Literacy Lowdown
Maureen Hayes, PreK-6 Humanities Supervisor
May 2018
This month's focus: Tech Tools to Support Your ELA Classroom
#BookSnaps
Here are some examples of BookSnaps:
Flipgrid
Book Creator
Book Creator is a beautiful, flexible tool that allows students of any age or skill level to create, publish, and share online books.
Creating books using this tool can be as simple or complex as you make it. Students who prefer more structure can choose a comic book layout and insert Google images straight from the app into locked panels. Those who want more flexibility can choose a completely blank page and upload their own artwork. Students can customize the font, add shapes and stickers, hyperlink the text to other online resources, and import audio and video files.
When the book is ready to be published, the pages turn like a real book, and the audio and video play right inside the app.
Jennifer Gonzalez, Cult of Pedagogy
Newsela
Catlin Tucker http://catlintucker.com/2016/07/englishtechtools/
Storybird
Storybird is a unique language arts tool. Illustrations are used to inspire students to write stories: picture books for K-5, longform chapter books for Grades 5-9, and poetry for everything in-between.
In a learning scenario, “starting with pictures” is powerful: it stirs the emotions while it engages the brain and jumpstarts students into their text, avoiding the blank-page syndrome.
EdPuzzle
EdPuzzle is the perfect tool for allowing students to watch and engage with videos while the teacher gathers data throughout the lesson. As teachers dabble into the flipped classroom philosophy, EdPuzzle is the perfect enhancement tool for videos to be watched at home instead of eating up valuable class time.
Here's a "How to" video that further explains Edpuzzle:
Past Literacy Lowdowns Can Be Found Here:
#ONEWORD2018: INTENTIONAL
Maureen Hayes
Email: mhayes@ltps.org
Website: http://www.pearltrees.com/maureenhayes
Location: Lawrence Township, NJ, USA
Phone: 609-671-5455
Twitter: @mhayes611