Technology and Language Arts

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Technology_Tools_for_K_8_Language_Arts.doc

Find a Standard

http://clrn.org/search/standards.cfm

Background Ideas and Information

Aiming for HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills)

Bloom\'s Taxonomy Blooms Digitally.pdf

21st Century Road Map

english_in_black__white.pdf

Web tools

ReadWrite Think Student Materials- A great place full of interactive applets that engage students!

http://readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp

Some great ones:

Phonemic Awareness/Letter Recognition- ABC Match http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=64
Alphabet Organizer for story vocabulary http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=35
Bio-Cube for fictional characters or subjects of informational text-http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=57
Animal Inquiry Graphic Organizer- whole class http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=20
Character Trading Cards- http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=56
Create a comic strip to summarize a story http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=21
Examine circular story patterns with Circle Plot Diagram http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=26
Compare and contrast characters, stories, and more using this tool that guides students through the process for planning a compare/contrast essay http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=66
Create a character trading card for a character they want to use in a story http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=56
Have students plot a circular story before writing http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=26
Create a comic strip to focus on use of dialogue http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=21

Google Lit Trips- Use Google Earth to follow the trail in some popular books (you will need to install Google Earth)

http://googlelittrips.com/

Wordle- Use this tool to express ideas, identify main ideas, check for overused words... http://www.wordle.net/

Spelling City- things to do with your spelling lists http://www.spellingcity.com/

Delicious- This is a great tool (for any content area) that allows you and/or your students to bookmark and organize websites that are relevant to your topic. I've seen teachers use it to build background knowledge, or students use it to develop final projects by building a set of references for a topic. http://delicious.com/

Webspiration- a free, online version of Inspiration (don't know how much longer it will be free, however) http://mywebspiration.com/

Bubbl.us- another free online mindmapping tool (can be used across the curriculum) http://www.bubbl.us/index

Google Docs and Presentations- free, online word processing and presentation tools that students can access from any networked computer http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour1.html

Video on using Google Docs http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47597

Wacky Web Tales- need to practice parts of speech? http://www.eduplace.com/tales/

Storyline Online- Famous actors read popular books in these videos http://www.storylineonline.net/

Schoolhouse Rock- The lyrics to those classic songs! http://www.schoolhouserock.tv/

Word Central- from Merriam Webster, has games, daily buzzwords, and more http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html

Make Beliefs Comix- create a comic strip online http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Great sites for Interactive Whiteboards

Construct a Word- From ReadWriteThink, use word families to build words! http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/construct/index.html

Many of the applets from ReadWriteThink would work well on an interactive whiteboard.

Crickweb- a UK site with several interactive language arts activities http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html

Thinkfinity- great place to search for lessons, resources, and interactives http://www.thinkfinity.org/home.aspx

Ed1Stop

There are a ton of great resources for Language Arts at Ed1Stop!

Discovery Streaming- videos about authors, videos of stories, videos to provide background for understanding a story, videos about grammar...
Digital English- K-5 Language Arts resources, including videos and accompanying worksheets and presentations
Between the Lions- animated stories, games, and more for primary students
Tumble Books- animated books
Houghton Mifflin- the online resources to accompany the Language Arts series
Pokeman Learning League- videos and activities to help teach language arts skills and information, including quotation marks, comparing and contrasting, similies and metaphors, story elements, and more
Teacher Cadre Projects

Blogs

Literary Response Blogs

Wringer by Jerry Spinelli http://schoolblogs.net/wringer/

Literature Circle Planning http://itc.blogs.com/literaturecircles/

Blogs as a way to get students writing

http://jhh.blogs.com/blogwrite/

http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/sanborn/blog/index.html -example of students writing daily reports for parents

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogideas2.cfm -Great list of examples of ways to use blogs (not just in Language Arts)

http://tufsdblogs.org/ccristella/ -Student writing is posted (even better would be having students RESPOND to the writing)

http://edtechtheresa.edublogs.org/ -Some more ideas of how to use blogs in Langauge Arts.

Wikis

Monster Project Wiki- practice descriptive writing to contribute a monster part, then use other classes' descriptions to build a monster- great for vocab development and ELD

http://www.smithclass.org/proj/Monsters/index.htm

Choose Your Own Adventure Wiki- Tell the story of Sylvia! http://kingston.wikispaces.com/

Break down a book- this site has all kinds of pages linked to a central book http://thewright3.wikispaces.com/

Here's another great example of a class dissecting all aspects of a book http://wiki.woodward.edu/hannalee/doku.php?id=hannalee

7th Grade Student Reading Wiki- students working on different facets of the books they read during the semester http://7thgradenorthcore.pbworks.com/FrontPage

PowerPoint

Blank Seasonal Templates http://www.templateready.com/Powerpoint/Free/Templates.html

Choose your own adventure story

Create a timeline of a person's life in a calendar

Autobiographies at beginning of year

Calendar Template.ppt

Holiday Calendar.ppt

Create a story map

http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointlessonplans/qt/storymap_lesson.htm

story_map_sample.ppt

Creating an Interactive PowerPoint.doc

Create a class Big Book

Use a story that follows a template, and each student can contribute a page
Students may use clip art to illustrate the page, or use a drawing program to illustrate
Examples
- Things that are MOST in the World by Judi Barrett (great for hyperbole)
- If... by Sarah Perry (imaginative thinking)
"Book" can be projected and read as a class because everyone can see it (and later posted on a class wiki for parents to see!)

Create a patterned book

Patterned stories are great in PowerPoint because you can use animations to emphasize the pattern
Example books
- Fortunately by Remy Charlip
- That's Good! That's Bad! by Margery Cuyler
- My Little Sister Ate One Hare by Bill Grossman

Templates for seasonal stories

http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/classrooms/a/story_template.htm

Podcasts

Look around on iTunes or through Google to find podcasts related to specific books or topics. Below are two podcasts that might also be useful.

Reading Rockets 'Meet the Author'- Audio and video interviews with authors of popular children's books, such as Lois Lowry and Chris Van Allsburg.

http://www.readingrockets.org/podcasts/authors

Subscribe at iTunes

Storynory- classic tales told outloud with a little bit of history or commentary before the narrative. British accent. Quite relaxing to hear.

http://storynory.com/

Teacher Created Materials Podcast

More for Professional Development in Language Arts.

Available in iTunes

Hooked on Phonics Podcast

Available in iTunes

Watch and Learn Video Podcast

Ideas for teaching reading

Available in iTunes

ColeyCast

Student created podcasts; I especially like #37 about their literature circles

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is a great way to get students reading, writing, and communicating.

Interactive Whiteboards

Construct a Word- From ReadWriteThink, use word families to build words! http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/construct/index.html

Many of the applets from ReadWriteThink would work well on an interactive whiteboard.

Crickweb- a UK site with several interactive language arts activities http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html

Document Camera

These aren't all related to language arts, but here's a handout with ideas for using a document camera in class.

101_ways_booklet[1].pdf

Try displaying a book with the document camera so that all of your students can see it.

Language Arts Strands and Activities

Reading: Word Analysis, Fluency, and Systematic Vocabulary Development

Use Inspiration for graphic organization
- Word study- suffix/prefix, roots,
- Vocabulary- word webs, story vocabulary, picture dictionaries (these are farm words and pictures to go with them), phonemic awareness (what starts with the letter...)
Use digital voice recorders to have students practice reading stories out loud (elementary,) use recorders to have older students practice inflection when reading
Word Central from Merriam-Webster- allows you to build your own dictionary, word of the day, and more http://www.wordcentral.com/
Check out a Visual Thesaurus http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
Phonemic Awareness/Letter Recognition- ABC Match http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=64
Alphabet Organizer for story vocabulary http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=35

Reading: Reading Comprehension

Use Inspiration for graphic organization
- Cause and Effect
- Chronology
Use Google to research the events in historical fiction, obtain primary sources to bring the era alive
Use PowerPoint for story summaries (student generated- can be a simple beginning-middle-end for elementary or a chapter by chapter summary for older students.)
Use voice recorders to have students provide a verbal retelling of a story (primary or ELD)
Bio-Cube for fictional characters or subjects of informational text-http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=57
Animal Inquiry Graphic Organizer- whole class http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=20
Character Trading Cards- http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=56
Create a comic strip to summarize a story http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=21

Reading: Literary Response and Analysis

Research the Author- use Google or another search engine to research the author. Many authors have their own websites that describe their history, motivation, current work, etc.
Use Inspiration for graphic organization
- Character Maps
- Story Maps
- Genre Descriptions
- Venn Diagrams
Create a genre wiki, with examples of the genre, information about the genre...
Create an author wiki
Create a literary response blog (example: http://schoolblogs.net/wringer/)
Create a book report/book recommendation wiki- create categories and students can report back on the books they read
Use a pre-existing book recommendation site http://www.worldreading.org/
Examine circular story patterns with Circle Plot Diagram http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=26
Compare and contrast characters, stories, and more using this tool that guides students through the process for planning a compare/contrast essay http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=66

Writing: Strategies

Have students verbally tell their story or argument or ideas they want to include in a writing assignment using a voice recorder. They can get the ideas out without having to worry about spelling or punctuation, and can refer back to their recording.

Writing: Applications

Provide students access to multiple examples of the genre they are studying and writing
Have student illustrate their stories with digital pictures (takes the pressure off for kids like me who cannot draw)
Write stories in PowerPoint- it helps emphasize using paragraphs in stories, so you don't get one very long page of writing with no breaks and no way to figure out when there is a scene change or when someone new is talking... Students have to figure out when there should be a break. They can also use digital pictures to illustrate the stories.
Create a character trading card for a character they want to use in a story http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=56
Have students plot a circular story before writing http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=26
Create a comic strip to focus on use of dialogue http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=21

Writing: Written and Oral Langauge Conventions

Digital storytelling- PhotoStory is a free Windows program that allows students and teachers to create movies that include media and text. Download it at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

Create a podcast of student stories, modeled after old-time radio broadcasts. Check out a sample lesson plan at http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=901

Speaking