Featured 7-9-2014: Global Writes

 

Global Writes works with schools and school districts to develop and implement programs integrating performing arts techniques with literacy programs.

 

Global Writes helps schools develop technology applications to share student-created work for publication and feedback. This includes the use of digital media, videoconferencing, podcasting, and blogging.

 

Schools and districts can get assistance in finding local arts partners as a classroom collaboration resource as well as in seeking local funding to sustain arts integration programs.

 

Global Writes helps schools around the world work together to foster communication and collaboration among students around literacy-based projects integrating the arts using technology as a resource.

 

 

Professional development opportunities focus on arts integration with existing literacy curriculum, providing teachers with opportunitites to develop an appreciation of the arts across the curriculum and confidence in using performing arts techniques in their classrooms.

 

 Watch a Global Writes overview

 

Global Writes provides both formative and summative evaluations to monitor student progress in their programs and supplies data to support increases in student achievement and teacher knowledge.

 

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Featured 5-29-2014: Writing@CSU

 

Writing@CSU is an open-access website supported by Colorado State University to provide resources to writers and teachers.

 

Writing@CSU provides access to the largest collection of web-based resources for writers and writing teachers. These materials, from more than 300 contributors, support instruction in a wide range of writing processes and genres.

 

The Writing@CSU website and the larger Writing Studio Project are designed to help writers by supplying an interactive, online space that simulates a well-run workshop featuring:

• Timely advice from teachers
• Feedback from other writers
• Helpful examples and demonstrations
• Access to tools that can help you write effectively

The Studio supports writing classes with a course management system that includes most of the tools found in commercial systems, as well as wikis, ePortfolios, blogs, and other tools that support the learning and teaching of writing.

 

 

The blogs, wikis, and ePortfolio tools can be used within courses or on their own. Depending on your preferences, your work can be completely private, shared with selected people, or open to the public.

 

Writing@CSU accounts are free and give you a personal online space where you can compose and save your work.

 

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Featured 5-7-2014: Shooloo Learning

 

 

Upper-elementary and middle school students can help one another practice word problems and apply math to real life using the collaborative learning platform, Shooloo, which means “Number Joy” in Chinese.

 

At Shooloo  students can write their own math word problems, publish them onto the web, get feedback from other students, demonstrate their solutions, and continuously clarify their math reasoning.

 

Tagged with the associated Common Core State Standard, word problems are accompanied by I Can statements. Students can easily compile their own I Can journals, enabling teachers to assess which students are struggling with which Common Core standard. Analytics provide automated progress tracking, real-time reporting, and standards-based grading.

 

 

Founded just last year, Shooloo already claims the world’s largest collection of student-authored math word problems that can be used for on-line learning, worksheets, discussions, and assessment.

 

 Watch Shooloo -- Collaborative Learning for Common Core Math

The Shooloo concept aligns with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practices. Students publish their own math word problems, construct viable arguments, critique the reasoning of others, and model real life with mathematics.

 

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Featured 4-29-2014: Literacy Design Collaborative

 

Literacy Design Collaborative is a community of educators providing a teacher-designed and research-proven framework, online tools, and resources for creating literacy-rich assignments and courses.

 

The mission of Literacy Design Collaborative is "to ensure that every student in America graduates from high school with the Common Core literacy skills necessary for success in college and career.” In the furtherance of this goal, LDC strives to provide continuous, reflective professional development; to integrate literacy and content in K-12 instruction; and to help educators succeed in implementing the high expectations of the Common Core Standards.

 

Core Principles of Literacy Design Collaborative:

• Align with the Common Core State Standards.
• Promote the distribution of reading and writing instruction among all teachers.
• Make tasks central with clear goals.
• Connects reading and writing instruction.
• Use back mapping to identify the specific literacy skills students need if they are to succeed on a task.
• Foster a responsive system that encourages teachers to adjust their instruction in response to the formative information they gather on student performance.
• Encourage local choice with a balanced focus on results as well as means.
• Be teacher-friendly.

 

LDC offers educators an instructional system for developing students’ literacy skills in preparation for the demands of college and careers. LDC does not provide off-the-shelf curriculum units or lesson plans. Rather, LDC encourages teachers to build students’ literacy skills and understanding of science, history, and other content through meaningful, CCSS-aligned reading and writing assignments.

 

 

 Visit the Literacy Design Collaborative YouTube channel

 

Literacy Design Collaborative, as a dynamic community of teachers, is rapidly expanding its library of exemplary instructional modules, effective mini-tasks, and tools and resources for supporting teachers’ efforts to engage students in rigorous, CCSS-aligned learning.

 

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Extra 3-7-2014: Writinghouse

Writinghouse is a free, fully automatic bibliography and citation maker. Save time by creating a cited page instantly in the MLA, APA, Chicago, or Harvard referencing styles. It's easy and fast.

 

 

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Featured: 10-21-2013 ShareLaTeX

ShareLaTeX is an online editor that enables smooth collaboration among users. Everyone with an Internet connection can access and edit the latest versions of the same LaTeX documents.

ShareLaTeX documents are always available online. You and your collaborators can even work on the document at the same time with this real-time editor. Built-in chat lets all editors communicate while you're editing.

ShareLaTeX is designed to be easy to use, even if you’ve never used LaTeX before. ShareLaTeX highlights any errors in the LaTeX log to make debugging as simple as possible.

More features of ShareLaTeX:

• There's no installation needed.
• Example projects are ready to be compiled with one click. 
• Download your projects to work offline any time you like.
• Upload existing documents to get your work onto ShareLaTeX quickly.

Dropbox sync, available with paid plans, keeps all of your LaTeX projects synced to your Dropbox folder. You can make changes inside the Dropbox folder then see them sync back to ShareLaTeX.

 See an overview of ShareLaTeX

The ShareLaTeX free personal plan provides unlimited projects for you and one free user per project. You also get unlimited compiles, but with a low compiling priority.

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Featured: 8-21-2013 BusyTeacher

BusyTeacher is a place where English teachers share their printable worksheets, lesson plans, and other lesson activities with colleagues for free.

BusyTeacher serves up more than 10,000 downloadable, printable worksheets created by real teachers for teachers. The worksheets are categorized by topics such as grammar, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and more.

You will also find such useful items as free puzzle creators, classroom posters, coloring pages, and flashcards.

 Watch a video introducing BusyTeacher

BusyTeacher has nearly half a million registered users. You can join for free or log in using a Facebook account.

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Extra: Flowstate Keeps Writers on Task

 

Flowstate, an iOS app, describes itself as the “most brutal writing app”, designed to help writers overcome blocks and distraction.

Flowstate is a writing app "designed to subdue the inner critic, and enable writers to translate their feelings and ideas onto the page without over-analyzation."

The writer chooses how long they want to write, and then enters a full-screen writing session. If they exit early, or stop writing… everything is lost. By blocking all distraction, the writer can fully commit.

This could be a great tool to make sure students stay on task!

Flowstate features iCloud document storage and a choice of six different fonts, sharing, but not much else.

Flowstate costs $1.99(US) from the iTunes App Store, and is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 6.0 or later.

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Featured: 5-7-2013 WriteLatex [Math/Science]

WriteLaTeX is a free, collaborative, online service that lets you easily create, edit, and share mathematical, scientific, and technical content.

WriteLaTeX is an online editor for producing scientific/mathematical writing using LaTeX, a comprehensive and powerful document markup language used for displaying formulas.

Launched in 2011, WriteLaTeX aims to make the power of LaTeX accessible to all scientists and technical writers.

Key features of WriteLaTeX:

• Every document you create has a link that can be shared with your co-authors, and they can review, comment, and edit.

• Changes from all authors synchronize transparently, so everyone always has the latest version.

• The Beamer package helps you create presentations with complicated tables, figures, and graphs.

• Documents are compiled in the background, so you can see the results right away.

• See errors and warnings as you go, so you can catch them early.

WriteLaTeX works on iPads and other devices, so you can edit online from anywhere. There's no software to install, and no sign-up required.

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Featured: 5-1-2013 Word Mover [Language Arts]

ReadWriteThink's Word Mover is a free iPad app that can be used to supplement and reinforce classroom instruction and promote increased student engagement through the use of modern technology.

Word Mover allows kids to create "found poetry" by choosing from word banks and existing famous works. Users can also add new words to create a piece of poetry by moving and manipulating the text.

Features of Word Mover:

• Multi-user poem storage.

• User management with the ability to delete or restore.

• Six poem categories, each with the ability to personalize.

• Twelve backgrounds for stylizing poems.

• Helpful how-to information.

• Auto-saving of poems.

• Viewing of finished poems for proofreading.

• Save poems as images.

• Print poems to a wireless printer.

• Share poems by e-mail.

Word Mover aims to add creativity and fun to the learning process. ReadWriteThink offers a library of lessons that incorporate Word Mover. See them here.

Watch a video demo of Word Mover

Word Mover is compatible with iPad (iOS 4.3 or later) and is available on the iTunes App Store from the National Council of Teachers of English.

A note on privacy: Your poems are private unless you decide to share them by e-mail. This app does not store any personal information.

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Featured: 4-23-2013 GrammarBase [English]

 

GrammarBase is a free grammar checker and corrector, a free online spell checker, and can even help with dyslexia mistakes.

 

 

GrammarBase checks for all types of grammar mistakes, contextual errors, modifiers, prepositions, punctuation, quantifiers, and more.

 

To use the free GrammarBase online grammar checker you don't need to register or download anything, just copy your text and paste it into the website and see your grammar mistakes highlighted. You will receive a detailed report identifying any issues and offering simple suggestions for improvements and corrections.

 

 

With GrammarBase’s spelling checker, you will get your spelling checked in context to ensure the right words are used in your document.

Watch a video demo of GrammarBase

The GrammarBase grammar checking tool can be a great help for those who are trying to learn English. Learners can identify the mistakes in their writing and learn how to correct them, thus improving their English skills.

 

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Featured: 4-17-2013 GradeMark [Assessment]

GradeMark saves time and improves feedback through an online grading system where standard and customized annotations appear directly on the student's paper.

By making it possible to provide students with richer feedback on their work, GradeMark helps instructors have better interactions with students thereby improving writing levels.

GradeMark offers five types of 'rich' feedback:

1. Reduce plagiarism with an Originality Report.

2. Quickly drag standard or custom marks and comments directly onto the paper using QuickMark Sets.

3. Voice Comments provide personalized audio feedback that conveys your 'tone' and clarifies comments.

4. Communicate clear expectations and speed grading with pre-loaded Common Core-aligned Rubrics, or create your own.

5. Write broader, in-depth General Comments to give students overall feedback about their papers.

• Comprehensive statistics and graphs help you analyze and identify areas of concern, or track improvement.
  

  
  

 Watch a video demo of GradeMark

GradeMark is completely online and available 24/7 through any modern web browser. GradeMark is a product of Turnitin.

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Featured: 4-16-2013 Widbook [Writing]

 

Widbook is an intelligent platform where authors and readers have the opportunity to share their best digital content with people worldwide.

On Widbook, you can begin a book from scratch or upload your already completed or in-progress content in order to publish it. The Editor Tool enables users to visualize their work and use features such as keywords, bookmarks, highlights, real time chat, and more.

Invite people to make comments and add suggestions to your work. Widbook is a creative way to share content and spread ideas. Give some suggestions to another author or add a comment to a book.

 Watch the video: Widbook - Write, read and share!

Using Widbook, friends can share and post their favorite books, stories, and comments on their social network. Find books, save the favorites onto your bookshelf, and follow the authors.

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Featured: 3/27/2013 Easygenerator [eCourse Authoring]

Online eLearning course authoring with easygenerator allows designing flexible courses that meet learners' needs by facilitating the development process.

Workflow assignments, course development version control, content reuse, and the ability to reformat eLearning for mobile delivery are some of the features of easygenerator's SaaS eLearning authoring tool.

eLearning authoring with easygenerator starts with a design process that includes:

1. Determination of the learning objectives.

2. Planning how to assess learner comprehension.

3. Identifying content needed so the learner can meet objectives.

Easygenerator supports collaboration between instructional designers, developers, and subject matter experts through its workflow and role assignment system. Because of its approach in using learning objectives, easygenerator can help you create better, more effective eLearning courses.

Watch a video demo of easygenerator

Elearning authoring with easygenerator is available through a free option or a subscription option. The free authoring software has all the functionality you need to create adaptive eLearning courses, that you can publish on the web, in any LMS, and on mobile devices.

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