iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Tucked in, snuggled up, I still remember the hours I spent listening to my mother read aloud “The Hobbit.” I must have been about 8-years-old, an

As a follow up to my recent list on Math Sites/Apps found here, I've decided to compile a list of my favorite learning tools for reading.  Mobile Learning and BYOD make it easier for any student to learn any core subject, especially that of reading. Finally, this list does includes tools that help with comprehension and language arts as a whole.  This list is in alphabetical order. 

I was mesmerized by the two-hour launch of PBS Great American Read campaign.  While I believe choosing one book is impossible and not actually the point of this celebration,  I was enchanted by one compelling little book talk after another.  And it was delightful to listen to people talk with such passion about their books.

Yesterday, I discovered When the Book is Better than the Movie.  The new video marks the launch of the new PBS Digital Studios series, It’s Lit, featuring video essayist Lindsay Ellis. More episodes are planned for every Monday.

Dan Ryder is an improviser, design thinker, and Twitter chatter at #dtk12chat and #EdCorps. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator for 2017 and co-author of Intention: CriticalCreativity, which can be purchased here.

Dan can be found on Twitter @WickedDecent and on the web at danryder207.com. Here is a great article by Dan for design thinking in the ELA classroom.

When students are learning about research topics and current events, they must also learn about how perspective and bias may affect the information they are reading. Teaching these lessons explicitly is critical in this era of “fake” news.

The following tips and activities are designed to help students understand the choices that journalists make that may affect how readers interpret a story.

Sorry, not sorry – this mostly involves letting them use their phones in class.

I am finding it increasingly so bizarre that phones are not utilised in education more often. And, yes, there is something to be said for having a bit of a digital detox, but phones are an inherent part of everyday life: why are we excluding them from this part?

You can’t police thirty phones 100%, but you can give it a good enough go to make them work for you. Some teachers ask that pupils lay them on the desk when they use them to better see what they are doing, or explain regularly that if you want to use them then you use them only for what you have been told to. My Snapchat senses are unparalleled these days.

What if you have planned a lesson around them and there are a few pupils that do not have a phone? Or there is a pupil who has broken your trust with phones multiple times? Ask them to partner up with someone who does or see if you can borrow a couple of iPads or laptops. Easier said than done, I know.

Talking photo maker a powerful storytelling tool

Mention robots to many English teachers and they’ll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there’s a robot at all, it’s located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It’s not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills.

“For someone like me who teaches literature by lots of dead white guys, teaching programming adds relevance to my class,” said Jessica Herring, a high school English teacher at Benton High School in Arkansas. Herring first experimented using Sphero, essentially a programmable ball, when her American literature class was studying the writing of early settlers. Herring pushed the desks back and drew a maze on the floor with tape representing the journey from Europe to the New World. Her students used class iPads and an introductory manually guided app to steer their Spheros through the maze.

We often think of them as separate subjects, but you can use STEM as an inspiration and foundation for building reading skills in your classroom.

By the time students reach middle and high school, reading for pleasure is a rarity. Seldom do I see a student pull out a book when they have free time in the classroom. Reading has become limited to quick texts, emails, Twitter feeds, and hashtags. If there is a novel in their hands, it is usually one that is the new hit blockbuster on the big screen. This may have large impacts on student literacy, vocabulary, confidence, and overarching reading skills. How can we as STEM teachers help turn this around? The answer may lie in a partnership with your language arts teacher.