Integrating Technology with Literature?, USA

Dear Marika,

There is a wonderful website, www.readwritethink.org, that not only has lesson plans for literacy and language arts, it also has tools that students can use to help them with various topics. One tool, for example, is the letter generator (where they are able to reinforce what they know about the parts of a letter, write one in the generator, and print it when finished). When I taught middle school English, ReadWriteThink was a website they would visit regularly. 

Another great thing about it is that it's connected with the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE). When looking for student activities for your students to do on the computer, just click on the Student Materials tab and a list of activities will pop up. As far as I remember, you can sort these activities by age or skill.

If you decide to use it, let me know how you like it.

--Danielle

I read through lots of replies.  This may be somewhere and I missed it.  I like to have my students prove understanding by creating powerpoints that show various things that they have learned.  If we are doing literary analysis, they can do either creative things on the ppt or they can do less creative and more straightforward.  Keep in mind...whatever a student can do on paper can more than likely be done on the computer in some format.  Let them decide what to do to prove mastery. 

Also, even though you just asked about literature...I teach grammar as well and you might too.  So, I will tell you what we are currently doing.  I have three different things going on in my language arts class.  One group is making a board game that teaches about Verbals and Appositives, another is doing a bulletin board and the other students are divided up and doing interactive powerpoint shows all about Verbals and Appositives.  As a matter of fact, the bulletin board group is already finished and they did a beautiful AND correct job!  And now they are decorating our classroom door for the holidays. 

This strategy can be implemented with most any subject. 

Thanks and I hope you try these.

A lot of really good ideas here.  As a fellow Language Arts teacher, I can assure you there are tons of ways to incorporate technology.  And I can assure you that doing so will pay infinite dividends in your students' appreciation of your class, as well as their long-term well being as they prepare for a world that is technology focused.

The one thing I wanted to suggest, Marika, is that you should never utilize technology for the sake of using technology.  Technology is a tool, not an objective.  So, always make certain that you first identify what the students are to learn (as you would with all of your lessons) and then evaluate the available technology tools that might help you to achieve that objective.

Just a few resources you might be interested in.

Wiki:  A wiki is an amazing teaching tool.  Consider it an online chalkboard where everyone you invite to the wiki can post and edit and revise ideas, add pictures and sounds, and read and learn from each other. 

The site I use with my students is PB WIKI because it is an easy set-up and a useful tool, but it is FREE!

BLOG: A blog is just an online journal, or it can be used as a discussion board.  You can either have all of your students create their own blogs, and you just visit them all and evaluate them that way, or you can create posts on one blog, and have all of your students respond to it.  This is the method I prefer.  Less liability and less work of tracking them all down.

I use Edublogs because it is easy to manage,and it is FREE!

Once you've got that down, there is a free audio editing software package available called Audacity, which is great for creating a podcast (or if you are in a Mac school, Garage Band is still the best!!!).

Then you can share the kids' work online and they can download it to their Ipods/Mp3 Players to listen to (or just their home computers or whatever).

Finally, think Smart Technologies.  I doubt that  you have a SmartBoard in your room yet, or you probably wouldn't be asking this question.  BUT, you don't need a SmartBoard to benefit from the free program from Smart Tech called Smart Notebook Software.  If you have access to an LCD projector, you can use the software much like you would with PowerPoint, only it is interactive.  That means you can have students come to your desk, take over your mouse, and interactively work with lessons you design to aid them in their learning.  Easy program to learn and use, and your kids will love it.

Register for free

http://googlelittrips.com/

is a tool I just learned about at a conference here in Florida last week.

It uses Google Earth to visit places from literature.