Group items tagged

"Young people also need guidance and adult assistance to learn how to safely navigate the virtual environments of the 21st Century. Schools must be proactive, rather than merely defensive, in helping students acquire the skills of digital citizenship needed today and in the future. Simply banning read/write web tools on school networks is an inadequate response: Educators must strive to learn alongside students and parents how these technologies can be safely and powerfully used to communicate and collaborate."

resources and links provided - from a workshop to schol library media spcialists (and others) by Wesley Fryer

This was highlighted in Tech & Learning Magazine. I see this as a potentially powerful tool for writing and collaboration.

Fairy tale writing assignment

Gale Free: How to write a research paper

This is a terrific mini lesson from Barry Lane. He shows (not tells) how to explode a moment into a full page of rich writing. The visuals in this video will catch any student's attention. I've called this technique the Magnified Moment. It's also tied to the idea of using imaginary binoculars to really see the details of an event. Fun to watch, this video is part of "Barry in a Box", a book and dvd Barry is selling on his website: www.discoverwriting.com

A toolbox of websites for aspiring writers.

Every day, the site has a different, interesting image that could be used as writing stimulus. Below the image, there are a series of activities that students could complete e.g. sick sentences, story starters, thought provoking questions.

"Celebrate Science Welcome teachers, librarians, homeschoolers and nonfiction writers! This blog offers innovative resources for teaching science and tips for writing nonfiction."

I'm pretty sure I found this app listed by a reputable resource.  Here's why it's not yet worthy of accolades... The app is easy to get, but you also need to pay an annual access fee. It's something like $4.99, be warned, if that is mention in the app description, it could be easy to overlook. ADDING STUDENTS: to add students, you have to add each individually; fine if you have one class, but an inconvenience if you have more. The objective is to track your assignments and use of Common Core Standards. Adding an assignment does not include the ability to write a description of the assignment; it does not allow you score by a rubric; it does not allow you add comments. A lot of work still needs to be done.

Turnitin created the SEER (Source Educational Evaluation Rubric) to help teach students how to evaluate the sources they use in their writing. A number of educators tested the rubric on the most popular websites that students use for sourcing material. How did these websites rank? Take

VocabularySpellingCity has a new summer word study program that allows children to sharpen academic skills as they play. These simple assignments are a daily workout for the brain, building literacy skills such as vocabulary, spelling, and writing.