Tools we have used before and forgot about #2

Wallwisher (now known as Padlet) was another old familiar tool I came across recently. I stopped using it as it was not always reliable, but it has had a revamp and seems to be working quite well. What I especially like about it is that it also works on iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches. It is not an app but you can access it through the Safari app by going to http://padlet.com/ if you are starting a new one, the URL that designates the Padlet you have created or as a QR code (try out the one to the right) which is generated for you within Padlet. You do need to set up an account to create a Padlet but your students do not need logins or accounts to access it.
You can add text, graphics, movies, maps, slideshows, documents and photos from webcams.
You can embed the Padlet in a wiki or or a blog.

Below is a Padlet wall that I have had for a few years with some ideas of how to use Padlets in the classroom. Please feel free to add to it.

Created with Padlet

Writing, Reading and Boys

I have had several people at lots of different schools talking to me about boys and literacy and how they are not doing so well according to the benchmarks they are supposed to meet. When I am in classrooms and see the types of activities that the students are doing, most of the time they are boring, prescriptive tasks that have been given to students for decades to do.
There are lots of great resources out there that have great activities that you can do with children. Some of my favourites come from Sheena Cameron who is incidentally publishing a new book on Writing this year. But we all know 'technology engages boys'. Give them a device, use your imagination and think of tasks that will grab them.

Examples I have seen recently

Task:
read through your story with your buddy and find the long 'a' vowel sounds
Observation: 
Let's put the books on our head and balance, pick up debris from the ground and flick it, annoy somebody close by, giggle over something funny one of them said (sound familiar?)
So why are they doing that? They are bored, it is not engaging, they can't see the worth of it.
Suggested Solution: 

give them a device (iPod Touch, iPad, laptop with camera) Task is now to record yourself saying the words, one person can take notes and write down the words with the long vowel sound, the other person can be saying the words. Yes, there will be laughter, and pulling of faces, but give them an expectation and a time limit 'I want you to find 20 long 'a' vowel words in 5 minutes, set your timers now.
Predicted Outcome: 
they will have had fun, they will be engaged in the task, they will be reading, they will discover their mouth shape changes when they say the words

Task:
read your story with your buddy
Observation:
exactly the same as the observation before. When I have noticed boys to be engaged in buddy reading is when they are looking at high interest topic books such as space, dinosaurs and cars and trucks.
Suggested Solution
For buddy reading choose high interest topic books. Let them read the interactive books on the iPads, iPod touches, let them read some of the books online on the computer together.
Let the students use Sock Puppets to record themselves taking turns in reading. Apart from the laughs they will get from hearing the squeaky voice, they will hear if they are reading fluently.
Predicted Outcome:
they will talk about what they are reading, they will be engaged in their learning. They will be reading. They can share back to the group/class.

Task:
answer comprehension questions in their books
Observation:
5 minutes have gone by and they have written the date, and the number 1. They have discussed what pen or pencil they will use, they will have searched everywhere for a ruler...
Suggested Solution
Use a simple Graphic Organiser like Expanded Question or the Notability app where they can take a photo of the questions and type in their answers
Predicted Outcome
Students will stay on task and want to get started on their work


Task
Printed Worksheets
Observation
Some students like worksheets. A lot don't really care for them. I see grimaces on faces, then there becomes the long hunt for the missing pen/pencil that was there 30 seconds ago. And while we are looking for the pencil/pen we happen to drop/misplace the worksheet and will need to search or berate the person next to us for having/hiding our worksheet. Once they get to their table/desk 5 minutes later the teacher is berating them for not starting. Then starts the slide into the body slump as they take another 5 minutes to painstakingly write their name...sound familiar? Why are they doing that? Because the task is boring!
Suggested Solution
Interactive Worksheets in Google Docs/Word/Pages/PowerPoint/Keynote/Google Presentation. Have some comprehension questions, but some might link to a website where they have to search for something or read something related to their instructional text. Add a Graphic Organiser/s that may scaffold them in their answers. In PowerPoint/Keynote or Google presentation insert a YouTube movie with Questions for them to answer at different points. In Google Docs insert a drawing block where they can draw the answer to the question or they can use a Drawing app on their iPad and then insert the drawing into the Interactive Worksheet. Ask a question that allows them to photograph the answer. Mix it up a bit and have Word Study questions, Dictionary meanings etc where students can use dictionaries/thesaurus on devices, online, printed books.

This all might sound like a lot of work for the teacher but a worksheet in this format could become a template that could be used over and over again. And if you start this with your top group you will have the 'Interactive Worksheet' for the next reading group when they get to that level.
When planning your activities think how you could do the same thing creatively using technologies that will grab that reluctant child and engage him..

Tools we have used before and forgot about #1

Telescopic Text
I blogged about this back in  October 2009 and posted on my Literacy wiki a couple of years ago. Telescopic text is a great way of showing students how to expand their sentences. The original Telescopic text starts off with a sentence, click on a shaded word to see how it expands.

You can now make your own Telescopic text, and/or you can also have an account where you can save them and return to them later.
These would work well as an IWB activity where groups of children can collaborate on one piece of writing. Or if you have access to several computers, students can be independently writing their own and sharing their different stories later, which could possibly be further edited.

Yesterday I was working with a teacher and we were thinking about different ways to make a student's reading experience more fun and interesting and then to link it into his writing. The following poem was part of the story she was going to use with him from a Junior Journal (Junior Journal 36, Dancing Bees by Lynette Bradley.) and it is perfect for enlarging and adding to.

So here is a tool that you should add to your 'Teacher Digital Toolkit'.

Day 5 e-Learning Classroom

Part of good management of students and the creation of 'self-managing' students is the time it takes for them to become self managing and what management strategies, you...the teacher, have put in place.
As an issue arises then create a management strategy to take care of that problem. One came up yesterday, this school does not allow students to print from their computers, only the teacher laptop can print! Some of the children have publishing to print, others need to print out their drafts for conferencing and further editing. The teacher could end up being harassed by impatient students all day wanting their printing!

Solution: We will add a 'Ready to Print' option to the Writing management board. Students move their name labels to that part of the board. The teacher will find the saved file in the student's individual folders and can print all files at at time that is convenient.

We wanted all of the children to have some typing practice, so instead of handwriting sessions everyday, nine children would be allowed to go to the computers to practice their typing and do their spelling activities. The rest of the class would do their handwriting and spelling. We made a timetable that would run for the whole week. This will go on the wall so all students know when it is their turn to be on the computer during this time.

We used the 'easi speak' for a different purpose today. One of the students has a problem with writing things down, computers are difficult and so was the iPad. The main difficulty appears to be with spelling and writing/typing fluently. This child has very good verbal skills. She managed to write down her ideas and after she conferenced her work with the teacher rather then get her to go through the pressure of writing or typing again we got her to publish with the 'easi speak'. She did a perfect job in one 'take'. She was also the first person to publish in the class and had the biggest smile on her face when she was informed of this.

The 'easi speak' continues to be one of the most popular choices for reading. Students love using the microphone to record their voices speaking and even more so...hearing themselves back through the speakers.
The teacher will need to set up a timetable for this activity as some children were complaining that they haven't had a turn yet. Small whiteboards are great for 'booking' time and equipment and students are more likely to use them mainly for the novelty of using whiteboard markers!

Mobile Listening Post

I brought in an old iPod of mine that has audiobooks loaded on it. I have a few copies of Stormbreaker so I set that up as an reading option for students. Several students enjoyed listening to the story and reading the book at the same time. To manage this well, if there are students listening at different times then they will need to make a note of the time where the story is up to.
This is a great followup activity for students particularly if the group are reading the book as part of their instructional reading.
Teachers can make their own audiobooks of student basal readers, record them on GarageBand (Mac) or Audacity, then download to an iPod or MP3 player. Use a splitter so up to 5 headsets can listen at one time.

Another popular reading activity is 'Grab some friends and perform a play. The students also have to record what they are doing with a 'Flip Video' Camera (these are not in production anymore, so if you can find one, grab it as it has so many uses in the classroom). The benefits of students recording is

1.  it keeps all students on task
2. the play can be watched at any time by anybody
3. the performers can 'critique' their performance

In this photo is an interesting group with one girl and several boys with strong characters. From the beginning you could see that there were going to be 'co-operation' issues. From several observations I feel that the use of the camera kept them more on task then they normally would be, as they wanted to have a movie to show the rest of the class so got over their 'leadership' problems quickly. 

Collaboration

Even though these students are working 1-1 on these computers, they are still talking to each other, they are asking questions, providing answers and helping each other.
They are on swivel chairs that helps with the collaboration, they can move and turn to each other. When this photo was taken, the boy on the end had a problem and the two girls to his right were helping him.

Day 3 e-Learning in the Classroom

Maths
Students are working well through the activities, some of them need to be reminded that they have to record their scores from the online math activities. Children who were working on the mimio workshop are learning to be co-operative with each other so that they share ownership of the mimio pen!






Reading

The reading session went extremely well today. Students were moving from task to task independently.










We introduced two new options, the audiobook on the iPod touch and the Easi-speak microphone.
The students with the Easi-Speak had a great time recording themselves reading a story and listening to themselves reading it.

Students sat with the iPod  touch, the splitter and head phones and listened to 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' audiobook.

The children are also very fond of using the flip video to record their plays.












Writing

The students are getting into the swing of using the Writing task board. They were all moving their names across to the appropriate column. Some of the students started on the Conferencing options. At this school the students can't print from the school computers, only the teachers laptop is enabled to print so we are adding another management space to the Writing task board 'Ready to print' so that the teacher knows which students have work to print out, and can print it out at a time that is convenient to them.

Handwriting, Keyboarding and Spelling
The blending of these subjects is working well. Students know who are on the computers for Keyboarding and Spelling, while the others do their Handwriting and Spelling in their books. Keyboarding is already starting to improve.
Several children are confident with the Home keys (asdf jkl;) so I have started them off on the Keyboarding cards.

Day 2 e-Learning Classroom

Another great day in the classroom. The children settled down to their tasks straight away and were not phased by all of the teachers in the room observing them.
Maths
Most of the students realised that they needed to write their progress and answers in their maths books. The teacher of the class was amazed by 3 children who were working on the 3 computers in the withdrawal space. He expected them to be not on task, but they were totally involved in what they were doing occasionally helping each other at the same time.



I also noticed that the teacher was able to leave the students (He feels comfortable enough to let go of control)  who were working on the workshop for short periods of time to look around the room at what the other students were doing. There were not enough computers for all of the students but they all managed to co-operate well with each other.


Reading
The students understand how the task board works now and are eager to try out the different options, especially the iPad stories. So that we can find out what activities the students like doing the most they will fill in the following tracking sheet

Reading recording sheet

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This will assist in future planning of activities and also identify individual student preferences.

One group of students went with the 'Grab some friends and act out a play'. We gave them a Flip Video camera and they videoed their efforts. Their first effort they viewed away from the rest of the class, lots of laughing but they soon realised that they needed to make some drastic changes. They went outside and did it again and did a great job!

Spaces

Gareth created a secret space today and introduced it to the children as a 'Quiet Space'. The students used it well today. This photo was taken when another student came and told me that the child in the Quiet Space had been there for a long time, when I went and looked this kid was reading quietly with another student.

Writing

Gareth talked about Conjunctions in the writing process today. Teachers who were observing were amazed at the level of engagement with the children that were working on the iPads and iPhone. Students are now starting to use the Writing Management Board as they move from the Drafting stage to Editing and Conferencing. We will be introducing the conferencing choices tomorrow.

Handwriting, Spelling, Keyboarding

Already the students are concentrating consciously on their keyboarding skills. Most children had 2 hands on the keyboard and were touching the space bar with their thumbs. We have timetabled 9 children everyday to do Keyboarding exercises rather than Handwriting and then they can continue with their Spelling activities after 10 minutes of typing practice.

Spelling activities

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The students who aren't on the computers continue with doing their spelling in their spelling books.

P.E

Gareth has made a 'Large Ball skills' assessment sheet for his children. They looked over what was expected of them, students took turns at videoing groups of other students. When they came inside they watched themselves and critiqued their performance. They now have their learning goals for the next P.E session.

Art

The topic at the moment is Disasters so Gareth prepared a PowerPoint with images to do with disasters. Students will be creating their own disaster icons for posters. Everybody started off on paper and I worked with a couple of children on Paint. More about this tomorrow!

Starting an e-Learning classroom

This week I am working with another teacher in a Year 4 classroom. We have the beginnings of setting up an e-Learning classroom. This teacher has had to make quite a few dramatic changes in teaching practice to operate fully in an e-Learning environment.
The class has 4 computers and 5 laptops. I have taken in 3 iPads and today I even let the students use my iPhone.

Gareth and I met for one day to plan last term.  I talked to him about what an e-Learning classroom can look like. I created a cutdown version of the action plan that my teachers in the e-Learning classroom are using (theirs goes for the year).


I created the wiki for the class and we are treating it as the portal for the students to their learning.

 We introduced the children to it first thing in the morning. Before school started I taught 3 students how to make a weemee and they continued through the day when there was a spare moment to teach someone else.
Rules
We talked about rules.

 The emphasis was on being co-operative, collaborative and self-managing.


Maths
We introduced the Measurement task sheet

Measurement Assessment

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and then the Measurement Workshop

Measurement

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and finally the Measurement Website. The students were then given the choice of what activities they had to do, we only had time for a short trial so they were allowed to go to one task and try it out. Some students worked in pairs, some worked alone, some worked on the Workshop with Gareth. The children grasped the concept of working like that incredibly fast and there was a wonderful working hum in the classroom. It will be interesting to see how they go tomorrow self managing themselves.

Reading
Gareth has created interactive worksheets around the student readers for the week. I will post examples of these on the website and in a blog post tomorrow. Students read with the teacher, then worked on their interactive worksheet and then their third task was to choose from the options. More about this tomorrow.

Writing
I created this teaching PowerPoint on Argument writing and Gareth introduced it today.

How to write arguments junior

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Students were shown the Word Graphic Organiser template.

Argument persuasive template

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Nine students worked on computers drafting straight onto the Graphic Organiser. Two worked on the iPads and one on the iPhone. The rest worked on the print outs of the Graphic Organisers.

As it was not the full amount time allowed for writing today, they will continue with this tomorrow.

Keyboarding
Keyboarding was introduced briefly and all students pasted in a photocopied version of a keyboard, and coloured in the home keys. As I wandered around the students while they were typing today I was constantly saying "Two hands on the keyboard, thumbs only on the space bar!"

It was a great start to the week. These 7 and 8 year old students adapted so easily and quickly to the new ways of doing things in their class. On my advice the teacher got rid of some desks and replaced them with tables. The students were very surprised to start off with but very quickly got used to their tote trays and sitting wherever they wanted around the tables. We will be having quite a few teachers observing over the week so it will be interesting to see how the students cope with that as well, judging by today they will be all little champions.

Creating Reading Activities

I was talking to a teacher today about creating activities for her reading programme. I like to start with my top reading group which means that the other groups will be able to do that reading activity when they reach it. Kidspiration and Inspiration are perfect for this. The activities don't take long to create especially if you create activities using old templates.
Here are a couple of examples using the book Rosie at the zoo.

After they have used these as followup activities they can then be stored in a folder for that reading group as extra reading activities, make sure the books are also kept together in a 'Book Box' so that the students can use them with the computer activities.

Lifting Student Achievement with Technology

This is a presentation created by a teacher to present to the Board of Trustees. This teacher is a self confessed Luddite who two years ago did not like working with computers in her classroom. Now she is totally sold. What is so wonderful about this presentation is the evidence the teacher has to how computers and the use of the 'mimio' have 'significantly' lifted student achievement in her class.

Integrating ict into classroom

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PowerPoint as a modelling and teaching tool

I was helping a teacher with ideas of how to integrate ICT into her classroom programme. I asked her what her shared book was and suggested how she could teach 'Shared Book' using the class computer and a group of children. (Read the Shared book with the children first)

• Start off with a blank page, introduce the shared book, ask what the title is, type the Title in
• in the sub title box type by Room #
• Insert a new slide
• Read the text from the Shared book and then start typing it in
• ask questions like "What do I need to type first?" "What goes at the end of the sentence?"
• Computer skills are taught as they are needed i.e. "How do I make a capital letter?" "Who can show me how to type a full stop, what finger should I use?
• As the book was one about 'I can run, I can draw' etc. The teacher taught the children how to take photos, so these 5 and 6 year olds took their own photos and the teacher inserted them into their PowerPoint. 
• To finish it off she chose a design template and this was all done as part of the lesson with the children participating alongside.

 All this was part of their shared book learning experience, and put their learning into an integrated, authentic context. They now have this story on the computer as an extra reading activity.

As a follow up to this, students can take photos of other things they 'can' do and add them to this shared book or create an new one.

Twelve Days of Christmas

There are only two weeks left until the end of the school year in New Zealand,

so it is time to start thinking about Christmas activities we could do with the students in our classes. Even though Christmas is during Summer we still adopt a lot of the Northern Hemisphere traditions and teach them in our classes. One noteable case last Christmas was showing the teacher of the bi-lingual Tongan unit how to make paper snowflakes online and offline!
The next few posts are going to concentrate on Christmas activities you can do in the classroom using computers.

Twelve Days of Christmas

This was a favourite activity I did with students every Christmas where we would

• read The Twelve Days of Christmas
• sing the song
• read the Kiwi Version of The Twelve days of Christmas, A Pukeko in a Ponga tree
  
• sing the song
• finally we would plan and write our own 'Twelve Days of Christmas' story
• The children would write and illustrate their own books

The ICT adaption of this would be to create their own books using either

• PowerPoint (Younger children could have a template with most of the words typed and they would fill in the gaps, add pictures and themes to the pages)

Here is a download for the PowerPoint. Click on the Menu button and select Download Presentation. You will need to have a slideshare account.

Twelve Days Of Christmas

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• older children could create theirs from scratch
• draw the pictures in Kidpix, Paint or Artrage
  
• students could draw or paint pictures, take photos of final products
  
• or use online programmes to create drawings such as Sketchfu ( need to set up an account, click on Download to see image and screen capture or print); Odopod is more suitable for older students, drawings look like watercolours; Sumo is more suitable for older children as it has quite comprehensive tools; Artpad is a simplistic art tool suitable for all ages, take screen captures of finished art work
• other programmes that could be used are PhotoStory 3 (Windows only), Moviemaker (Windows) or iMovie (Mac) Insert photos, record voices or add a music track to create movie.

Inspiration or Kidspiration could be used for the mindmapping of the ideas and publishing as well. Both Kidspiration and Inspiration can be hyperlinked to websites, Inspiration can also have movies embedded on the page.

ComicLife is also another easy way to publish students work. Use their drawings or photograph artwork and add it to the comic.(If you are using images from online don't forget to reference!)
If you don't have ComicLife then use the Autoshapes in Word

A simple but fun activity for all ages is building a picture in Kerpoof and adding text, you can search for graphics and make it as unusual as you like. Print it or screen capture it when finished.

Of course the ever popular Wordle should not be left out. Adding a Tilde ~ in between each word will allow phrases to appear. This is when children need to learn how to copy and paste as there is a lot of repetition going on.

Themes
Different themes could be decided on. There are different schools of thought on the original meaning of the song. Here are some ideas for themes that could be used

• characters and settings from a fairy tale or favourite book 
• indigenous items from the child's country of origin
• favourite sports (teams)
  
• international themes such as Global Warming, Third World countries, Disasters
  
• based on a Social Studies/Science topic studied that year
• presents they would like for Christmas
• presents they would like to give for Christmas
• based on people in the school/classroom
• based on a favourite movie (See the youtube movies below)
• look through a current magazine or newspaper
• write about noteable school or personal events

How about a non-Christmas theme?

There maybe some students in your class who do not celebrate Christmas so they could have a theme about the holidays. I saw a great book in a classroom a few days ago called 'The Twelve Days of Holidays'. This is written from the mother's perspective as she is increasingly getting 'fed up' with her children at home during the holidays. Students could write about

• the holiday they are going to have
• their best holiday
• their worst holiday
• their dream holiday
• or from the perspective of a member of their family
  

Other versions of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' that can be viewed that could motivate students are the following

• this one is a slideshow with pictures (paintings) of each day

• This next Youtube movie is a good example of how you can create your own Twelve days of Christmas on a particular theme, in this case on Disney stories.

• This version will appeal to Shrek fans. This is a great theme to use picking out characters in the movie.

• And if you want to see the lyrics have a look at this Youtube movie

For more advanced ideas of presenting the twelve days of Christmas which could be embedded into Blogs and wikis...

Wallwisher: Add posts to the wall, could be an individual wall or a collaborative wall

For further instructions on how to use Wallwisher


Glogster a poster yourself application enables you to embed graphics, movies and link to websites.

Create an online book

Mixbook has some great Christmassy templates. Students can publish their Twelve Days of Christmas in Mixbook and then embed into their wiki or blog (for free). They can also be purchased from $6.99 US and sent to you.

There are a lot more online ways of presenting 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', for more ideas look at 

Publishing Writing Ideas November 2009

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Where the Wild Things are

Where the Wild Things are is an old favourite book of mine and one that I have used with classes many times. The movie is due out on the 3 December 2009 (in NZ) which will renew interest in this old classic. A few years ago I developed some activities using the context of the book and integrated it into the maths we were doing at the time; tessellations and rotation. The skills students learned from working with shapes enabled them create their own Wild Things.

Where the Wild Things are activities

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Creating Wild Things from shapes Activity Four

Creating Wild Things

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Build a Story: Activity Six

Build A Story Example

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A to Z of Wild Things: An example

A Z Of Wild Things Example

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Inanimate Alice - Multimedia Fiction and Networked Novels

Came across this site Inanimate Alice and I was overwhelmed with ideas of how to use this in a classroom situation. Inanimate Alice is an interactive multimedia story (known as Transmedia, storytelling across multi media platforms) that grows as the main character gets older. The story starts in a simplistic way and gradually increases in readability and game challenge levels. There are 10 levels, four that have been released so far with Episode 5 coming sometime before the end of the year. All these episodes can be viewed for free!

What I liked about it was how it would appeal to visual learners and non-readers alike. Apart from reading, this is also a fantastic motivator for writing and publishing. I recently wrote a post about 'PowerPoints can be great' and this way of presenting a story lends itself (in simplistic terms for young children) as one that could be created in PowerPoint or Keynote because of the hyperlinking abilities. MovieMaker or iMovie could be used as well more so for the animated effects that could be added.

Have a look at this wiki Digital Literacy -Inanimate Alice, (Pascoevale Primary School) there are some fantastic examples of episodes students have written using PowerPoint.

Flight Paths by the same authors is a Networked Novel where readers can participate by adding fragments, ideas or chapters. Again, these stories would be great motivators for writing.



Ways to use this in your classroom

• create their own version of the story making themselves the main character
• take one of the main characters of 'Inanimate Alice' and build a story around that character and their adventures
• continue the story and create different chapters in different countries including details that pertain to the culture of that country
• use special effects of photo editing software (Befunky, Fotoflexer, Lunapic, Picnik, Aviary) for the photos on their story
• retell the story from another perspective

Available as well is the iStori.es software tool with an all time site license for $242 (NZ). This allows students to create stories in the same way as Inanimate Alice.
Teachers can request the comprehensive Education Pack which has lesson plans and resource pack. There is also an Education pack available for the iStori.es, an authoring tool.

What is important to note here is that the Multimedia fiction story cannot exist without the writing; that is what makes it powerful. There are striking images coming at you, but the writing is what leads you on, to think, predict, question and wonder what is next.
I believe that this genre of writing and reading is an important development in our literacy programme.

Bookmarks, Interactive Learning Centres and Delicious

In past blog posts I have talked about Interactive Learning Centres and bookmarks in Delicious. Teachers have embraced this management method of directing students to certain websites. This is a great idea and works well as long as the links are directly linked to a specific activity that is supporting the teaching and learning.
Ways to use Delicious

• make it the home page on your class computers
• make bundles of your reading groups and math groups (See page 7 of How create a Delicious Account)
• directly link to the activity rather than the page that might have several links on it
• send the link to your Delicious page home on your school or class newsletter
• when Parents ask you what are suitable sites for their child to access, give them the Delicious link
• when you start a new topic make sure that you have a tag or a bundle for it so that students can access these links at home
• make a bundle that is specifically child friendly games (check them out to make sure they are not full of inappropriate advertising)
• set student homework using Delicious Links
• keep your bundles well organised and your tags clear
• ensure that you have a Spelling bundle with spelling and grammatical tags (very useful when homework has not been set, but students can use these for practice at home and at school)

I have been asked by some teachers whether they should just have a wiki and not Delicious. I suggest that you have both. The wiki is more current and should show the posts, games, activities, discussions that are happening at the moment. The Delicious page is more historic as it shows all the links you have covered in the year and is a great resource for children to use quickly and easily.

Ways to use Interactive Learning Centres (ILC)

• create pages that are group/curriculum specific (Reading or Math Groups names)
  
• directly link to the activity rather than the page that might have several links on it
• use PowerPoint or Keynote to create ILCs (later versions allow you save as PDF files which means you can play them on any machine irrespective of Platform or Version of software)
• if you have special needs children create an ILC that is specific to their need and level
• create teaching lessons using ILC, make them in PowerPoint and then copy or import into Interactive Whiteboard software. Hyperlink to the Internet or games and activities that you have made in PowerPoint, Word, Pages, Keynote, KidPix, Inspiration or Kidspiration
  

The slideshow below is an example of how you could make a Maths ILC. One page shows games that are strand specific and two pages show 2 different Maths groups and the activities that they are doing related to what is being taught at the moment.

Interactive Website

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Reading the Classics 'Paper versus Digital' Why not both?

As a child I was and still am an avid reader. I had a Grandfather (hobbyist antique collector) who would fuel my literary interest by giving me 'old- antique' books that he found in his travels. I don't know what happened to most of them now but I still have a fully bound copy of 'The Girl's Own Annual' circa early 1900s chapters separated by the finest tissue paper. Included in this anthology was the typical girlie serial stories right to the helpful hints/advertisements of how to embroider your underwear!
As a child I was desperate to read anything, and I'm not sure how I discovered them (probably through my mother who was a teacher) but I know that I read most of the classics before I was 13. I then discovered 19th Century Gothic literature and that consumed me through my early teens.
When I was teaching full time, I liked to read to my students everyday. It was always a novel, and I particularly liked reading classic novels...but how can you do that in today's world where there is so many differences in our lives compared to one to two hundred years ago. Language is different, context and meaning of words have been changed; we have lost a lot of words and phrases that were used many years ago and they have been replaced with new words and expressions.
We all know that a`movie' of a book is never the same as the book we have read. An experiment I tried out with some Year 3/4 (7 & 8 years old) students a few years ago was when there was a plethora of Disney movies re-released. Peter Pan was the one we focused on. The children and I found as many resources we could and we all gleefully consumed them. Then I started reading the original Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. They loved it and were totally surprised that the Disney 'Peter Pan' was based on this original story. I purchased and found several copies of the original book and as I read it to the class the students read along at the same time.

Digital Medium
Nowadays we have a new medium to reach children and encourage them to read the old classics. A lot of these books are available free online.

Kids Corner has a wonderful collection of Beatrix Potter Stories with text which students can view or you can download the audio of it and play it through your computer or download onto an iPod (students can listen to the story while reading the printed copy at the same time).
Scroll further down the main website page and there is audio downloads to Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Charles Dickens, Grimm's Fairy Tales and Rudyard Kipling.

Book Glutton has a comprehensive collection of all classic books, some of the children ones I have found are Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and many more.


You can embed links to the books, read them online, make comments and chat about the booksA Europe of tales is an animated interactive site retelling the ancient myths and legends of their countries stories.

Many Books is a site with free books to download as PDF, e-Reader or Kindle) some of the featured stories are Anne of Green Gables and The Wind in the Willows.
Project Gutenberg is a source of many classic e-books that can be downloaded as webpages or PDFs, have a look at the Velveteen Rabbit, this could be used as a shared reading lesson using an interactive whiteboard or mimio. Use the highlighting tools and pens to find key ideas, note sequencing, answer questions etc.
Page by Page books is a text based comprehensive list of classic books.
Planet PDF
Planet e-book these last two sites are where you can download PDF versions of classic books.
PDF search is a comprehensive search engine for PDF files, search for a book title and find many versions of it.
Feedbooks allows you to download to MP3 players, smartphones, iPods, PDAs and Kindles.


Graphic Novels
Graphic Novels are a great way to lead children into reading the classics and this site Classics Illustrated Comicbooks is one of my favourites. It has a great collection of classics that have been turned into comic books. One of the ways I would use this site is to read the classic novel alongside of each page of the comic, using the illustrations for prediction, clarification and for visual stimulation of what is happening in the story

For older students here is a link to Shakespeare in comic form, download as a PDF

Just Audiobooks
Here are a list of sites where you can download Audiobooks to MP3 players or iPods.
LibriVox
Loudlit is a website where you can download MP3 audiobooks or just listen online. If you don't want to download then plug in speakers into your computer
Free Classic Audiobooks
Candlelight stories have audiobooks, movies and storybooks

Books that are not so classic are available as well at
Sqooltube has video books of Dr Seuss, Berenstain Bears, Maurice Sendak amongst others

iPod and iPhone Apps
There are several 'Apps' that allow you to download to your iPod or phone classic books (i.e. Stanza and eReader)
You can even download classic comics (do a search for Archie).

You can download the entire Shakespeare's plays for free or the Sherlock Holmes collection for $1.29 NZ. For $2.59 you can get 400 fairy tales including Aesop, Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

iPod and iPhone Audiobooks
There is a huge collection of Audiobooks available, a few free but there is a cost to most of them i.e.
The Wind in the Willows is $14.95 but the voices are well known actors from when it was a radio production. The Ugly Duckling is $2.99, Little Women is $7.99. Be aware when you are buying Audiobooks whether you are buying the Abridged or the Unabridged. If you want the full copy purchase the Unabridged!

Remember if you are downloading to an iPod or iPhone, you can use a Splitter (NZ $20) to include 5 headsets around the same iPod.

All of these digital resources (plus the many thousands I haven't found yet) are available for you to use in your teaching programme. They may just stimulate those reluctant readers to read, and open up a new world to history for those who enjoy reading.
Many of my happiest memories have been of when I read those classic stories and immersed myself in the history of the time. Share these with your students!