Chapter 10

The tenth chapter the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses literacy 3.0 and continuing professional development. Internet projects are becoming more common in the literacy age. One kind of an internet project could be a classroom Blog. As a blogger this past semester, this type of project interested me because I typically do not explore blogs and this was my first time experimenting with my own blog. The book mentioned an award winning Blog called Mrs. Yollis' Classroom Blog. It was interesting to read and explore this blog to compare the differences between my blog and a much more complex blog website. Anchor charts were a main topic of discussion throughout the book, so the Anchor Chart Central link was the first one I checked out. There were about 10 or so examples of anchor charts for different subjects, which serve as a great example and ideas for other teachers to use in their own classrooms. I am not used to imputing hyperlinks, so the Learn HTML Code! Link was very useful for me, which can help when I am making a class website or blog. The Blogging Resource for Teachers tab included videos of students, questions about blogs, and projects, activities, and sample blog posts. The 365 Blog page was an interesting project. Students involved in this project are asked to take a picture, give photo credentials to the photographer taking the photos, and post the picture to contribute to the photos posted daily by other students. Students are asked to leave comments on pictures as well as end with a question about their own picture to stimulate conversation and discussion in the group. I can understand why this blog is an award winning Best Class Blog. It is a great reference and guide for teachers beginning a classroom blog, and offers many resources contributing to learning and literacy. I highly recommend this blog and for more information you can go to http://www.yollisclassblog.blogspot.com.au!

Chapter 9

           The ninth chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses assessment in a Literacy 2.0 environment.  One site mentioned was TodaysMeet. This site was interesting and provides a virtual classroom where students can type comments and questions in real-time while the teacher provides instruction. This site was interesting to explore, but was difficult to see in depth because I was not a part of a specific virtual room, so my view was limited. A teacher who would want to teach a virtual class would really benefit from this site, as well as students who cannot make it to a real classroom. It is a new type of online class that I had not known about before. I do not foresee myself using this site a lot in my career, but it is a useful site and resource to be aware of.

            I checked out the site EverNote.  I could only view and explore with a free trial, but based on the description in the book about the uses of this site for displaying all the assessment data for students. This site allows for analysis across multiple sources and types of data, and is helpful for sharing data with other teachers, school faculty such as reading specialists, and parents. Navigating through the site is easy and clearly labled and includes a tutorial as well as instructions about how to use the website.

            SurveyMonkey is a great site to gather overall thoughts and opinions or to conduct surveys among a class. This app is very user friendly and easy to use. I have used SurveyMonkey before reading this chapter and have found it to be very useful and effective based on the questions and topics regarding the survey for what I wanted. It is customizable and surveys can be read aloud to young children and responses recorded in different ways.

Chapter 8

The eighth chapter of the book, “Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8,” discusses technology across the curriculum. This chapter mentioned many ways to integrate technology for teachers to use in the classroom, as well as resources for students to use to help their learning and improve literacy. Two resources were discussed in the book relating to technology and reliability of the sources. Two useful sites are www.schrockguide.net/critical-evaluation.html and www.easybib.com. Kathy Schrock’s website offers many useful links and information, though I think her site would benefit more teachers incorporating technology into the literacy curriculum, as opposed to students, especially the younger grades. I explored this site and looked at a few of the links that first interested me. The iPads4teaching link was extremely useful, especially because iPads are becoming more and more common among young children and used within the classroom. I clicked on the link called iPads in the Classroom, and the website brought me to a page with resources for beginning teachers and educators. My only issue with the site is that every time a link is clicked, a new tab opens up. If I looked at ten different links, then I would have ten tabs open, which can get confusing and overwhelming. Overall I will definitely keep this site in mind for when I am a teacher myself.

EasyBib is a site that I was already familiar with. This site is much more geared to students. As a high school student and even in college, I have used this site as an aid for many citations on assignments. After learning about reliability, and different formats of papers, this site deals specifically with MLA, this site helps form citations in the correct formatting. There are usually ads on his website, so you have to be careful not to click them, but they are not overwhelming. I would not use this site with young children; however, this site would greatly benefit middle school even up through college students when citing.