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Kerry Gallagher

Awesome Visual on the Importance of Reading Aloud to Kids - 3 views

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    Some nights I am so tired and don't want to read to my daughters, but I always do anyway. Lately my pre-K-er is pointing out her "sight words" while we read too. I know it is important bonding time for us, but it also makes a big difference for her long term learning. This infographic explains it all.
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    Kerry, I had my "aha" moment about 5 years ago, when I was in an Orton-Gillingham training. We were trying to figure out where to divide a word. It was a word that didn't follow the rules completely. When we had gotten as far as we could with the rules, the instructor said that sometimes you just need to tell the student how it's supposed to sound. But she also said, that if a student had heard a word before, they could probably sound it out even if it didn't follow the rules. That's when I realized that all that reading aloud to kids, of books that are too advanced for them to read independently, is building an auditory vocabulary that they can draw upon when they run into unfamiliar words and need to sound them out. Just hearing advanced words helps kids when they have to learn them later.
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    I love this visual! Whenever parents ask me what they can do at home to help their child, I tell them to read, read, read! Not only is it building their literacy skills, but kids also love being read to. No matter how crazy my class gets, and it gets pretty crazy sometimes, the minute I start reading a good book all my students are quiet and engaged. Whenever it's time to start a new topic or concept I try and find a good book to introduce it to the kids and they always seem to get more from it than I planned!
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    Great article. I second what Kelly said. We always tell parents to read to their children, no matter how old they are. This is always an interesting conversation with third grade parents as they want their children to read on their own. Then we further explain why reading to them is important and see their "aha" moment.
Taylor Pelletier

Invisible Child - 2 views

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    Andrea Elliot - journalist for the New York Times - followed the life of an 11 year old homeless child, Dasani, for a year. According to the article there are a staggering amount of homeless children in New York City - 22,091 this month. To put that in perspective, if all of the city's homeless children were to file into Madison Square Garden for a hockey game, more than 4,800 would not have a seat. The article chronichles both Dasani's home and academic life. It is discouraging to think that even though this child has so much potential, the obstacles she will face in life make success extremely difficult (even with all the support she recieves at school). I know we have at least one homeless child on our team this year, and this article really helped put what her life might be lke into perspective for me. Eventhough the article is legnthy, I would encourage everyone to spend some time reading it. It was well worth the read.
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    Taylor, I read most of this as well, and I found it just so discouraging as well. Not only the conditions that she and her siblings live in, but the lack of response from the city, even when their own inspectors are documenting the terrible living conditions. I was heartened by the care she seems to be getting at school, because there are so many examples described in the story of times when people in authority at her shelter don't respond to terrible conditions, and in fact, add to the troubles of the children living there. Thanks for sharing this. Definitely well worth the read to adjust my own perspective.
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    This article really puts things into perspective. I also was glad that with all the chaos, the school seems to be a place of comfort and routine. With that said, it is deplorable that children are living in these types of conditions. As Annemarie said, it puts things into perspective,
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    Thanks for sharing Taylor. I have read most of the article and will definitely be finishing it. It's almost inconceivable that families, and especially children, are living in these conditions mainly because people are aware of it, it is documented, and yet nothing is done to fix it. I'm glad that school can be a place that provides comfort and safety for Dasani. I think that is the case for a lot of students, no matter how tough their home life may or may not be. It's hard to think about that while we enjoy our vacation and most likely don't want it to end. There are probably many children out there waiting desperately for schools to reopen. This article really makes you stop and think.
Jan Rhein

Mentor text suggestions - 3 views

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    Here is an article from the IRA with great mentor text suggestions for Writer's Workshop.
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    Jan, thank you for sharing this resource. We are just starting with Writers' Workshop this year, and I'm on the hunt for good mentor texts that I can share with the students, and have available in the "writing center" for them to look at as they write. Even though many were listed as K-5, I find that picture books can be especially helpful at the upper grade levels when introducing a new or difficult concepts. For example, the Amelia Bedelia books are great for idioms. I'm also interested in checking out "You Can Write Awesome Stories" and "Think for Yourself: Avoiding Plagiarism." I may be able to use that last one in collaboration with the resource Robyn posted about copy writing. At the writing institute this summer, the middle school teachers were given a book titled "When I Was Your Age." It's great - personal narratives about being young written by well-known authors. We read one to the kids on Friday called "All-Ball" by Mary Pope Osborne. It was a good way to show how writers sometimes write about personal/meaningful objects and the stories that those objects tell. Some of the stories might be old for elementary, but there are some you may want to check out.
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    Hi Julie and Jan, I've also been searching for mentor texts for the writing working and I'd like to recommend a book called "Less is More" by Kimberly Hill Campbell. It is subtitled "Teaching Literature with Short Texts." It is filled with ideas for mentor texts. She has a section on picture book with life lessons (she recommends "Officer Buckle and Gloria" which I remember fondly from my own children) and satisfying endings (Cynthia Rylant "When the Relative Came"). Many of her recommendations come from the book "When I Was Your Age" which we were given this summer. (Julie just mentioned it too!) For instance, she recommends Norma Fox Mazer's selection for writing narrative leads and Jane Yolen's selection for writing about a specific place.
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    Hi Jan, Thank you so much for posting this site for mentor text suggestions. Searching for ones that witll engage as well as help the students can be challenging. I recently ordered, for my newly created classroom writing center, "Jobs if you like reading and writing" by Charlotte Guillain with the Common Core mantra of career readiness in mind. Seventh graders do not always connect classroom writing instruction to its real world implications. I am hoping this text will help them see where good writing can lead them in the future.
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    I love this topic. I have always believed that using picture books beyond elementary school is a great idea. Mitali Perkins will be our visiting author this May. Her latest book Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices might be another useful resource for teachers interested in working with short texts. I believe she only edited the stories that were picked. I have not read it yet, but I just copied and pasted the information from Mitali's website for you to look over. The public library will be ordering mulitple copies and the middle school will hopefully do the same. Though we lack a funding source, it might be a consideration for some type of all school (middle school) read. "Listen in as ten YA authors-some familiar, some new-use their own brand of humor to share their stories about growing up between cultures. Edited by Mitali Perkins, this collection of fiction and nonfiction embraces a mix of stayles as diverse as their authors, from laugh-out-loud funny to wry, ironic, or poignant, in prose, poetry, and comic form. With contributions by Cherry Cheva, Varian Johnson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mitali Perkins, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Debby Rigaud, Francisco X. Stork, Gene Luen Yang, and David Yoo."
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    I'm glad that I'm not the only one looking for quality mentor texts, and am also glad that others found the information from the IRA helpful. Thank you for adding information of your own. It's all so informative. There are some great resources out there!
Taylor Pelletier

Diane Ravitch: NAEP Nonsense: Don't Believe the Hype - 0 views

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    I've been a big fan of Diane Ravitch ever since reading her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. Here, she maintains that the recent NAEP reports on reading and math that indicate the success of "carrot and stick" reforms are just not accurate. I think she makes some good points that align well with our class readings and discussions. If this is a topic that interests you, you might also want to check on Diane Ravitch on Dan Pink's Office Hours where she discusses the detriments of merit pay http://bit.ly/1b8Spl7
Julie Merrill

More Time to "Play" - 3 views

shared by Julie Merrill on 27 Feb 14 - No Cached
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    I loved this commentary posted on Education Week. It talks about the importance of giving students unstructured time on a regular basis, and expanding recess or time for physical activity. As the author states, "Kids are built to move. Having more time for unstructured outdoor play is like handing them a reset button." This author also spent six weeks in Finland studying their education system. They seem to be achieving greater success with less class time, and more built in natural breaks. This is worth reading.
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    Julie, Did you happen to catch last week's Chronicle show called: Schools Fail at Educating Boys Boys' learning styles not incorporated in classrooms Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/chronicle/schools-fail-at-educating-boys/24692982#ixzz2ucnLw4QQ It supports what More Time to Play says about the power of play. I happened to think when I read the article that even when I worked in business I received two 15 minute breaks and a lunch break. As teachers we get a prep but the students really never have down time never mind getting outside. I wish we would look at some of things and really make an effort to make some changes.
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    I watched the Chronicle episode this week and it immediately popped in my mind when I read this article. It seems like we all know and talk about how kids need to move and play but actually making that shift in the classroom is very difficult. After watching the episode my mind was racing with ideas about how to better incorporate movement in my lessons. I started implementing some of my ideas this week and I'm interested to see if over time I can see the impact on a student success.
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    I wish we had more down time and outside time as well during the day. We barely get it all in as it is with one recess, but maybe going outside or having downtime will help them retain more day to day.
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    I'm so glad you posted this article, Julie. I think it is so important to continue examining not just what we teach, but how we teach it. My son shifted this January to the Waldorf school in Lexington, in part because he is a very physical learner, who is interested in the arts, music, and practical arts, but also because he was just sitting too much of the day, focusing almost exclusively on reading and math skills. In his new school, they practice counting and multiplication tables while jumping rope on teams, for example. It's not recess, but it is physical activity, it's fun, and it really reinforces and connects the math skill they are working on. I hear many examples like this from him each week, and it has really inspired me to try to incorporate similar approaches, even (or maybe especially?) with my 9th graders.
Julie Merrill

Projects to Engage Middle School Readers - 0 views

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    Nothing earth shattering in this article, but a good reminder to think outside the box when it comes to asking students to demonstrate understanding of what they're reading. I love the movie trailer idea, and the kids have shown they can do some amazing things with iMovie. I'm also interested in exploring some of the apps that the author says would allow students to put characters into new settings - it may be a neat way for them to demonstrate deep understanding of character's personality and motives.
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    Julie, I agree that these projects are interesting and also that kids like doing them. But...always...I wonder... do they really get kids more interested in reading or do they really just help kids get through the monotony of assessing reading? I think the latter goal is a worthy one and I do feel that kids get something out of these projects.researching, writing and collaborating. Even when I was a student, I used to wonder about these questions. Outside my school life, my reading was so rich and varied. English classrooms to me seemed places devoid of books and the discussion of books that took place in my home. So I don't think think this is a new question, but I like to think of the primacy of helping kids finding books they love as well as giving them a place to discuss them.
Kerry Mullen

The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten - 4 views

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    Thought provoking article that stresses even more that developmentally Kindergarteners are not ready for the curriculum that they face.
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    Kerry, thanks for sharing this. This article was well worth reading. It makes me sad to think of what we are continuing to do to young kids, and scared for their future. Just thinking back to when I was in kindergarten, I remember lots of time to explore and play in different stations, including building and dress up stations. We did plenty of learning through play, and still all learned to read and make it through school. I'm in the middle school and don't always know exactly what's going on in the lower elementary schools, but it does seem like things are continually being pushed to younger and younger ages. The math that the sixth graders are doing now is similar to what I did in 8th grade algebra. Many of them are not developmentally ready for it, and then feel like failures if they can't get it. At an even younger level, I'm seeing it with my nephew who's 3 1/2 and in preschool. His teacher told my sister-in-law that he's behind because he can't write his name yet. Now she's concerned about it of course, but I'm thinking that's a little premature. And the last thing he needs at this age is someone trying to force him to write his name - he'll already be on a track to hating school..... I'm going to share this article with her. Also, when they talked about learning to read, I loved the quote about kids who learned to read later showed better understanding because they had had time to develop more language at an earlier age.Thanks for sharing.
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    Another great post - I agree with so much of what this article states, and I hear so many other educators and parents expressing concern about the trend that has been developing in all elementary grades, but especially kindergarten. The question is, if we all agree that it's not working, how do we change it?
R Ferrazzani

Newslea - 1 views

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    Kathy Favazza sent this site out to our staff at Parker. This is the email message: At the PARCC and CCSS trainings that I attended in Chicago I learned of an amazing tool. It's called Newsela. It is a website that takes articles in various topics: War & Peace, Money, Kids, Science and Law and links them to the anchor literacy standards that we all need to address in our subjects. You can set up classes and assign articles for students to read. Some articles have text based follow up questions (those with a small anchor in the top right) that you can assign to students. The coolest feature however is that you can adjust the reading level of the articles!!!!
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    I've played with this site and it is awesome. You can adjust the reading level of the texts. It has built in assessments like main idea. I highly recommend this resource for grades 4 through middle school.
JDeeatRMHS

Read Carefully & Select the Best Answer - 1 views

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    This is a persuasive blog on what we should strive for in our classrooms each day. The author, Starr Sackstein - a NYC high school English teacher, suggests that we strive to graduate students "life-ready." My favorite sentence: "Proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening as well as technology and media integration illustrates a readiness for adult life."
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    Janet, thanks for sharing this important reminder about the core of what we're doing. I get nervous sometimes for my LLD 10th graders and MCAS, but that's mostly because the stakes are so high for them. They are engaged with the literature we read, questioning, challenging, connecting to their own experiences, and this is, of course, what I would hope for. I am counting on this depth to take them through MCAS - it is really hard not to worry, though!
Kerry Mullen

Teaching Students to read Expository Text - 2 views

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    Great article with wonderful ideas for teaching students how to read expository text.
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    The text feature walk is a great strategy for teaching how photos, graphs, maps, and charts contribute to the understanding of the text. It is also a great way to predict main idea prior to reading. Very helpful. Thanks Kerry.
Kerry Gallagher

A Teacher's Defense of Homework - 6 views

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    This is a real and current issue. I assign homework. I believe it helps me assess that students have mentally digested what happened in class through their reflections, and helps my students prepare for class when we are operating in a flipped capacity. Tough issue with people who feel strongly on all sides. This is one teacher's perspective.
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    I give homework too, Kerry. for some of the same reasons that you do. I think the issue of homework is often simplified in the media (I don't think elementary kids need much-certainly not all of these "creative" projects that kids can't do without Mom and/Dad helping them and believe me, I've often been angry at my children's teachers for the fifty math problems when ten would have sufficed!), But I get also tired of all of these "kids need the time to unwind and play" arguments that seem to come out of affluent parent's mouths. Many (not all!) kids when they are not in school (especially in our community!) have lives that make me exhausted. Kids are on millions of teams and seem to spend lots of their lives in structured activities. When I ask kids if they enjoy these activities, many (not all) seem very unenthusiastic about them. So I don't think they are doing a lot of "unwinding: or play. I have never done anything in my life that was worthwhile that didn't involve of lot of hard and sometimes routine work. I don't want to see young kids stressed and burned out-but I think the debate over homework sometimes is so intense because it is a diversion from the larger issue how we are raising our children today which is more nuanced and painful debate.
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    I like to think of Homework as "enrichment." What could be more interesting than an inspiring or provocative or beautiful lecture, reading, podcast, data set, etc., to inform the subject matter being taught in class. History has so much to teach us and we are unbelievably privileged to live in a time where information is plentiful and accessible in whatever format appeals to us. I had the best experience this summer reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies on my iPad. Being able to tap on a word for a definition (hello etymology!!) and Googling English royalty and the schism between the Catholic church, Henry VIII, and Thomas Cromwell role, i.e., the rise of the middle class, was a total blast. And completely self-directed. Who owns the learning, yup.
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    I was going to stay out of this because it is such a hot button issue, but in the end, I decided to comment. I think we all know there is no easy answer. I have a daughter in high school here in Reading who does 7-8 hours of homework per night and spends at least half her weekend, every weekend, studying and doing more homework. It has become a real issue for my daughter and my family. It is September, and to say she is burnt out is an understatement. More balance is needed. An hour and a half to two hours of homework in each class per night equals 7 or so hours minimum every night after attending school for 6 1/2 hours each day. This normally means getting to bed well after midnight each night, and up again by six the next morning to do it all again. She is exhausted. It's not mentally or physically healthy for anyone, let alone an adolescent. This is just my perspective as a teacher and the parent of a high schooler. I am not against homework, and have always instilled a strong work ethic in my kids, but the time and stamina needed to complete the pure volume of homework, study for tests, complete individual and group projects, day in and day out, is not sustainable.
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    Thanks for posting your perspective, Jan. Indeed, 7 hours of homework after a full day of school sounds staggering. There are other articles at the Atlantics website in which teachers argue against assigning any homework at all (see http://m.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/should-i-stop-assigning-homework/279803/). Both perspectives are interesting and both talk about what their research shows. I think 7 hours a night is too much. I think assigning mere "worksheets" is not helpful. I posted this because I have been considering my own practice. I don't think it has to be 2 hours a night or nothing, though. There is no easy answer.
Steve Olivo

Close Reading for NonFiction Point of View : Losing Facebook Friends and Other Tragedies - 5 views

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    This is so well written and so well explained that I feel like I want to drop everything I'm doing today and share it with my students
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    Steve, I'm so glad you came across this, and shared it. I especially love the Nonfiction sentence frames that can be used in the classroom. It gives the kids a structured start to looking at the language used in nonfiction writing. I also like how the article writes about empowering the reader through being able to discern the point of view and bias that may be present. It reinforces the message that just because something is in print, doesn't mean that it's true, and also forces students to interact with the text not only to make meaning, but to truly understand the purpose behind what they're reading.
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    You said it bro. Uncovering bias is a very sophisticated skill, probably the hardest to teach because bias can be so subtle. My 9th graders will love this. Thanks for sharing.
Kerry Mullen

Print books choice over e-books for young people - 2 views

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    I like to hold and read a book, but I do read a lot on my nook. I much prefer the nook to the iPad because of size and weight. It was interesting to read this article and see how the younger generation prefers a book in hand considering how many carry iPhones, etc. and are constantly logged in.
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    Wow, I thought for sure that kids would naturally gravitate to the e-books. My family loves the kindle. I tend to get digital books myself but I realized it is more because I can listen to them during my commutes via bluetooth. I'm going to have to poll my niece and nephew on this topic. Thanks for sharing the article Kerry.
Kerry Mullen

A Very Scary Headline about Kindergarteners! - 1 views

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    Interesting read on how Kindergarten is the new first grade. I know that in my 18 years teaching that I have seen this shift. Things that I used in my first grade classroom are now being used in Kindergarten.
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    Thanks for sharing Kerry! I was actually just having this conversation with a colleague at lunch today following our curriculum and instruction meeting. We were reviewing the DIBBLES scores and discussing the kids that were in the yellow and discussing how we can get these "struggling" students to green. The piece that was not noted or discussed was that most of these kids were in the red at the beginning of the year. Of course we need to talk about how to continue to support all students, but I feel like we are focusing only on getting them to the green and not taking the time to recognize how successful and how much progress they have made this far. Some of these kids knew 4 letters and no sounds at the beginning of the year and now can name all the letters and their sounds, but are having trouble with newly introduced skills like blending and segmenting words. That is a lot of progress in just one area, never mind their progress in other areas. I don't know that I have personally progressed that much in any are of my life in the last year, never mind the last five months. On the other hand there are definitely kids in my class that are ready to or are reading and need to be pushed and challenged. My concern isn't that the standards are unrealistic, it's that it is unrealistic of us to expect that all kids will meet them at the same time and if they don't meet them in our set time frame we consider them to be a struggling student. As a result we push them harder and make them do more work with a skill that they might just not be ready for.
Christopher Twomey

Amanda Beard's Blog: Diving Into the Holidays and New Year - Moms & Babies - Celebrity ... - 1 views

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    A friend of mine was reading this article and when I heard her mention "SMART Goals" I perked right up. Here are some examples of how one athlete has set SMART goals for the new year. They aren't just for the classroom!
Julie Merrill

Bookless Public Library Opens in Texas - 1 views

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    Here's a short article from NPR on a bookless public library opening in Texas. I think as we see more of this, it brings up mixed feelings and conversation. I'm wondering if this is where all libraries are headed eventually? I'm a person who has an e-reader (Nook) and loves using it, but I still like to read from an actual book from time to time. I'm wondering if the younger generations will feel the same, or if they won't know any different? To me, there's something comfortable and warm about a room, or a building, with lots of books in it. I can't picture classrooms, especially those of young children without books on the shelves, or teachers reading to kids on the rug. I wonder what other people think. Technology has definitely changed our lives and is taking us to new places all the time, but could the changes be too much, too fast?
Donna Martinson

Dickens, Austen and Twain, Through a Digital Lens - 0 views

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    This article explains how advancements in technology have enhanced the humanities. The digitization of texts combined with statistical analysis software has enabled literary scholars to analyze literature in a whole new way. The unprecedented techniques mix algorithms and written expressions to detect the frequency of word usage, nuances in the structure of sentences, and common thematic elements in and among texts. The digital analysis of literature provides a new type of lens for scholars to examine works to learn more about the cultural contexts in which the pieces were written.
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    I frequently find myself "defending" the impact of the Internet and technology on students' desire and ability to read and write. To me, it seems that the Internet has increased the amount of reading students do now, especially outside of school. Sure formats have changed but mostly in the direction of concision, something English teachers have been championing forever. Gone are the gatekeepers around who gets to publish (i.e., be heard, gain international attention for a cause, etc.) Never mind the access to ivy league courses...
Donna Martinson

Information Science and Library Issues Collection - Document - 2 views

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    After learning more about the uses of QR codes in the classroom in ebtl2 class and from reading the blog comments about them on the Ning, I looked for an article that explained more about the educational implications. In this article, written over a year ago, the information may be a little outdated, but it helped clarify the big picture for me. I thought sharing it may help others better understand what a great classroom tool it can be.
Marti Neugarten

Games in the Mathematics Classrooms: There's an App for That! - 0 views

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    Quick read for ideas on how to include math games in the classroom and recommedations for free apps to try
Taylor Pelletier

Text to Text: A New Feature, and an Invitation to Share Ideas - 0 views

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    The NYTimes' new feature, the Text to Text series, matches Times content with excerpts from often-taught literary, cultural, historical or scientific material. Their goal is, "to show students how relevant what they study in school can be to the real world." The series is an excellent resource for teachers who are trying to add more nonfiction texts to their classroom and also has links to graphic organizers for comparing texts, close reading and analyzing primary sources. From what I've seen so far, the topics are a little advanced for sixth graders and are probably better suited for high school students. That being said, the Times is encouraging teachers to submit ideas for new editions!
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