RE 6575: Lit-n-Tech

Interesting article. Time for a change. Best practices redefined.

This site lists ways to use infographics with students

Here are a few more apps

This site gives you ideas to use comics in your classroom, the benefits, actual lesson plans, tools, selected comics, and much more!

Explicit strategy instruction is at the core of good comprehension instruction. Teachers should help students to understand why a strategy is useful, how it is used, and when it is appropriate. The most frequently researched strategies can be applied across content areas; other content-area specific strategies are emerging, and we will include them here in the future.

Vocabulary.com will help you to master the words that are essential to academic and business success. Simply answer the question to the right to get started!

I was looking for more things I could use my Nook for in the classroom and came across this great list! Check it out if you have a Nook/Nook Color or are looking to purchase one. Great apps at really low prices!

If you do have a Nook- or maybe a Kindle- this app sounds great! This is a free app and is great just to check out with all of our vocabulary talk recently!

Easy-to-use online scheduling software. Teachers create a customized schedule as well as notice and reporting settings in minutes. I think I might try it for my class next year for meetings, and maybe add Skype conferences.

Visual Dictionary, where words are defined as pictures, for leaning the exact names of objects. Different from a traditional dictionary or from encyclopedia because the images replace the words.

This site has many resources for teachers from a mentor teacher. There are also resources that have been made by her or other people and that she has links to on the site. Lots of great ideas and helpful resources...check it out!

Songs for Teaching® The Definitive Source for Educational Music Creative teachers can use music to teach content across the curriculum - to students of all ages. This website has lyrics you can pull up for students to follow along and read while learning to sing the songs. We love using music in our classroom to introduce new topics and get students engaged!

Guided Reading and Reading Games and software with Roy the Zebra. Includes words that rhyme, high frequency words, capital letters, full stops and much more. Ideal for using at school or home on interactive whiteboards or computers.

Quizlet is the largest flash cards and study games website with over 10 million free sets of flashcards covering every possible subject. It's the best place to play educational games, memorize vocabulary and study online.

Flickr Storm is similar to FlickrCC. The kids can search, click on a thumbnail and the photo comes up on the right. If you let the students click on the advanced search feature, it will allow them to limit their searches to Non-Commercial and Share Alike photos. An organization feature of Flickr storm is the "Add to Tray." You can add several photos to your tray and then when you open your tray, all the photos are there in large-sized format. It is like saving the pictures to a file, but instead it stays on the website. Anything like this website is good to begin brainstorming for writing.

ReadWriteThink has a printing press where students can make a booklet, flyer, brochure, or newspaper. There is a step by step guide to walk the students through with basic editing and graphics- but is great for students trying to learn how to use documents like Microsoft Publisher. My students know how to use Publisher now, but this printing press would have been a great way to teach them how to create some of those documents as a "beginner" type version. Great for younger grades!

ReadWriteThink has a printing press where students can make a booklet, flyer, brochure, or newspaper. There is a step by step guide to walk the students through with basic editing and graphics- but is great for students trying to learn how to use documents like Microsoft Publisher. My students know how to use Publisher now, but this printing press would have been a great way to teach them how to create some of those documents as a "beginner" type version. Great for younger grades!

Probably one of the coolest and easiest story starter sites I have seen for grades k-6!! This is like a slot machine that you see at a casino. It has different sections on the slot machine depending on your grade level. The first slot being the genre, the second slot is a describing word for the subject, the third slot is the subject, and the last slot describes what the subject is doing or does. For example, one that I just got on there was: "Write a postcard from a balding carnival clown who explores a newly discovered planet." From here the kids can change the individual slot if they want to. Once they finish they click next and can pick the type of format (newsletter, letter, postcard, and notebook). Once that is selected they can type their story on the format they selected. If they want to write they can just pick a format and print a blank page. Or, you don't even have to use any format and can do a whole class prompt and they write on paper or just type in a word document. I showed my students the machine today and they were very interested in trying it during their writing station. It is too easy to not try- so I am going to give it a shot next week!! I think it is very creative and can make some very silly stories!

StoryJumper: publish your own children's book.Storyjumper allows you to create online books using a variety of characters, scenes, and props. Teachers can create student accounts for them to have as like a file to store their stories. I thought this would be a neat way to provide online writing to support different reading elemnts (setting, characters, etc).

A great resource for teachers. It is a kid friendly and teacher friendly search engine for lesson plans, activities, and interactives. I use this a lot in my classroom, and the search results are great. I have found several reading links as well as social studies and science connection links for reading.

This blog gives the latest updates on the newly found educational apps for teachers and students. I have used this several times to see what is new or what is out there that someone else has tried and has had success with.