One of my favorite technology tools is Classroom Organizer which I have been using for years to catalog and manage my classroom library. The classroom library is key in an English classroom, but it can be difficult to manage. This tool helps me to keep track of which books are being used and how much, lets students rate and review texts, and takes some of the mystery out of the management of my classroom library. Watch the video below to see how my students and I use this tool.
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I have used two screencasting platforms this term. One, I had used before and liked, and one was new to me. Ezvid is a freeware video maker/editor and screen recorder. It has tons of features and the more you work with it, the more interesting things you can do. I like the program a lot, but every time I use it, I feel like I have to go watch a tutorial to remember how to do this thing or that one. Because of all of its features, it can have a fairly steep learning curve. Another drawback is that you do have to download it. Because my district does not give teachers admin rights, we can't install anything on our computers, so I can't use it at work, only at home. However, it has an extensive online support community with a video wiki and lots of informative videos. It is my go-to for screencasting. See below for videos and my take on Screencast-o-matic.
Dropbox is by far the 21st technology tool that I use the most. I use my dropbox everyday and without it I would be lost. Watch the video below for my exploration of Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. For this class, I actually used two different website generators. In the past I made a googlesites webpage, which was okay, but I found it very difficult to learn how to manipulate the various elements and rapidly discovered that I was running out of drive space, something that concerned me. Also, googlesites is sometimes blocked by our school district and that seemed counterproductive to the task.
Make Beliefs Comix is a free, online comic generator. I wasn't familiar with this resource until I took this class, but I really enjoy it. There are a limited number of characters, styles and backgrounds to choose from which I found make me need to be more creative and also make for amusing comics. For example, in all of my comics, I appear as a cat lady. ;) There are some drawbacks to this comic-maker, however. First, you cannot save your image. You can download, print or send it, but there is not saving it. That also means that there's not really a log-in component. The interface is a little bit clunky and it took me a while to figure out how to add images or resize components. However, once you get over the learning curve, it's a free and fun way to generate comics. Which are great to add to the syllabus or major assignment project sheets.
![]() Canva is great, free, online infographic and poster maker. It will actually let you make images and headers for all of your social media, but it also lets you specify your own size for an image (just remember to change the pixels to inches if you're trying to match to a specific paper size), download and print it! There are hundreds of free templates and graphics you can use, but you can also purchase or upload your own. I've been using this site for posters and flyers since last year and it's great. Students like how they look, so they stop and look at the posters which increases the likelihood that they will follow through. I used canva in class to make my cloud computing infographic and my media center specialist liked it so much she printed and laminated it for use in the library! The great thing about canva is that anyone can create beautiful, professional looking products and there is no limit on the number of graphics you can make!
One of my favorite sources, and one that I use regularly, is Newsela. This resource is great for a lot of things, but what it truly excels at is creating differentiated informational texts on a variety of topics including current events. One of my challenges as an English teacher is to introduce my students to enough information text and also to differentiate for my vast range of students. Newsela makes both of those tasks much easier. For example, I give my students articles that I think will be interesting or relevant to them for their homework assignments, at a variety of different reading levels, and I assign articles that relate to our units or provide additional context about a person, event or time period. This screencap shows two of the articles that I have saved and used over time, and you can see that they fall into both categories. The other thing that you can do is curate and assign text sets online. I generally print my articles for students, but you can assign them digitally and they also have the targeted CCSS standard and questions embedded in the article. Truly, this resource is amazing!
The Common Sense Media Review site is great for people who are interested in finding the best and most appropriate tools and entertainment for young people. I personally like it because it's introduced me to new technologies and given me an idea of whether or not they will work for me. Their education-specific reviews are by teachers which helps give me some objective perspective on potential resources.
I uploaded my own review which I screen capped and posted below. This definitely a great site to go to if you're looking for new tools and resources (because they are organized into searchable categories) or want to review the tools and resources that you have used or tried. One of the requirements of my master's coursework is that I have to spotlight the different technologies that I am using in my classroom. If you scroll down, you can see the different resources that I chose to highlight and my thoughts on them.
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AuthorTeacher and student of Secondary English. ArchivesCategories |