If it’s been a while since you’ve returned to ReadWriteThink, I urge you to consider a visit today. The quality portal, rich with free resources and sponsored by the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Verizon Foundation has grown even more interactive. So what’s new? There’s an array [...]
Give this a try. Scan any (or all) of the four QR codes on these two images. What you’ll discover is that the codes lead to ABDO books that become instantly readable on your mobile device. No password needed. No wait. No checkout. No barrier between reader and book. For librarians, ebooks have long represented [...]
I first wrote about Newsela nearly a year ago (Newsela: Making News Accessible for Learners). Across the curriculum, my teachers and students loved it. This morning, founder and CEO Matthew Gross, shared the announcement of the expansion of the news platform that engages readers in news at their own level, with launch of the Newsela Sports [...]
For those many kids who choose not to read books, for those kids who are news junkies, for those kids who choose to focus on nonfiction, for those kids who read everything anyway, and for those kids who are motivated by regular, tangible rewards, Newsela’s Free Summer Reading Challenge may be just the thing to [...]
Booktrack is a new, free platform designed to encourage readers to immerse themselves in their readings by accompanying digital texts with movie-style soundtracks. Booktrack Classroom offers a library of public domain books to which soundtracks have already been added. Students may opt to create their own soundtracks content they’ve authored themselves. And teachers may create [...]
Last week, I attended Laura Fleming’s session on Storytelling in the Digital Age at the West Essex WeTech Conference. Laura’s talk updated her 2010 Edutopia post, A Primer on Interactive Books. For Laura, it is all about the story and how we experience it. She contends: Many children expect a different reading experience now. And [...]
Face it. The news is not written for most of our kids, especially those who are struggling readers or new English learners. I showed Newsela to my ELL and several of my ELA teachers early this semester and we have some devoted fans. Launched in June, and the winner of a Gates Foundation Literacy Courseware Challenge, Newsela publishes articles [...]
I had to share this wonderful idea from Sarah Mulhern Gross’s recent Infotopia post: Beyond the Book: Infographics of Students’ Reading History! Sarah, a high school English teacher, was excited about sharing her lesson with the school library community. Sarah describes herself as a book evangelist. She shared her interest in having students think about some of the books that have affected [...]
My friend Hornberger and I are having a conversation about nonfiction ebooks. In a recent post I chatted about my students’ eager acceptance of the EBSCO e-Book Academic Collection. Karen, the librarian at Palisades High School, as well as our PSLA Tech Committee co-chair and blogger, decided to test drive the database herself. She also [...]
Because these are the details we obsess over. The authors who write them and the readers who read them. They connect us with our stories and connect our stories with each other. And with these connections comes a whole new world of discovery. Valla Vakili’s talk at the Tools of Change Conference. 2/14/12 In his [...]
Recent Comments