National Writing Project--Awesome Digital Writing Resources

If you haven't yet visited the National Writing Project's website, make a point of doing so. It's an awesome site with lots of great ideas and resources. You just have to love a serious website like this that has a tab on the homepage named "Provocations."

K-1 Students using Jing and Blogs!

This video motivated me! These K-1 students screen capture using Jing and post to a classroom blog. I love how the students repeat the steps to the teacher. I want to try this with my K students!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpOfwDgPjSc&feature=mfu_in_order

Way-new Collaboration

Howard Rheingold talks about the coming world of collaboration, participatory media and collective action — and how Wikipedia is really an outgrowth of our natural human instinct to work as a group. As he points out, humans have been banding together to work collectively since our days of hunting mastodons. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:30.)

Do you know about Book?

Book is a revolutionary product: Bio Optical Organized Knowledge device... Find out about its amazing advantages!

This video is not only relevant to our discussions, but it is sure to make you smile! It is in Spanish with English subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhcPX1wVp38

Original vs Authentic

The Internet is wonderful...look at all the information...who will know this was copied?
This article presents an interesting perspective on the ease and ethics of Copy and Paste. There is a dilemma in understanding the difference between original work and authentic work.

Click Here

I thought this series from the NY Times was relevant to our studies:
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/

Always Learning Blog

I have been following this blog for about a year now. Kim Cofino is an educational technology facilitator for international schools and she really has a lot of great resources and ideas!

Enjoy!

Could Diigo be part of the solution?

Just read this online and it made me think about how Diigo might be useful perhaps in this case. I am not completely sure, but...I must say I had never really thought about the lack of marginalia affecting books.

Going Out of Print

Another article I stumbled across. I thought this sentence was very relevant to what we have been talking about!

"Is Headmaster James Tracy’s declaration that whether a student reads Shakespeare in a printed or electronic format is “immaterial” valid?"

Check it out!

Great Web Site for Starting Research on Different Countries

IfItWereMyHome.com is your gateway to understanding life outside your home. Use the country comparison tool to compare living conditions in your own country to those of another. Start by selecting a region to compare on the map to the right, and begin your exploration. Click on the link below...

If It Were My Home

The Future of Reading

I just stumbled across this article...it even has a quote from one of our very own!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html

The Internet of Things

Check out this great video on how we have changed globally because of the Internet!

Literacy Blog

Here is a blog that I have added to my RSS feed on a recommendation from our school literacy coach. His name is Tim Shanahan and he is involved in education at the K-12 and college level in Chicago. There are a lot of great resources that he shares as well as perspectives on literacy. Enjoy!

http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/

Reading topics in February's eSchool News

February's edition of eSchool News doesn't say that it's focus is reading and technology, but the connections couldn't be clearer.

One teacher reports that third grade students who once “hated reading… suddenly feel like readers” in the article, “Ore. District says iPod fires up kids for reading.”

Nora Carr reviews recent research that places access to books at or above the same level of importance as parents' education level in the success of students. She then questions whether increased access to online texts can prove the same in her piece, "Can eBooks help bridge achievement gaps?"

If you haven't checked out this publication, it's worth a visit!

eSchool News

Does "My Taptu" mean anything to you?

More and more web apps are now available that allow you to change the appearance of the page you're reading or that accomplish for you some of the work of finding the articles or pages you want to read.

Have you heard of Pulse, Flipboard, or My Taptu? Or Instapaper? Do you currently use an RSS feed aggregator that keeps track of sites you're interested in and "pulls" new content onto a single page where you can view it all at once--or puts it into an email that gets sent to you daily? For a comparison of feed aggregators, click here.

For a quick overview of several of these apps, check out this NY Times article by Jenna Wortham titled "Apps Alter Reading on the Web."

A Sure-Fire Way to Improve Reading Fluency

Using Audacity ( downloading is free ) and a microphone can really bring to life the reality of reading, pacing, intonation and self-discipline.
Check out this web site for more information and detail...

http://techhappy.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/a-sure-fire-way-to-improve-reading-fluency/

Child-Driven Education

TED talks are full of great ideas and studies that open our eyes and minds to new ideas and concepts. Sugata Mitra conducted a study on Child-Driven Education. He investigated the impact the Internet has in education by taking a closer look at how and what happens when school-aged children are exposed to information.

How Google Apps Saved a School

I stumbled on this video in my exploration of the PBS Frontline Digital Nation site. Our school is currently in the process of rolling out a Google App standard for our students so I was interested in what this school accomplished with it! What I thought was particularly relevant to our discussions so far in this course was the acknowledgment of multitasking when working online. I also enjoyed seeing the way the teacher incorporated technology into the class reading of To Kill a Mockingbird. As a bonus, there is a moment in the middle (when the AP is talking) that is good for a laugh! Enjoy!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/schools/how-google-saved-a-school.html?play

Which Web 2.0 option is best?

If you are considering using a blog, wiki or Google Doc for your interactive reading / writing activity, take a look at this chart that conveniently breaks down the advantages and disadvantages and makes your decision easier.

Copy this link to your browser or click on it.

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ddnzwcn8_15g3jrbpdf

More students in more and more schools are reading on tablets

Winnie Hu in the NY Times writes about the growing number of schools that are adopting the Apple iPad:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05tablets.html?ref=winniehu

Welcome to our CEP 891 Class Bulletin Board!

This bulletin board is a space for us to share links to news items, pics, videos, websites, etc. that we think may be of interest to our colleagues in 891. No need to write a long comment if you don't have time. A link with a short title or explanation is fine.

I'll go first. Here's a link to a recent piece in the NY Times that puts side by side five popular tablets (such as the Apple iPad and the HP Slate) and compares them. If you don't know much about tablets, or if you're thinking about buying one, you may want to take a quick look.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/technology/personaltech/2010-tablet-computer-comparison.html?ref=technology

Also: Nick Bilton in a December post on the NY Times "Bits" blog wrote this:

Reports released throughout the year by Forrester Research and IDC, market research firms that track electronics usage and sales, say that the tablet market is going to explode in the coming years. IDC predicts that 42 million tablets will be sold in the United States in 2011 alone.