Week 2 Blog Reviews

The Daring Librarian- To me, book reviews are essential. However, I’ve only learned that later in my life. Thinking back to high school there were probably a lot of people who read books similar to mine, but since we didn’t run in the same circle our ideas and thoughts were never exchanged. The Daring Librarian this week gives students a simple format for how to write a book review-ONLINE (specifically Twitter) by using links and emoticons to help express their opinions. She has examples of popular books and for the technical parts of the review has a step-by-step progress for students to follow. This could have changed my earlier book reading life, checking blogs and people’s Tweets to see what books are recommended and what not to waste my time on!
Larry Ferlazzo- In the district I work for there are not too many ELL students, and in my short time I’ve yet to have one in my class. However, I’m always wondering what I would do if/when one of those students are placed in my room. Ferlazzo put a really cool link on his blog this week that will help ELL students do voice search through Google. Not only will this get them practicing vocabulary, but it will make them do it correctly because it has to be pronounced the right way. This is a great activity for when students have to do research on a project, look up a word they don’t understand, or for ELL’s understanding the language they will be working with.
Pixelated: eReaders and iPads in the School Library- the blog for this is very short, but what the interesting thing is, is a link that takes you to a list of all the free/cheap educational applications for an iPad. Now, I’m not too familiar with iPads (believe me, I would love to be), but how cool would it be to have a center in your room with 4-5 iPads in it? Students could be doing anything from writing a book review, practice their typing skills, or spelling drills (all on the list provided). I assume that once you download an app that it stays on the iPad? In that case, you could download several onto each iPad and then have the students choose their own learning activity for the day.
School Library Monthly- I’m always worried about my lower readers. As much as I hate to admit, I do spend a lot of time talking books with my upper/higher readers (often times at recess or in the halls), but not nearly enough with my emerging readers. I often don’t like the books they’re reading or haven’t read them at all. In School Library Monthly they have a great application for an iPad, or iPhone that takes books and turns them into a comic strip format. How much easier would it be for me, as a teacher, now to take 30 seconds and have them show me their favorite slide on an iPad? I know it would be much easier for both the student and myself than flipping through a chapter book and trying to find a specific page with the information they wanted to share with me. The application is called Toon Books, even the name is catchy enough to make kids want to read!
Free Technology For Teachers- (or in this case, students). I’m not sure I completely follow the actions that have to be taken to take advantage of this application, but I’m going to try my hardest to explain it. Obviously students are constantly texting, and an organization called Study Boost has decided to take advantage of this ever-streaming flow of contact. What kids do is sign up through the company, and then being to look for questions that they have about a certain topic. The questions (yes, questions) are then sent to them, they in turn have to send back their responses. After they’ve answered the questions they automatically get feedback from the company via text messaging. I think this is a great idea! Teachers could even sign up for an account, pull up the information on their SmartBoard, and go through the questions together to see which ones would be most beneficial for students.