New Ways to Respond to Reading with Tech Tools
What tools do you offer your students when they respond to literature? Pencils? Markers? Reader’s notebooks?
In an article for the Desert News, Chandra Johnson reported that children need a balance with exposure to both print and technology resources. "Literacy used to mean the ability to read and write, but in recent years, that term has become an umbrella for reading, writing, and digital skills that run the gamut from typing to intuitively understanding how to interact with both computers and other devices, as well as an early grasp that everything online must be vetted."
The Common Core State Standards expect children to have choices when sharing new knowledge. Adding a technology center into your rotation will provide children with the opportunity to develop digital literacy skills.
Here are a few Tech Tools to try during your literacy block:
Lego Creator App
Have fun making stop animation videos with the Lego Creator App. Take a picture of any object, move the object slightly, take another picture, then move the object again. The app "ghosts" the last image on the frame to aid in staging the next movement. Your students will be able to create a movie with a just few still shots.
How to Use the Lego App to Respond to Reading:
BookPagez offers comprehension strategy slips with each of our comprehension strategy lesson plans. Try using one of the strategy slips as a prompt for working with the Lego App. For example, the visualizing strategy slip for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, asks readers to describe a scene that was easy to visualize and a scene that was difficult to visualize.
Allow students to use the Lego Creator to answer the question. A sample answer might be that it was easy to visualize the Grinch's heart growing. So, readers could animate their response by making 8 play dough hearts of different sizes. Here's what your students could do:
Take a picture of the smallest heart
Replace the small heart with the larger heart
Take another picture
Continue replacing the hearts and taking pictures until you have photographed the largest heart
Telegami
If you are looking for a delightfully engaging app, try Telegami EDU. This app needs no direction from you as children intuitively create moving, talking characters. The app was recognized by the American Association of School Librarians as one of the Best Apps for Teaching and Learning, making it one you can trust to deliver quality digital literacy support.
How to Use Telegami to Respond to Reading:
With Telegami, students can create a character who will read their response to reading aloud. By scripting their response, students will have to think carefully about what their character says, causing them to develop a clear and concise presentation.
Use Telegami to answer any of the comprehension strategy slips by doing the following:
Provide students with the comprehension strategy slip
Help students understand the difference between a written and a verbal response
Draft the response prior to using Telegami
Encourage students to choose a Telegrami character that best matches the voice of their response
Seesaw
Seesaw is another award-winning app. Differentiate exit slips with Seesaw. Make a video, draw a picture, take a picture, record a voice, share a link, and type a message with Seesaw. Use Seesaw on your laptop and mobile devices. Seesaw is a free tool and it's listed as one of the Best Apps for Teaching and Learning .
How to Use Seesaw to Respond to Reading:
Choose a comprehension strategy slip like this making inferences slip for use with Owl Moon. The slip asks readers to infer what the main character must have known prior to going owling with her father. Then ask readers to choose a Seesaw feature to show what they can infer based on evidence from the text.
BookCreator
Retell and summarize stories using the BookCreator app to create an ebook with illustrations, text, and voice recordings. Add the published book to the iBook library for others to read.
How to Use Book Creator to Respond to Reading:
The comprehension strategy slip for use with Biscuit's First Trip asks readers to summarize the story in three sentences. Allow your students to use BookCreator to create a 3-page book. Each page can include one sentence and an illustration.
