach, read the Topic Backgrounder on news and media literacy."

Has brief descriptions for each grade, K-12, short suggestions for things parents can do to help children learn at home, and topics for possible parent-teacher conferences.

Explanatory video and description of how students use slideshows/presentations to "go deep": "a very simple tool, with a low 'barrier' to entry (e.g., easy to train students to use), and with a very significant outcome for students - a rich, well, designed presentation with deep written information. Kids will find it 'cool' to have the computer 'speak' their words, so that's a nice hook too."

The tools are Snapguide, to create video with captions, Meograph, a timeline creator, and Thinglink which creates interactive images. These tools allow for creativity and self-expression, but also encourage students to go deeper into a subject or theme.

"... Fotobabble...it's a fun, easy to use tool that enables many types of student learning. Low 'start up' time - simply select a user name, add a password and valid email address, and I was ready to go. Alas, no Google sign in, but it was easy anyway... "I entered a url for an image, to which I then wanted to add a voice-over. Fotobabble also allows image uploads from the desktop. I added a little 'background' spruce it up, and the image was all set."

Some ideas and resources. Literature is a good way to engage ELLs, even if at first the language seems hard. His language is so much a part of the English-speaking world's culture that Shakespeare has to be included. And it's required, usually in high school. Learning short passages and performing them is a great activity and will help with pronunciation, too.

A complete Standards-based curriculum of tests, quizzes, and drills, if you are into that sort of thing. This site is totally cringe-worthy, and makes big promises without much but anecdotal evidence. You might find some tools and lessons and quizzes useful, but use with care. K-8

Detailed lesson ideas for using this popular online building game.

Discusses the need for children's emotional commitment to the subject read and discussed in English classes. (What does one do with math?) While standardized texts (and tests) don't value emotional appeal, students turn again and again to feeling-packed books and poems. So avoid the "agnostic" or neutral texts that have no interest level and instead, go for the power punch. EFL students often complain that English can't express emotions. Find the power.

Video shows two teachers, language arts and sciences, planning together for an ELT second grade class. Teachers discuss their students and how they deal with an informational text to build vocabulary and understanding.

"Research supports the focus on text complexity and vocabulary. "The Baseball Study" by Recht and Leslie (1988) began by identifying the correlation between reading comprehension and student knowledge. Recht and Leslie discovered that students with low reading ability but high knowledge of baseball, outscored students with high reading ability but low knowledge of baseball on tests of comprehension. Landauer and Dumais (1997) took it a step further, finding that students acquire vocabulary up to four times faster when they read a series of related texts. Combined, these studies indicate the immense possibilities when we equip our students with the necessary vocabulary, providing them with sufficient prior knowledge before tackling reading tasks." This blog entry explores 5 terrific tools to help students, including one that makes texts simpler to help lower-level readers.