January 24

Website Worth Sharing: ReadWorks Digital

Many of you are probably familiar with the wonderful free ELA resources available at www.readworks.org . Now they have a new offering called ReadWorks Digital http://digital.readworks.org/ . Teachers can create an account, go to Class Admin and Click on the “Create a Class button”. If your students have individual Google accounts, select the Google Sign In option (see image below), which directs the kids to their website and has them enter a code specific to your class. Then you can search for and assign them leveled articles as a class or individually (allowing you to differentiate).

Those of you who use Google Classroom can post a general assignment to Classroom and use this link http://digital.readworks.org/student so they can go straight to their assignment.  When I tried it on the Chromebook, it took me straight to my “student” assignments once I created the account with my Google Account. You could also have them put a link to ReadWorks Digital on their bookmark bar in Chrome and bypass using Classroom for this. This would be a great activity to use with Chromebooks or Chromeboxes.

If your students don’t have Google accounts, there is the option to enter a roster and have the kids sign in that way (see image below).

Once the students login, they will see the articles you assign them and will be able to read the articles, review the vocabulary terms, and answer the multiple choice AND short answer questions. When they are done, you can review progress in the teacher Admin panel.

The wonderful thing about this is that it is totally FREE!

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November 8

Website Worth Sharing: #kinderchat Symbaloo Webmixes

A Symbaloo webmix is a collection of weblinks all displayed in a visual, tiled format. The user “kinderchat” has created a collection of ABC weblinks in Symbaloo that you might find useful:

http://edu.symbaloo.com/mix/abc You can post this link to an eBoard or bookmark it on your classroom Google account for easy access for your students.

If you want to see the other webmixes created by kinderchat here: http://edu.symbaloo.com/profile/kinderchat . Note that there are 3 pages of webmixes.

The Youtube videos are linked through SafeshareTV which removes the ads and thumbnails of other videos, so that makes them especially nice. A few, like the National Geographic books, require logins so those won’t be useful for you. I also found some eBooks that stop a few pages in as they are “samples” and not the full books. Be sure to test the links before recommending them to your students.

kinderchat

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November 1

Website Worth Sharing: Epic Books

epicI’ve shared other eBook resources, but I think Epic www.getepic.com  has the largest selection of quality online books that I’ve seen. Educators can create accounts for free. They hope you will recommend this to parents (they have to pay) in order to support at home reading and keep them afloat, but that part’s up to you. You can browse for books, add them to your favorites and create collections that you can share with your students. You can use this as a projected “Big Book” that you read together, or give students access using iPads (there’s an app) or a web browser on a Chrome device or PC.

 

There is a Teacher Certification tutorial on the righthand side of the page that I’d encourage you to try out. It walks you through several good features. Once you create a teacher account, you can click on the dashboard and add student accounts. There is a link to importing your students from Google Classroom, but I couldn’t get it to work. Maybe you’ll have more luck! This site handles “student logins” a little bit differently. Instead of students logging into their own accounts, you login with the teacher account and then “switch profiles” and choose which student is reading on that device. Your password has to be entered in order to get back to the teacher’s account. Here’s a video that shows you how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Tfn7Dw5PA   The books don’t have quizzes attached, but there is the option to create quizzes and some of the books are AR books. They also have Spanish books and “Read to Me” audiobooks.

Update (April 2018): Epic has added a new way for students to login. If they start out on this site https://www.getepic.com/sign-in-student they can enter your teacher code (available on your dashboard) and select their name to sign in. Post this code in your classroom or as a sticker on the Chromebooks for easy access.

Overall, this is a very nice collection of eBooks, audiobooks and videos. To learn more about how to utilize this service, check out their YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbxoydvorrmdzTxYGqCM4iQ . They have a collection of short, to the point, videos.

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October 18

Website Worth Sharing: Unite for Literacy

Primary and World Language Teachers: I found a cool website that will support early readers and those learning a new language. Unite for Literacy http://www.uniteforliteracy.com/ has a collection of picture books that can be read aloud if students opt to click on the link underneath the book (it has to be done for each page). The default offers book narration in English- which is perfect for primary readers-, but by clicking on the Narration option in the upper lefthand corner, users can expand the option to include a variety of other languages (including ASL Megan!). Once a language is selected, the users have the option of hearing the narration in English or the other language. The screenshot below has Spanish selected. The text will always be in English. This is a great way to support our ELL population as well as emergent readers and those learning a new language.
uniteforliteracy

 

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October 6

Website Worth Sharing: ReadTheory

readtheoryI’ve discovered a new website that helps students develop reading comprehension skills while at the same time allowing you to monitor their progress. In addition, it provides that much needed practice of reading online texts and navigating between passages and questions that is needed in order for students to be successful on the SBA.

ReadTheory requires about a 30 minute setup time on the teacher’s part and after that the program does all of the work. Once student accounts are created and login information is shared, students login to the site and take a placement quiz. Once that is done, the program places the students in a certain lexile level and provides reading passages and questions for them to complete. If they get a question wrong, it provides an explanation as to why they got it wrong.

Teachers are able to monitor the progress in the teacher portal. They even provide a sampler of printable assessments  that teachers can use. (If you like them, more can be purchased through their site-that is how they fund their work.)

The best part of this site is that it is FREE and they promise to remain that way.

Want to try it out? Login with my sample student account: username: StudentF141  password: kelsotech1

It will give you the placement quiz and then give you a sample assignment.

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March 15

Website Worth Sharing: DKFindout

dkDK is known for publishing kid friendly informational books, but they also have a nice website for research called http://www.dkfindout.com/us/

Students can use the search tool or preselected categories to learn more about a topic of their choice. Many of the articles are kid friendly and interactive.

Teachers can login and add “lesson plans” to their accounts. There are videos that would be good for whole class instruction (students can’t see them since they are housed on YouTube).

Here is an example of an interactive page on insects that has multiple opportunities for students to read for information: http://www.dkfindout.com/us/animals-and-nature/insects/what-is-an-insect/ This would be a good center activity, especially if you had the students complete a “something I learned” statement on a note card or in Google Drive.

 

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October 5

Website Worth Sharing: Storyline Online

Primary Teachers,

Storyline Online http://www.storylineonline.net/ is a great website sponsored by the Screen Actor’s Guild that allows your students to listen to picture books being read aloud by actors. One frustration I’ve had with the site in the past is that their videos were housed on YouTube so it was challenging for our students to have access. We weren’t the only school with this issue, so they have developed a workaround. Now when you choose a book, there is a “Select Player” option on the upper left. If you select “SchoolTube” it should work for our students.

By putting a link on your Chromebook bookmark bar, adding a link to your eBoard, or a shortcut on your computer desktop, you can provide your students with a variety of great children’s books  (Here’s a list https://storylineonline.net/library/ ) being read by talented folks (Who wouldn’t want to hear Betty White read “Harry the Dirty Dog” ?)

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October 21

Website Worth Sharing: UEN- Utah Education Network

The State of Utah has put together a nice compilation of interactive websites that are sorted by level. If you go to their K-12 Student CaptureInteractives Page, you can choose from K-2, 3-6, or 7-12 grade level categories. Each grade band has a variety of interactive websites that your students could use. There is also a nice “Homework helps” section. These would be great to put on an eBoard, add to a Chromebook Bookmarks Bar, or use in a computer lab. Interactive websites that reinforce skills that are taught in the classroom are engaging for students and a good way for kids to gain the computer skills they need.

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December 16

Website Worth Sharing: PowerMyLearning

pmlAs you are looking for activities to support the Common Core standards, you may want to check out the Power My Learning website: http://powermylearning.org  It’s kind of a “one stop shopping” site of online activities. You can search by grade level and subject. The Math and Language Arts sections are aligned to the CCSS. The activities that it brings up are from some of our favorite sites: Scholastic, eLearning for Kids, BBC, Math Playground, etc. You can create playlists and activities if you like, but you can also just launch an activity (many are SMARTboard friendly). The site allows you to create a classroom so that students can enroll with your unique classroom code. This way you can assign activities and monitor student work.

I think this one will definitely be worth the 2 minutes it would take to create an account.

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