How to Create a Story Map
A couple of days ago I published a post about a story map titled 1,001 Novels: A Library of America. That post is already one of the most popular things I’ve published this year! Viewing 1,001 Novels: A Library of America reminded me of a free tool that students can use to create story maps. […]
TED-Ed Lessons With a Halloween Theme
Halloween is a little more than a week away. It is during the next week that a lot of students will be introduced to the work of Edgar Allan Poe. A TED-Ed lesson examines what made Poe’s macabre works timeless classics. In Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? students can learn about Poe’s guiding principles for […]
Read and Help Transcribe Walt Whitman’s Notebooks and Diaries
A handful of years ago the Library of Congress launched a crowd sourcing project called Crowd which has since been renamed as By the People. The purpose of the project is to enlist the help of the public to transcribe thousands of primary source documents that are housed by and have been scanned by the […]
How to Create a Custom Map on an iPad
Yesterday morning I answered an email from a reader who wanted to know if it was possible to create Google Earth projects on an iPad. Unfortunately, the iPad version of Google Earth allows you to view existing projects, but doesn’t allow you to create new projects. Fortunately, there are other ways to create custom maps […]
Gary Paulsen Talks About Reading and Writing
Gary Paulsen’s book, Hatchet was the first book that I willingly and eagerly read from cover to cover when I was in elementary school. It filled my suburban child mind with great thoughts of adventure and a little virtual escape at a time when my own parents were going through divorce. The book meant and […]
Great Reads from Great Places – An Interactive Map from the Library of Congress
Great Reads from Great Places is an interactive map produced by the Library of Congress for the National Book Festival. The purpose of the map is twofold. First, to help visitors find National Book Festival-related events in their states. Second, to help visitors find books that are connected to their states. Those connections could be […]
Novels on Location and an Ocean of Books
On Monday I featured three ways to explore the news through maps. I like the idea of using maps to give students some geographic context for the stories that they read. That idea isn’t limited to news stories. That’s why I’ve long enjoyed the site Novels on Location. Novels on Location helps readers find novels […]
Why Should You Read Moby Dick – A New TED-Ed Lesson
A couple of years ago TED-Ed started producing a series of video lessons titled Why Should You Read… The videos in the series feature classic works of literature explained in about five minutes. The videos are more high level overviews of the books than they are book trailers. What I like best about the videos […]
Why Should You Read Lord of the Flies – A New TED-Ed Lesson
Why You Should Read Lord of the Flies is the latest video added to TED-Ed’s “why should you read…” series. There are now more than thirty videos in that series. Why You Should Read Lord of the Flies follows the same pattern as the other videos in the series. The video covers the major plot […]
Two More Lessons in TED-Ed’s “Why Should You Read…” Series
Last fall TED-Ed started publishing a series of lessons titled “Why Should You Read…” The series features TED-Ed lessons that explain the significance of classic works of literature. When I last wrote about the series it contained seven lessons. The series is now up to nine lessons. The latest lessons are about Fahrenheit 451 and […]
A Fun Literature Game
A couple of years ago Terri Eichholz wrote a short blog post about an activity that she had found on the New Times Learning Network. I was recently scrolling through some old bookmarks and found Terri’s post again. So I went to see if it’s still available and it is. The activity is called Literature […]
TED-Ed Explains Why Students Should Read Classics
A few weeks ago TED-Ed published a lesson titled Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? It now appears that lesson was the first in a series of lessons designed to explain and encourage students to read some classics. Since the Poe lesson was published TED-Ed has published similar lessons about Don Quixote, Waiting for […]
The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival – Videos Based on Newbery Winning Books
Thanks to one of the great teachers that I am working with at Sigsbee Charter School I learned about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. The festival is really a contest that is organized by YA author James Kennedy. The purpose of the contest is to encourage students to create short videos based on Newbery-winning books. […]
Your Next Read – Webs of Book Recommendations
Your Next Read is a site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here’s how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a web of books that might also enjoy. Click […]
History and Literature Text Messages
ClassTools.net is one of my favorite places to find templates for online activities for middle school and high school students. One of the templates on ClassTools.net that I’ve recommended for years is the Fake SMS Generator. Watch my following video to learn how to use the SMS Generator on ClassTools. Applications for Education You could […]
From the Catbird Seat – A Poetry Podcast
Just in time for the end of National Poetry Month the Library of Congress has launched a new podcast series about poetry. The podcast is called From the Catbird Seat. The podcast will feature conversations with Rob Casper and Anne Holmes from the Poetry and Literature Center at the LOC. In the first eight episodes […]
Novels on Location – A Map of Novels
Novels on Location is a neat of use Google Maps. The idea behind Novels on Location is to help readers find novels according to the story’s geographical settings. When you visit Novels on Location you can find novels by clicking on the placemarks that you see on the Google Map. An alternative way to search is by using […]
Four Things Students Need to Create Book Trailer Videos
This is an update of a blog post that I published about 16 months ago. The concepts are the same, but some of the resources have been updated. Creating book trailer videos is a great alternative to a traditional written book report assignment. In a book trailer video students highlight their favorite elements of a […]
Borrow, Read, and Listen – The Open Library
The Open Library is a part of the Internet Archive. The Open Library is a collection of more than one million free ebook titles. The collection is cataloged by a community of volunteer online librarians. The ebooks in the Open Library can be read online, downloaded to your computer, read on Kindle and other ereader […]
5 Tutorials on Mapping Stories
In Wednesday’s broadcast of Practical Ed Tech Live I answered a question from a reader who was looking for advice on how to have students create maps based on stories that students read. The person had seen it done at a Google Apps Summit but couldn’t remember the name of the tool(s) that was used. […]
Owl Eyes – Guide Students Through Classic Literature
Owl Eyes is a free tool that provides teachers with a good way to provide students with guidance while they are reading classic literature. Owl Eyes provides teachers with tools to insert annotations and questions into classic literature. Students can see the annotations and questions that their teachers add to the digital text. Teachers have the […]
Using Storyboards to Analyze Shakespeare
Creating a storyboard can be a good way to organize a story and plan a video project. As Rebecca Ray shares in the slides below, creating storyboards can also be a good way to deconstruct and analyze a story. Share my-lesson-webinar-on-shakespeare from Richard Byrne The recording of Rebecca Ray’s presentation is embedded below. Disclosure: Storyboard […]
6000+ Children’s Books Available for Free
The University of Florida’s Digital Collections offers a huge library of digitized children’s books. Thanks to Open Culture I discovered this collection this afternoon and immediately started to browse through it. The books that you will find in the collection consist of works that are in the public domain. You can search for books according […]
Thousands of Free eBooks for Summer Reading
A couple of weeks ago I featured the summer reading packs offered by ReadWorks. Those reading packs are a great option for those teachers and students looking for relatively short articles. For those teachers and students in need of longer ebooks, I recommend taking a look at what Zing has to offer. Zing is a […]
LitCharts Offers Guides to Popular & Classic Literature
LitCharts is a relatively new service that provides teachers and students with guides and summaries of classic and popular literature. The service currently offers more than 300 titles. LitCharts guides can be viewed online or you can download the guides as PDFs. To download a PDF you do have to enter your email address. The […]
ReadWorks Publishes Summer Reading Packs for K-12
ReadWorks has just released a new set of reading packs designed to help you keep your students reading through the summer. Like all ReadWorks units the articles within the reading packs are free to download and print. The ReadWorks Summer Reading Packs are arranged by grade level. Within each grade level you will find ten […]