Book Creator Summer Journal A fantastic way to remember some of the details from your summer is to keep a journal. Last summer, both my kids used Book Creator to capture some of the things that happened on a daily basis. It was great for photos and video and voice records. Pages, Keynote and…
Category: reading
Non-Fiction Text Features: Incorporating the Digital
There is so much to be gained from walking through the corridors of your school and popping in to see what classes are doing. This morning, I happened to pop into Kim Duffy’s Grade 3 class and discovered a really neat learning experience the class was exploring on Non-Fiction Text Features in digital books. Kim…
Podcasting our Book Club Conversations
Book Club conversations are an important part of a UWCSEA literacy education. Thinking deeply about a shared text, sharing understandings and connections, and – crucially – listening to the perspectives of others, all contributes to our reading experiences. As teachers, we know these conversations are valuable, but we can only be in one place at…
Digital Bytes 6th February, 2017
Teaching Reading and Thinking Skills with Photographs Take a look at the 10 photographs in this New York Times article and the accompanying mini lessons to help build your students reading and thinking skills. After you take your students through the lessons you can share more images from the New York Times section, What’s Going…
Digital Bytes 23rd January 2017
Piktochart Piktochart is a fantastic free tool that allows you to create infographics and posters very easily. Students can easily sign in with Google Drive. There are searchable icons and images you can use. This is perfect for a mathematics class or anyone presenting information or research (hint, hint … grade 5 exhibition). 18 Digital…
Digital Bytes 9th January 2017
Garageband in the Reading Classroom Garageband is on our computers and iPads and this article shares a number of ways that you can use it in your reading classroom. Whether is it capturing book talks, creating a musical accompaniment, capturing the voice of a book character in an interview or exploring the different instruments from…
Digital Bytes – Dec 5th, 2016
DK Find Out DK Find Out is a fantastic site for kids to look for age-appropriate information. There are articles, diagrams, videos, fun facts and quizzes. Like the DK books, the website is visually rich and students can use a combination of text, images and video to learn more. How Should Reading be Taught in…
Ideas for Shared iPads
How lucky are we? We recently added 6 iPads to each G3-5 class, augmenting their existing 1:1 Macbook Air laptops. Planning for valuable use of shared devices requires some creative thinking, particularly when you are used to 1:1 devices. That said, the small number of devices provides a great opportunity to differentiate for powerful learning,…
Digital Bytes – April 25, 2016
Hot on the heels of a great ReThinking Literacy conference, we have a number of great ideas and resources to share. This week the focus is on Visual Literacy – one of the themes that was highlighted throughout the conference. What’s Going on in this Picture? The New York Times has a great segment in…
Digital Bytes – September 21, 2015
This week’s digital bytes includes articles about a free ebook on capturing digital stories, 11 quotes by famous writers and accompanying writing lessons, and using technology to help students read faster and with better comprehension.