Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Google Templates: The Greatest Thing in Drive That You May Not Know About!

Inside of Google Drive are a plethora of templates available for your use. The question is... Are you and your students using them? Check out the video below to see how to access them!


Thursday, April 2, 2015

Differentiate and Redefine Your Digital Reading Instruction with this Great Site!


The Smithsonian has incredible sites for kids K-12 and even a Spanish site as well. Teen Tribune for grades 9-12, Tween Tribune for grades 5 - 8, and TTJunior for grades K-4.

Differentiation 
What is great about these sites is that they are all connected, and carry basically the same non-fiction, current events content. They are adjusted to fit lexile levels. This is a great way to have differentiated reading groups read the same content, but at a level they can successfully read at. New articles are posted daily, but all articles are easily searchable by topic.

Teacher Accounts and Classrooms
The Smithsonian website allows you to set up a teacher account as well with multiple classrooms. Your students can read articles and make comments. Students can have conversations within your classroom on the site about these articles.

SAMR - Redefinition Possibilities
You can also have the options of making your classroom "Public." After you approve student comments, they are then sent out to other public tribune classes all over the globe. As their website explains, "When you go public, you allow your students to connect with other students around the world, while teachers remain in complete control." 

For those of you familiar with the SAMR model, this is a great way to constantly have students at the Redefinition level as they communicate with other students across the country about what they are reading.

With rich, trusted content, and many opportunities for differentiation and tech integration, the Smithsonian Tribune sites are among the best for non-fiction literacy.