BoomWriter
BoomWriter lets you easily incorporate and experience the benefits of technology as your students are collaboratively engaged in the following (or similar) standards-based learning activities:
Grade 3
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.3 – Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Using BoomWriter’s feature allowing teachers to create their own story start, students collaboratively create imagined multi-paragraph personal narratives using a teacher generated prompt (e.g. “When I woke up on Saturday morning, I had no idea I was in for the craziest day of my entire life…”).
Grade 5
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.2 – Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
Utilizing a well-crafted …
- Published in Digital Literacy
Professional Development
Training is at the very heart of everything we do. Our training is delivered by experienced staff, every one of them teachers and practitioners. They aim to get staff proficient in a specific area and really start to ‘Think Different’ in order to make a real, meaningful impact on teaching and learning.
Our training consists of ‘on demand’ customized training according to the school needs – but the biggest impact comes from a sustained program of training. Short bursts of training with real, meaningful take-aways across the academic year. This allows you to plan within the school calendar and build the program into the School Development Plan. Every school starts with our core aims and objectives and we plan training according to the unique needs of each school.
We have a variety of areas in which we …
- Published in Digital Literacy
Actively Learn
We want students to love reading.
Getting kids engaged in reading has always been hard, even before the technology-induced ADHD of our current time set in. When you consider the fact that the majority of youngsters aren’t comprehending what they’re reading, it makes a lot of sense that they may not be so into sitting down and doing their homework.
Rather than throwing his hands up in despair, Jay Goyal decided to tackle the problem head on with his online e-reader, Actively Learn. Currently a part of the Pearson Education accelerator, Actively Learn aims to engage students through questions and media embedded directly into the text they’re reading. Students are able to interact with their teachers and other students, while teachers are able to directly track their student’s progress.
When I heard about Actively Learn, I was immediately interested …
- Published in Digital Reading
We Give Books
We Give Books
We Give Books is a wonderfully developed site that offers online books for children, parents, and teachers! From its inception on April 20, 2010, We Give Books has made it possible for individuals who love reading to share books with others, simply by reading a great children’s book themselves.
In the process, We Give Books had the great fortune to work with some of the world’s best literacy organizations, non-profits that include, for example, Room to Read, Jumpstart for Young Children, United Through Reading, and the Harlem Children’s Zone.
Teachers can join for free and have books at their fingertips for read alouds to their students. The bookshelf can be filtered by age range, genre and author. In addition to fiction, We Give Books offers a nice selection of non fiction reads for your students.
American …
- Published in Common Core, Digital Reading, Media Literacy
SightWords.com
SightWords.com
Sightwords.com is a comprehensive sequence of teaching activities, techniques, and materials for one of the building blocks of early child literacy. This collection of resources is designed to help teachers, parents, and caregivers teach a child how to read. Sight Words combines the latest literacy research with decades of teaching experience to bring you the best methods of instruction to make teaching easier, more effective, and more fun.
Sight words build speed and fluency when reading. Accuracy, speed, and fluency in reading increase reading comprehension. The sight words are a collection of words that a child should learn to recognize without sounding out the letters. The sight words are both common, frequently-used words and foundational words that a child can use to build a vocabulary. Combining sight words with phonics instruction increases a child’s speed and fluency in reading.…
- Published in Common Core, Digital Literacy, Games, Latest posts
Zeal
Zeal
Zeal is developing the world’s first social learning system, enabling teachers to teach their highest and lowest achieving students automatically. Zeal believes that instead of students having to go to a physical place to learn, they will be able to learn anything, anywhere, at any time from each other.
With 10,000 Common Core assessment items, Zeal gives you the power to understand how your class is doing every day. With 30-60 minutes per day of Zeal, you will have a clear picture of how each student is doing. End of year assessments are not useful to you to figure out what students need, getting that information every day changes what is possible in your classroom.
Powerful Analytics
Zeal’s tools for analyzing your students’ efforts, achievement, and progress are second to none. Zeal’s planning dashboard can show you
- Published in Common Core, Formative Assessment, Games