Engaging Educators

Issue 1 May 1, 2011

Despite countless warnings about daring

to assume, if you’re reading this I’m

automatically assuming a few things about

you: You blog. You tweet. Your PLN

(Personal Learning Network, but you

already knew that) is strong and getting

wider every day and this makes you very

happy. How’d I do?

I’m going to make one more assumption

about you, reader. And that is that you’re

an educator who cares deeply about

improving the lives of children. Which is a

good thing.

So, riddle me this: when’s the last time

you shared what you know? I’m not

talking about with your twitter followers

or blog readers. I’m talking about with a

colleague who doesn’t know what an RSS

reader is. Or a teacher who is unaware of

Monthly Manifesto: Sharing is Caring

Monthly Newsletter

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it. --Margaret Fuller

Inside:

Fresh and New: Some newly discovered sites to spice up your teaching

Page 2

Blog Spotlight: This month we look at a must-follow blog for teachers of writing

Page 3

From the Classroom: A great project idea that incorporates reading, writing, and technology

Page 3 Head to Head: Which Word Cloud generator is best for you?

Page 4

One Thousand Words: Digital Image Search Engines You Can Trust

Page 4

more on 2

PhotoSource: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10585013@N00/281659324

Blog Spotlight: Page 4 WordClouds:

Page 3

More online at EngagingEducators.com

One of the most successful children’s

television shows of all time was

Reading Rainbow. The first few notes

of the theme song will have people of

all ages singing along: “Butterfly in

the sky. I can go twice as high. Take

a look, it’s in a book, a Reading

Rainbow.” Can you hear the song?

One of the more influential aspects of

Reading Rainbow was the children

book reviews at the end of each

segment. This week my students are

using our classroom library, cameras

donated through

www.donorschoose.org, a green

screen, and iMovie to create their

own Reading Rainbow inspired book

reviews. This will combine multiple

skills from the subject areas of

reading and writing.

One challenging skill to teach upper-

elementary students in writing is the

use of voice. These thirty-second

book reviews are full of voice. It

sounds like children are talking

directly to you. The idea of voice will

be the main focus of our writing

workshops during this project.

A reading consultant whom I respect

greatly once told me the best way to

have students improve in reading is

to improve their ability to summarize.

For this project, in reading

workshop, the students will read

their stories and create scripts (i.e.

summaries) for their books.

Students will then record themselves

performing their scripts in front of a

green screen. Using a picture of the

book and iMovie’s Advanced Tools,

the students will look just like the

kids on Reading Rainbow.

Reading, writing, and technology

tied together to form a truly

engaging project. Check our blog

and website this month to see how

the projects turn out!

could help an eager edtech novice.

Sometimes I think we share more

with the members of our PLN that

we’ve never met than we do with the

teacher across the hall. I know I’ve

been guilty of this. So this month,

take the time out to sit down and

share a little of what you know. All it

takes is a lunch period or two. Try

not to assume that others don’t want

to learn from you. Don’t assume that

you can’t help drive change.

After all, you don’t want to be one of

those people that assumes, do you?

From the Classroom: Tech Integration At Its Best

Monthly Manifesto

Continued from Page 1

the individualized professional

development that twitter can

provide. The list goes on and

on. There is no end to the

things you could share that

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035555243@N01/85441961

Follow us @engaginged

Head to Head: Word Clouds Word clouds are not only fun and

visually appealing, but they have

educational value, too. Make a word

cloud, for example, out of a student

writing sample or a famous speech and

you’re able to analyze word choice in a

whole new way.

There are a few websites out there that

generate word clouds for you. We took

a look at three of them to determine

which would be best for general use—

Wordle, Tagxedo, and Wordlings.

Our conclusion? Wordle by a hair over

Tagxedo. Here’s why:

Tagxedo allows you to turn your word

clouds into shapes, which is pretty

sweet. Plus no registration is required.

Also, a plug-in called Silverlight is

required for your browser. We had to

download it, which is a minus if you’re

working in a school environment.

Wordledoesn’t require registration

either, but you don’t get to turn your

cloud into a cute shape like Tagxedo.

However, its interface is very easy and

we like the accessibility of the

“Randomize” button for making

changes.

Wordlings only lets you create a cloud

if you have a twitter or facebook

account. That doesn’t lend itself to

ease of use. You can make shapes with

this site, but the interface isn’t that

Fresh and New Sites Check out these sites that were featured recently in our blog’s Fresh and New Friday series:

• Popplet—Notetaking, Brainstorming, Mind-Mapping, and more!

• Toonlet—an easy to use online comic creator.

• Sumo Paint—create drawings or edit photos…all in your web browser.

• dropdo—upload your file to the web, receive a URL, share the link with others

Be sure to subscribe to our blog to have Fresh and New sites and much more delivered straight to you!

In our next issue:

*Summer Reading

*Global Collaboration

*ISTE11 Preview

*More From the Classroom

*Science Interactives

*Much More!

NOT In our next issue:

*Editorial: In Defense of Standardized Tests

*Blogs, Who Needs Them?

*Students Speak Out: We Want Less Fun

*Head to Head: Pencil vs. Pen

great and the clouds

themselves take a long time to

make.

Hope this helps you make up

your mind.

If you’re an English or Language Arts

teacher and you don’t follow Two

Writing Teachers, you are missing

out. Two Writing Teachers was

created by Stacey Hubitz and Ruth

Ayres. They are both…wait for

it…writing teachers…and have been

blogging since 2007.

If you’re an English / Language Arts

teacher of any grade and you’re

looking for insightful analysis, tips

about teaching writing, or one of the

best memes on the web—Slice of Life

Tuesdays—Two Writing Teachers is a

blog you absolutely must subscribe

to.

Two Writing Teachers was one of the

first blogs we ever followed, and as

someone who tries to help young

writers improve their writing, we

can’t help but recommend it to the

world.

sources and proper reuse of web

content.

Four others that we recommend are:

• FlickrCC

• TagGalaxy

• CreativeCommons

• ookaboo

Have fun exploring these and

integrating images into your

teaching!

Engaging Educators Visit us on the web: http://engagingeducators.com

Follow us on twitter:

http://twitter.com/engaginged

Learn. Teach. Engage

Blog Spotlight: Two Writing Teachers

Tutorials Galore!

Visit EngagingEducators.com

Check out our resources tab!

One Thousand Words: Digital Image Sites You Can Trust

themselves.

We discovered one of these search

engines this morning in a post by

the folks at SimpleK12. It's called

MorgueFile, and it's full of the rich,

vivid images you would want from a

photo site.

Now is a good time to say that using

images is a great gateway to a

discussion of copyright. We

encourage you to teach students that

the Internet is not just a grab bag of

things for them to "borrow" for their

own work. Using sites like

MorgueFile and the others we're

sharing that offer only images

licensed for free use allow for you to

teach your students about citing

Tech integration can be so easy. And

so free! One of the quickest ways to

make your lessons more engaging is

by using digital images. Whether it is

for a writing prompt (write a poem

about what you see) or a reference

point (teaching estuaries? show a

picture of one), images capture

students' attention for sure.

And with a few safe, legal photo

search engines in your edtech

toolkit, students can become

empowered to do the image finding

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/75655221@N00/13102066