Just for Fun!

Here are two great websites that are so much fun, and also encourage reading and writing.
Shelfari is a tool to create your very own virtual bookshelf and show off the books you have read, want to read, and are planning on reading. Teachers can create a bookshelf for parents and students to visit; and teachers, students, and parents can discuss books online. You can also post your bookshelf on a blog (see mine to the right), wiki, or other website that you can insert code into. I love Shelfari for the following reasons:

1. I can find a new book to read by checking out What's Hot under the Books tab
2. I can recommend books to my friends on Shelfari and find out what they are reading
3. I can create a private group for a book discussion
4. I can look for reviews on books I am considering reading

Wordle is the other fun website I suggest you go and play on. In Wordle you can take any text and have it turned into a great piece of word art. Take a look at this Wordle:

WriteOnline Provides Accessible Writing Supports Across Settings

I am at Closing the Gap this week and am scouting out what's new and exciting in Assistive Technology. While, uncharacteristically, there are not a lot of new products being lauded and launched at CTG, there are a few that really deserve a mention. My favorite AT tool for students is a new writing tool, WriteOnline from Crick Software. The best of it's many features include:

1. Completely online, this tool will be a boon to educators who have to worry about whether installed software will conflict with their network.


2. Additionally, students will easily be able to login at home to finish up writing begun at school.


3. The program features a very MS Word like toolbar (with standard features, like spell check and mispelling cues), text to speech, word prediction, WordBar banks, and writing frames.


4. Students can even access their work without an internet connection, if they have been logged in within 3 days.


5. Teachers will love the available analysis of document statistics and history, including whether students have pasted text in and a record of spelling errors and corrections.


6. The program is completely switch accessible!!

Take a tour of all the features at http://www.learninggrids.com/us/WriteOnlinePage.aspx Free 30 day trials are also available at the website.

Web based technology to Support Writing in the Content Areas

Teachers, time, assessment and technology. It often seems that teachers never have enough time, and way too many assessments to do! However technology can be a way for teachers to maximize time and manage assessments. Judy Richardson (among others) discusses this in her article from Reading Online. Many technology supports exist for teachers on the web, indeed it seems new websites are launched daily. There is such a wealth of resources out on the web to support students writing in the content areas, that one blog post can't do justice to them all. However, I did want to highlight some of my favorites and some new ones that I have come across lately. These are listed in no particular order.


Brainpop.com---This subscription based site has a free 30 day trial and some of the features are always available for free. Brainpop (and its offshoot for younger students, Brainpop Jr.) is great for building background knowledge in any content area and for providing writing prompts. There are also online quizzes available. It is also available in Spanish.

ReadWriteThink is a fabulous site from the National Association of Teachers of English and the International Reading Council. While there is a big focus on the Reading/Language Arts curriculum, there are many cross curricular tools within the website, making it of value for students and teachers across content areas. Within the website some of my favorite activities include:
The Acrostic Poem Maker
Compare and Contrast Map

http://www.diigo.com/--diigo is a social annotation and bookmarking tool--much like del.icio.us on steroids. One of the coolest things that diigo can do is to create sticky notes and annotations right on websites. This can be invaluable for students doing research on any subject and as a pre-writing strategy. Watch a video about diigo on YouTube.

Merriam Webster's Word Central is a great dictionary and word finding resource. There is an online dictionary, thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, as well as word games and a create your own dictionary where students can add new words that they have come up with and want to share with others.

There are so many more resources, so as I find outstanding ones, I will add posts to highlight them. Please let me know your favorites, too!

Getting Started

Well, I have put off really starting this blog for months now. I have had the best of intentions. After reading Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts, and reading his blog I was blown away by the power of a blog and other web based tools to motivate students to write. I thought, "Wow, I need to do this so that I can provide a model for both writing and use of web tools for students!" However, I just never could seem to motivate myself to sit down and do it. I have started blog entries in my head, over and over again, but to just put it out there on the page seemed more than a bit intimidating. Yet, teachers ask their students to do this all the time--put their thoughts down on paper (or in digital text, which is my preference) and turn it in to be graded and left open to criticism. And a blog is putting it out there for strangers to see! (Yes, I know you should not start a sentence with and or but.) However, (is that better than but?) I am taking a class on writing and one of the choices for our final is to start a blog, so here I am!
The purpose of this blog is going to be to write about strategies to support students with technology, but this introduction is really just about me getting over my fear of writing for general consumption. As I write I do realize however, that without the technology I am using there is no way I would ever do this. I need to be able to cut, copy, and paste. I need to use spell check and right click. I need to be able insert, delete, and rearrange my thoughts. So I am beginning this blog on how to help students use technology to achieve in school and I am using technology in order to do this. This may not be nearly as inspiring as Will Richardson's work, but it is a start.