Digital+Text+&+Tools

= = == =__**The Following are Digital Tools that were shared at the MA New Literacies Institute, July 18-22, 2011**__=

Taking Multiple Perspectives: Using Animoto to Understand Point of View Animoto is a video editing tool that allows users to place photos or video clips into imaginative templates. Users can upload their own thematic music or choose from a pre-programmed musical library. In the classroom, students can use this particular application as a way to understand point of view or to demonstrate comprehension. The example I provide shows how students interpreted what defines a hero through visual art and through video interviews. Each student interviewed one another with a Flip camera. (The audio portion has been replaced with music).

Increasing Student Engagement and Comprehension with Animated Avatars Xtranormal is a video application that allows you to demonstrate a script involving one or two characters. Creators choose from several backdrops and characters to animate the thoughts and ideas conveyed in various forms of writing. Students can develop an authentic feel for character development by enhancing their animated characters movements and facial expressions. The program also provides choices for background sounds and music.

Make it YouRtube: Using Digital Media to Enhance Content Area Literacy The ever-so-popular YouTube application can serve as a valuable tool in the classroom in a variety of ways. One way is to show visual references to skill demonstration whether in the literary or informational text construct. In this example, Animoto is plopped into a You Tube (to make it compatible with all computer products) and annotated with the applicable learning standards to the grade level of the students shown. = =

Using Taxegdo to Emphasize Theme and Analyze Texts Taxegdo is a web application that allows the user to visually represent a selection of prose, text or lyrics. One can cut and copy any selection of words into this application to see what visual depiction appears. This application, along with the many other word cloud apps, helps to emphasize main idea or word repetition. This is a simple and engaging way to capture the attention of any audience by offering an alternative presentational style.

Producing and Publishing Polished Pieces with Prezi: Using the Internet to Write and Interact There used to be 3X5 note cards....then there was (still is) PowerPoint, and now there is [|//**Prezi**//]. Although some may need to bring along the Dramamine, Prezi can take all thoughts and places them on one virtual plane. A mind mapping tool or sorts, this web tool can easily piece together multi-media presentations in a few simple clicks.

Supporting Multiple Source Reading Comprehension Through Delicious: Integrating ideas through Social Bookmarking Delicious is a social book marking tool. It is a way to share websites using Web 2.0 tools. Web sites are tagged and categorized and then shared with other Delicious users. Create a classroom Delicious account to share online resources.

Improving Informational Text Writing Using Wikis: The Power of Collaborative Documents

Wikispaces is where classroom instruction meets teacher created online content meets student created online content meets cooperative learning. Wikispaces is about collaboration. Wikispaces in the classroom can promote active learning. Students love it and teachers do too!

Accessing Digital Texts: Free Tools to Empower Striving Readers

== At times it seems that more and more of our students are struggling to access content, and digitized text provides an avenue to assist many students in becoming more independent as learners. In this workshop we will look at a number of free tools. Readability essentially remove the “clutter” that is often on a website, allowing the student to see the text. Within these tools they make some choices such as size of the text, size of the margins, color of text and background, and location of hyperlinks. Natural Reader is a free online reader. It includes a floating toolbar that allows students to have websites read to them. These tools are good for students in all grade levels. Links: Readability – Add-on for Firefox, IE, Chrome and Safari: @http://www.readability.com/addons Natura

l Reader – PC/Mac based: []

Prioritizing,Identifying and Refining Criteria: Visual Ranking Tools to Support Knowledge Integration 

We often ask students to make lists, but how often do we ask them to organize and prioritize these lists, identifying and refining criteria as they rank the list, and explain their reasoning...and do this while working in small groups? The Visual Ranking tool allows students to do this, and to compare their ranking to others. This tool supports higher order thinking skills (analysis and evaluation) and is one of three tools found in Intel Teaching Thinking with Technology tool set. This tool may be used once students are able to read text. Link: []

Improving Writing Using Evidence Tools: Ways to Construct a Well Reasoned Argument  Constructing well reasoned arguments is not always easy to do, nor is finding a tool to help prove the arguments. The Showing Evidence tool does both, providing a visual interface, where students make a claim, identify evidence, evaluate the quality of the evidence, and determine if the evidence supports their claim or weakens it, allowing them to base their conclusion on evidence. This tool is also part of the Intel Teaching Thinking with Technology tool set. There are two versions of this tool. One is simpler and is designed for upper elementary to middle school. The other is for middle school and high school.

Integrating and Evaluating Content Using Mind Mapping: Visual Thinking Tools for the 21st Century Learner Are you looking for an online mind mapping tool? One that can be used individually or collaboratively? SpiderScribe may be the perfect choice. This tool allows you to text notes, images, maps, calendars and events, linking them or allowing them independence. You may also upload text files. This is a visual learning tool. Richard Bryne, from Free Technology for Teachers ([|http://www.freetech4teachers.com]) suggests upload pictures and organize them into a sequence or pattern that explains a concept or event. This tool is probably best for middle to high school. Link: @http://www.spiderscribe.net/

Self- and Peer-Evaluation of Writing Using Shared Rubrics in Google Forms Providing students with collaborative writing experiences and opportunities to practice evaluating their peers’ and their own work can result in improved writing. Allowing students to use, and in some cases even create, the rubrics with which their writing will be evaluated can help them better understand how to meet and exceed the requirements of an assignment. Google Forms allows teachers and students to create, share, and use online rubrics so that students can assess their own and others‘ writing, receive feedback on their writing from multiple evaluators, and edit and revise their writing in order to ensure that it meets all criteria on the rubric.

Helping All Students Find Their Voice: Collaborative Discussions, Presentations, and Inquiry Using VoiceThread In order to prepare all students for college and the workplace, teachers must provide frequent opportunities for them to contribute to meaningful conversations with one another about a variety of topics and ideas across multiple domains. Technology has expanded and transformed the ways in which students can engage in speaking, listening, and other forms of communication for the purpose of gaining and sharing knowledge. VoiceThread allows teachers and students to create and engage in group conversations around common types of digital media, such as pictures, video, presentations, and documents. Once these media are uploaded, others can provide comments about them in 5 different ways - via text, audio, video, drawing, or telephone - in order to deepen, extend, and enrich conversation and thinking.

Deepening Comprehension through Character Analysis: Using My Fake Wall At the core of literacy is comprehension- students' understanding of the texts they read. Carefully and critically thinking about characters in literary and informational texts will aid students understanding of the text as a whole. At each grade level in the new MA ELA and Literacy Framework, students are asked to consider the characters in increasingly complex ways with increasingly complex texts. My Fake Wall, a stand alone Facebook-esq wall, is one way students can critically and deeply think about the characters in the texts they are reading.

Synthesizing and Summarizing New Knowledge with Glogster No more trips to the store to pick up poster board, no more slanted writing with various sized letters written in a single color, no more cut out pictures with glue oozing out the sides- welcome Glogster! This tool is an interactive poster maker, allowing students to demonstrate their understandings through multiple means including video, photographs, writing, animations, and sound in one place.