Literacy Now

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning.

“What is your favorite tool?” is a question that I often hear from fellow teachers. It is really difficult to give one answer to that question. In our fast-paced, digital world, technology tools change, update, come, and go. I am a huge proponent that a tool needs to meet the needs of each learner and support their learning. If you think about it, a couple of decades ago, teachers did not assign an encyclopedia project. Educators understand that an encyclopedia is just a tool to support learning; often that is missed when we design projects for our students with the digital tool as the main focus, instead of the learning.

In our classroom, the students never discuss the technology tool (or app) they are going to use until after all of the research and writing has been completed. Then, my learners look for a tool that will support and strengthen their message. Often my writers have an idea in mind and they go searching for a way to publish. This often results in them and introducing the class (and me) to a great new way to publish.

p: sallysetsforth via photopin cc

As I began to brainstorm this column and narrow down my list to my ten favorite publishing tools, I wondered if my students’ list would look the same as mine. So, I asked them to share their favorite tools. They had some interesting ideas that I had not considered. As my students often do, it caused me to rethink my list. This final list of tools, like so much of our class, is a collaborative effort of the top ten tools we love for publishing.

KidBlog: My learners have latched onto blogging like a fish to water. They have become voracious writers sharing what they are learning, reading, exploring, or contemplating. Rarely is there a time when at least one of my students isn't blogging. They have found the power of personal reflection and love the aspect that what they write has an audience who will continue their conversations and challenge another's thinking.

Twitter: In class, we have a Twitter account. Many of you may be wondering about this as a publishing tool as a user only has 140 characters. However, with Twitter, my learners have to learn about being succinct and powerful in their words choices. It has really helped them to focus on their message and the best way to get that message across to their followers. They all agree that standard English is what we use when we tweet from school—no "text speak"—so that all of our audience understands what they are saying. They really enjoy writing tweet stories and Twitter book reports.

Voki: Voki allows the user to create a personalized talking avatar that can be easily embedded into wikis, blogs, profiles, and email. Voki has the option for the creator to type the text they want spoken or record their voices with their avatar. The students really enjoy using this to tell stories from different characters’ or historical figures’ points of view. We use the free version, but there is a paid version that allows a teacher to set up and manage an entire class.

Morfo: Morfo is a free app that is similar to Voki. Users can create avatars and record their own voice speaking. The major difference is that students can take a photo of themselves, and Morfo guides them in setting the photo to be the one that talks. With Morfo, students become the avatar. The website has several examples that demonstrate how it works.

Weebly: This great tool has quickly become one of my students’ favorite. Using the education version of the site allows teachers to create and account and provide free web space for students to use to publish. My students have used it to create a topical themed interactive website for their global peers. Additionally, each one of my students is using their account to create an ePortfolio. They are always working on it to publish evidence of their learning. I actually have students begging to stay after school so that they can continue to create new pages.

Toontastic: Toontastic is a free app that allows the user to create his/her own cartoons. Users can choose the backgrounds and characters provided in the app or they can create their own. My students love having the feature to create their own versions of characters and backgrounds. It guides the user through a story arc while they add animation, music, and voice. To publish it, an adult must approve the account. Then it can be sent through email or embedded into other sites. Additional characters and backgrounds can be purchased for a small price.

ComicBook!: Graphic novels and comic books have a strong appeal for students, and they support ELL and struggling readers. ComicBook! has quickly become one of my students' favorite ways to publish. The user has the ability to create their own comic book using photos taken on the device (Apple or Android). The app provides the user with different filters for the photos to make them look like the artwork in comic books as well as adding borders, captions, stickers, and graphics within different layouts. The finished product can be saved as a JPEG (image) or PDF making it easy to embed into other tools. You can also share it through email, Twitter, or Facebook.

Trading Cards: This ReadWriteThink tool is available as a tool or as an app. Through Trading Cards, students are guided in analyzing characters, real or fictional, by pulling support from the text. Each category on the card asks questions that guide learners in creating information-rich cards while employing summarizing strategies. Trading cards can be shared with an audience and collections of cards can be built. My students love publishing their trading cards for others to read.

StoryJumper: StoryJumper allows students to create digital storybooks which can also be purchased should someone want a copy. StoryJumper has a huge selection of clipart and backgrounds, but writers also have the ability to upload their own artwork and photographs, which my learners love.

Audacity: If you are looking for a tool for your learners to create an audio file or podcast, Audacity is user friendly. There are the basic functions of recording a piece of writing as well as a lot of bells and whistles, which can really tap into a student's creativity.

Those are our top ten publishing tools…for now. If you ask us tomorrow, it will probably be a bit different. Just like our students and the world that we are living in, things are ever changing. We must be willing to continue to embrace the tools the supports the needs of our diverse learners.

I hope you have found some new tools to use to support your students’ writing and publishing. If you have a favorite tool that did not make our “hit list,” please leave it in a comment. I’d love to find some new tools that can further support my writers’ amazing publishing. Until next time, happy publishing!

Are you a fan of Plugged In? Come see Julie D. Ramsay present a session on collaborating in class and online at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention, April 19-22, 2013, in San Antonio, Texas.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of “CAN WE SKIP LUNCH AND KEEP WRITING?”: COLLABORATING IN CLASS & ONLINE, GRADES 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com.

“After I practice my vocabulary cards, will you let me use your iPhone?”

This question, asked by a struggling reader, started us on the road to creating the FunDog Reading and Thinking Word Analogies app.

As reading specialists, we always have our antennae up for ways to entice students to read. We assess and focus on skill and strategy instruction to address their weaknesses and highlight their strengths. Our classroom libraries are filled with a wide range of books grouped by genres and levels, and we hold conferences with our students to learn more about them as readers.

Now, here was a loud and clear signal that the smartphone or tablet could be used as both an enjoyable learning tool and reward during school, in after school programs, or at home.

Wanting to download some literacy apps, we decided to investigate iTunes. As of September 2012, there were 700,000 IOS apps available, a quarter of which were educational or reference apps. When we began our process, just a few years ago, there was less than a third of that number, very few of which were geared for elementary readers. Most addressed early literacy: language awareness, letter, number, and color recognition.

But rather than get discouraged about not finding learning games for our students, we saw an opportunity. The news reported that everyday people designed apps. Both of us had great confidence about our skills as reading specialists, so why couldn’t we make our own?

It’s a good thing that teachers excel at multitasking, since this ability helped us launch our mobile app business. After finishing a full day of teaching or between family activities and weekend chores, we worked. There were planning walks, phone conversations, and emails. We created to-do lists, divvied up tasks, talked about our timeline, and always returned to our mission statement: create a quality engaging app that would help children become more confident, fluent readers.

There were many other aspects to consider. Wanting to learn about setting up our business, we consulted SCORE, a nonprofit association that helps small businesses get off the ground. To become familiar with Objective C programming, we took an evening course at the technical high school. One of us also enrolled in an evening Web Page Development class in order to make a presence on the Internet.

Before publishing our website (Weebly was our host), we had to apply for a domain name (www.ireadingteacher.com) on Go Daddy. By joining Moms with Apps, we gained helpful information from parents who were creating their own apps. Sonny Fazio, a high school senior who had written several apps and is now a Computer Science Major at Wentworth College, did our programming—having a talented coder like him is key.

We were also lucky to hire a designer to do the artwork and a teaching assistant who recorded FunDog’s voice. Family, teacher friends, and students volunteered to do our beta testing and give us valuable criticism.

Looking back, we were unrealistic in thinking it would be a cinch to design a game that could be completed quickly; it turns out that it was a lengthy process that took over a year.

Finally, in June 2011, our app went live. We accomplished our goal of creating a game that could help kids practice sight words and higher level thinking skills. When walking through our school, we see teachers projecting the FunDog Analogies onto interactive whiteboards or children playing with it on iPads. The app has sold in countries around the world, and we are now preparing our third creation.

Want to give designing your own mobile app a try? Here are some points to help you on your way:

1. Identify your expertise and passion.
2. Become familiar with the smartphone and tablet—their capabilities and why they are attractive and educationally beneficial to children. Take a class or online tutorial to broaden your knowledge about terms like user interface and functionality details.
3. Do some market analysis. Download apps, making notes about the content, quality of design and graphics, readability, ease of use, pace, audio, effects, and overall appeal. What apps have not yet been created?
4. Make a sequential storyboard app on paper. What does the player do and see on each page? What will motivate the player to maintain interest?
5. Get small business support in order to learn about accounting, legal, and business protocols.
6. Hire good people to work for you (programmer, designer, voice/sound effects person, musician, etc.) and talk with them frequently so that your vision is realized.
7. Have extra money in your business bank account. Every feature requires time from your hired team members.
8. Take a good look at all facets of the app once it is in the pre-publication mode, making sure that everything works as it should before the public downloads it.
9. Create a presence online through an attractive web page and social networking site and listen to the response.
10. Apply for a license in iTunes and monitor your sales.
11. Promote your app through word of mouth, professional gatherings, advertising, social networks, and interviews.
12. Get ready and think about your next app.

Kathleen Casey worked as certified classroom teacher and reading specialist for a total of 37 years in the Town of Barnstable, MA on Cape Cod. Currently, she is retired from teaching, but is still an active member of the International Reading Association, the Cape Cod Council of IRA, for which she publishes the local newsletter, and the Massachusetts Reading Association. In 2010, she received the Literacy Award from the MRA.

After raising a family and working in business, Brenda Archambeault earned her certification in Elementary and Special Education. Last year, she obtained her M.Ed. and C.A.E.S. in Educational Leadership. At the present time, she is the Title 1 Coordinator at Barnstable United Elementary School and teaches fifth grade students with reading difficulties.

Kathleen and Brenda have two mobile apps in iTunes: FunDog: Reading & Thinking Word Analogies and FunDog More: Reading & Thinking Word Analogies. They have also worked as reading consultants and have written grants for the Cape Cod Child Development Program.

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning.

photo: bitzcelt via photopin cc

With this being the beginning of a new year, many of us have set goals or resolutions, personally and professionally. One of the most prevalent goals is the one to become more organized. This time of year, we see advertisements for cool new gadgets that claim to revolutionize life as we know it and make our lives so much easier. Who doesn’t want to be able to fluidly move through their lives calmly and a little more stress free? Who couldn’t use some extra time in their lives? I can feel your unanimous agreement.

As teachers, one of our most precious and consumable commodities is time. I don’t know how many times I have wished for a time machine so that I could manage all of the non-teaching tasks while not sacrificing any instructional time with my students.

Recently, I was conducting a workshop and a participant raised his hand and jokingly asked, “Do you have a life outside of the classroom? How can you keep up with all of the activities going on in your classroom?” We had a good laugh and then I shared a few tools that my students and I use to efficiently manage some of the necessary, yet time consuming tasks that all educators must maintain. I noticed all of the teachers in the workshop furiously taking notes on all of the tools that I shared and I realize that with all of the things that we must manage from day to day, there is a desperate need to streamline our classroom routines and not lose out on any of our important practices.

Have I piqued your interest? Do you want to free up some time in the school day and be able to spend more time working with your students? I am going to share three apps that my students and I use to efficiently manage our time.

Take Note
Especially this time of year, we often have students who are absent due to illness. I know that recently I have had many students who were absent for multiple days due to pneumonia, flu, or strep throat. When they return, they are often out of sync with the class and they need some additional time to get missing assignments and receive tutoring on topics that they have missed.

We want all of our learners to keep up with the pace of the class and find success in all of their endeavors. The challenge comes when we really need to continue the pace with the rest of the class. How do you meet the needs of the many and the needs of the few who were absent?

Enter Notability. Notability is an app that allows the user to make notes by typing text, taking photos, or recording voice. In our classroom, each student takes a turn creating a note of the day's activities. The students understand the importance of creating an informative and accurate note because their peers are depending upon them. They know that at some point in the year, they will be depending on the notes to help keep them informed and up-to-date on our classroom learning.

The notes can include text (class activities, homework, class work, deadlines, announcements, etc.), photos (my students take photos of the flipcharts they use, review games they play, vocabulary lists we have, our science experiments, etc.) and audio (of me or one of my learners explaining something that needs more than text or photos). When a student is out for a day or two, he/she comes in when he/she returns to school, gets our class iPad, opens the note for the dates he/she was out and discovers exactly what went on in the classroom that day. An added bonus is that the notes are also easily emailed, so they can also be sent to students or parents at the end of day.

This takes a potentially time consuming practice and places it in the hands of the students. After I taught one student how to create notes, that student then taught the next student and so on. After about a week, the students completely managed this practice on their own. The students are taking ownership and responsibility for their learning and I am able to spend my time continuing to teach.

Time to Confer
How many of you have a huge binder to document your one-on-one or small group mini-lessons? Documenting all of our conferring sessions with each of our students in all content areas can quickly become a huge succubus on our time. Keeping these accurate records are necessary for us and our students to document their progress in each content area, but where can you find the time to do it accurately? I have tried many different methods and never found one that I felt was the right fit for accuracy, practicality, and timeliness.

Then I discovered Confer. I felt like my hopes and dreams of a method for documenting these daily conferring sessions had finally been answered. Once one begins using this app, one immediately recognizes that a classroom teacher created it.

Using Confer, you can quickly take notes on a student’s strengths or needs. Also, using “Quick Text,” you can create a note and apply it to a group of students. Once a note or comment is created, it is saved, and can easily be applied to other students at a different time.

With my students, when we confer one-on-one, they each set personal goals that we can add and they can look back to see when they reached each goal, putting the responsibility for their personal growth firmly into their hands.

As if that wasn’t enough, using this handy app, with the tap of a button, you can easily sort students into groups based on academic needs. Since each note is dated, you can sort students by date to see with whom you haven’t conferred with recently. Using these functions, no student can slip through the gaps and miss out on their conferring time.

In addition to documenting when you confer, on what you confer, with whom you confer, and the goals set by each student, Confer also makes it simple to share this information via email with parents, fellow teachers (if you team teach) or administrators. You can also export your data into a Google Spreadsheet or Word Document.

Confer has become one of my secret weapons for organization. My students love it because they can quickly access their goals and progress and email it to their parents. It takes a massive amount of data, organizes it in meaningful ways, and makes it accessible with a few simple taps on the screen. I’ve gone from hours of documenting and reams of paper, to minutes and the handy use of my iPad. Thank you, Confer!

Who Needs an Assistant?
We know that many times as classroom teachers, we feel like we need a full time personal assistant. How can we balance all the teaching and nonteaching tasks that we have without dropping the ball on one of them? Where can you find the time?

One of the many important tasks that we have is documenting behavior and citizenship of our students, the good and the not-so-good. We know that documentation for each student can quickly become time-intensive with the demanding needs of our diverse students. Yet, it is imperative that we maintain accurate records.

I would like to introduce you to my assistant, Teacher’s Assistant Pro. This user-friendly app has the capability for teachers to input the names of their students, as well as their parents’ email addresses and phone numbers. When a student deserves an accolade or makes poor citizenship choices, this app allows you to complete a simple note and with a couple of taps on the screen send an email to parents and the administrators. Once a comment is made for one student, that comment remains in the app so that you can click on it as an option, further saving your valuable time.

One thing that I do with my students when we privately discuss their behavior is that I have them design the consequences and future plan of action for their behavior. It puts the responsibility on them to make any necessary changes. This app is easily customizable to meet your needs. So if you like to send home positive reports like I do, this can be easily done as well. My students love that this is not simply punitive in nature, but allows me (or them) to quickly send a note praising them for reaching a goal or going above and beyond in their actions.

Although, I am not promising that these tools will completely revolutionize classroom life as you know it, I guarantee that they will make your life more organized, give you more time to work with your students, and less time on necessary, but time-consuming tasks. Wishing you a happy, more organized, and a bit less stressful New Year!

Are you a fan of Plugged In? Come see Julie D. Ramsay present a session on collaborating in class and online at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention, April 19-22, 2013, in San Antonio, Texas.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator and the author of “CAN WE SKIP LUNCH AND KEEP WRITING?”: COLLABORATING IN CLASS & ONLINE, GRADES 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com.

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning.

As classroom teachers, we are faced with the challenge to meet the needs of each of our very diverse learners. If your students are like my students, many of them have a large deficit in the background knowledge that many adults take for granted. When students read a text or begin to write, they depend on their background knowledge to build meaning and create high-quality pieces of writing.

Many of my fifth grade learners have very little life experience. Many of them have never been out of the state; some have never been out of our town. So when we are reading a piece of literature or nonfiction text and it involves travel, adventure, or different geographical locations, they have almost no schema to build their comprehension upon. Think of all of the literature and nonfiction texts that involve a journey or a geographical location. Also, I must take into consideration that I, like most of you, have students for whom English is a second language, who have exceptional needs, and who are struggling readers and writers.

How do we give our students the opportunity to understand the inferred implications of the characters, plot or setting, whether real or imaginary, so that they can make those connections that are crucial to getting immersed into these magical places? Is there a way that we can take them on a journey similar to the characters without leaving the classroom?

On the Right Path

A couple of years ago, my students were involved in a collaborative writing project with students from all across the United States. All of these students were interested in understanding what made citizens of each state unique. They wondered, “What would it be like to be a citizen of a state that is not Alabama?” The challenge was that everything that they were writing was just basic recall of facts. There was no depth of understanding of the content they were reading or writing. There were no connections, no cause and effect, no conclusions, no synthesizing.

As we were working with a class of third graders within our school building, the other teacher and I began brainstorming how we could give our students some background experience so that they could really understand what they were reading, researching, and writing about in regard to our state. We wanted them to dig beyond the facts and gain a deep understanding of the past and how it impacts the present.

We discovered that there was going to be a Native American festival at an archaeological park within an hour’s drive from our school. We felt like this would be a wonderful opportunity for our students to build that background knowledge, experience hands-on activities, and be able to draw comparisons, contrasts, and conclusions that they could include in the pieces that they were composing.

The day before we left on our trip, a student approached me and asked, “Mrs. Ramsay, I really think we should share our trip with our collaborative partners. It would be awesome if they could go with us.” She continued, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could create a virtual trip while we are on the actual trip?” The rest of the students eagerly chimed in with her. So the question became how could we not only build background experience for our students, but how could we do that for all three hundred students from across the country involved in this project?

Trip Wow!

The answer came to us in a free tool called TripWow, sponsored by the travel website TripAdvisor. This intuitive tool leads users through the basic steps of creating a simple travel documentary using the photos, or images, that they have. It guides the user in pinpointing a starting destination and an ending destination. When it is published, it begins with a map that shows the journey and tells how many miles have been travelled. Captions can be added, music selected, and it can easily be shared through social media outlets, emails, or embedded into websites, wikis, or blogs.

As we began our trip to the archaeological park, the students were looking at it as not only a learning experience for themselves, but for all of their peers who would view this virtual field trip that they would be creating. They really listened, jumped into activities, took notes, and asked really thought-provoking questions. Knowing that they would be publishing their learning for an audience gave the entire trip a much deeper meaning and enjoyment. It was no longer a day off from school. It was a quest.

As soon as we returned from school, my learners began asking if they could call home to get permission to stay after school to work on their TripWow (as a side note, this was a Friday afternoon). Several of them stayed and took all the notes and ideas from their classmates as they began publishing their own virtual field trip.

The final project turned out to be the highlight for all of the three hundred students. The discussions that it spurred helped students to dig deeper into their state’s background to answer the questions from my students. All of these students now have that scaffolding that they need to help strengthen their reading comprehension and their writing.

School Bound? No problem!

So what if you are in a school district where field trips are almost nonexistent? I face that challenge many years myself. Does that mean we cannot give our students a similar experience? Absolutely not!

One book that we try to read each year is Christopher Paul Curtis’ BUD, NOT BUDDY. The book centers on a boy, Bud, who is taking a journey in Michigan during the Great Depression to find the father that he has never met. My students struggled to understand not just the time period, but also how far Bud had to actually travel and the challenges that he would face along the way.

One student casually commented, I wonder how it looks in Michigan (can you tell that I get a lot of inspiration from my amazing students?). That’s when I realized that by creating a TripWow, the students would gain some experience about the location and be able to “see” what Bud would have seen. It would allow them to activate their mind’s eye for not only this book, but also future books and writing as well.

Within a short amount of time students were able to locate photos and create a literary field trip following the journey of a character. I have employed this tool many times to support my learners’ needs in building understanding. It has been especially effective in meeting the challenges with my Exceptional Education students.

One More Time…This Time with (More) Meaning

On occasion a piece of literature connects with a group of students and speaks to who they are as individuals. This year, Katherine Applegate’s THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN did that for my class. THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN was selected for the Global Read Aloud, so before that I hadn’t read this book with students (but it definitely won’t be the last time). In addition to being told from the point of view of a silverback gorilla (which is based on the life of a real gorilla), and using some of the most amazing figurative language, it challenges the reader to evaluate his/her stance on serious issues and deals with deeply moving themes.

My learners were immediately hooked. My tech-savvy students quickly realized that the real-life Ivan lived at the Atlanta Zoo, which is only two hours away from us. They were having book chats and exchanges via Twitter, our class blog, their individual blogs, and Skype with students from all over the world. Their global peers could not believe that we were so close to the true one and only Ivan. Their global peers asked them if there was any way that they could go and visit Ivan for them and send them photos and updates so that they could experience it too.

The three other teachers in our school participating in the Global Read Aloud and I got permission to take our students to the Atlanta Zoo to visit the final home of Ivan. Just like in our trip to the archeological park, our students entered this trip with a sense of purpose and determination to bring their experiences to the over 24,000 students who were depending on them to share their experiences.

They tweeted throughout the day, took photos, and shot video. Upon returning, they debated about which photos actually would best teach their audience and enhance their understanding of the book. They actually discovered that they couldn’t say everything that they wanted to say to their peers because the captions only allowed so many characters, and so they took to their blogs to share more details. They searched for other books with similar themes and plot outlines to share with their global peers. Their reading and writing drastically improved because they had this experience and they felt the need to give back to the Global Read Aloud community of learners.

Through the writing and publishing with TripWow, they not only grew as readers, writers, and ultimately learners, but they impacted the learning of thousands of other students worldwide. Although this was a physical trip for my students and virtual one for their peers, the true journey was one of discovery where they deeply evaluated and synthesized the relevance of content and literature on their lives today. That is truly an accomplishment worth stepping back and saying, “Wow!”

Click here to see the TripWow project, and read a blog post Julie’s students wrote about their pilgrimage to the Atlanta Zoo.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator, a fifth grade teacher in a student-driven classroom, and the author of “CAN WE SKIP LUNCH AND KEEP WRITING?”: COLLABORATING IN CLASS & ONLINE, GRADES 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com.

In today’s world, the topic of using technology in the classroom can be intimidating. In this monthly column, join one teacher on a quest to discover the best way to meet the needs of her digital-age learners…moving beyond the technology tools to focusing on supporting each student’s learning.

I know that writing instruction can strike fear in the hearts of many educators. I think many teachers wonder, “Do I have to be a strong writer in all genres to teach my students how to write?” Although I feel like teachers who write become more confident in leading their students through writing projects, and they understand better the perspective of a student who is composing a piece of writing, there is no way we can become true experts in all genres.

There is great news though—there are people who get paid to write and publish in each genre. They are the true experts. After all, we are the ones who need to lead our students to the resources and experiences that will strength their scope of learning. These texts become mentors for our students to study, analyze, and emulate throughout their writing experiences. These are real texts, not something merely generated for one particular lesson. As one of my students said, “These people are the best at what they do. If we learn from them and write the way that they do, we become experts too.”

The first time my students wanted to create opinion editorials, I really had to do some digging to find some age-appropriate—yet still authentic—ones to share with them. Once I found my mentor texts, the challenge that I faced was that although I usually could find physical, hard copies of mentor texts for my classroom, students often gravitated to a particular one throughout the writing process. If a peer had that one text, the others would have to wait to look at it while a peer was using it. And as classroom teachers, we know how “creative” students can become while they are waiting for something. Also, many of them would want to write at home and wouldn’t be able to have access to all of the texts while they are writing.

How do we put high-quality mentor texts into the hands of our writers, provide accessibility to these resources, and keep the writing momentum going? The answer comes in the form of a digital tool called LiveBinders. LiveBinders is just what its name says; it’s a digital three-ring binder that organizes all of your resources neatly and easily online. To begin using LiveBinders, you need to sign up for a free account. Then you can begin creating binders on any topic.

My students expressed an interest in publishing poetry for a collaborative project in which they were engaged with peers across the country. Different students wanted to learn different types of poetry. We began by creating a poetry binder. Within that binder, we created different tabs for the different forms of poetry that my students were interested in writing. Then, under each tab, we could put the different online resources and mentor texts that we found for that topic.

That’s one of the features that’s great about LiveBinders—it organizes all of your links into one organized place so that students aren’t surfing all over the Internet. The webpages are now in your binder as a “page” so that students can study the mentor texts right there. You can even add a “LiveBinder It” bookmark tool onto your web browser’s toolbar so that when you (or your students) find a mentor text, you can easily capture it and add it to your binder, which is easily organized by tabs and subtabs.

Another great feature of LiveBinders is that you aren’t limited to just adding webpages to your binders. You can upload images, Word documents, and PDFs as well. You can combine your resources into one place, giving your students accessibility to these resources from any device that has Internet access. Every time we are using mentor texts and writing in new genres, I have students who find additional texts that they want to share with their peers demonstrating to me that they really understand the importance of finding high-quality resources, and they have a clear understanding of the characteristics of different genres. With LiveBinders, you can have access and the ability to edit from any device seamlessly. There is also a free app available on the iPad if any students have those at home or you have these devices available to use in your classrooms.

As educators, we know that the more we connect with fellow teachers, the more information, insight, and resources we learn to enhance our lessons with our students. LiveBinders knows that as well. With a LiveBinder, you have the ability to invite other educators to have access to your binder to add additional resources. While we were working on our poetry project, I connected with another teacher who was also teaching poetry. I gave her editing rights to our poetry binder and she was able to add her resources to our binder providing her writers, as well as my writers, a greater collection of mentor texts to enhance their own writing.

So the next time your students express an interest in writing and creating in a mode that you may not feel a high degree of confidence about, remember to look to the experts, the ones that can provide guidance and mentoring through their own writing. With LiveBinders, you can provide all of your students access to all of their mentors organized easily in one place…their digital binder.

Are you a fan of Plugged In? Come see Julie D. Ramsay present a session on collaborating in class and online at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention, April 19-22, 2013, in San Antonio, Texas.

Julie D. Ramsay is a Nationally Board Certified educator, a fifth grade teacher in a student-driven classroom, and the author of “CAN WE SKIP LUNCH AND KEEP WRITING?”: COLLABORATING IN CLASS & ONLINE, GRADES 3-8 (Stenhouse, 2011). She travels the country to speak, present, and facilitate workshops in applying technology to support authentic learning. Read her blog at juliedramsay.blogspot.com.



Teaching Tips: A Peek Inside—Digital Tools that Empower

App, App, and Away...Creating a Class of Superheroes, Recording Artists, and Famous Athletes