Check out this font that will let you create handwriting sheets for indvidualized practice!

#teacherhack

Expand your #hourofcode by signing up to Skype with a computer scientist! Skype allows our students to talk to anyone and evryone to get the answers they want to know and connect to a world that needs them to take an active role in it. These days, you don’t have to know it all … just what and who to ask!

Tips from a Teacher … UPCYLCING one of our fabulous posts into EDUCATION you can use

in your classroom

The essence of JGL’s hit site/movement/project/potential is COLLABORATION! Using the talents, ideas, skills, and imaginations of everyone anyone to create something that probably couldn’t exist otherwise ….

So, what could hitRECord look like in your classroom?

For ELLs, this could be your chance to bring their native language to life in the classroom by celebrating the stories they have to tell … in their own words! Giving students access to CreativeCommons could allow them to pick those songs, images, recordings that can show their life, their knowledge, their understanding, their interest to you and other students of various language backgrounds. For even more personalized collaborative fun … buddy up a native speaker and a non-native speaker to have each narrate the translated versions of each other’s writing into digital storytelling software for a dual-language HIT!

For your artistic writers (…start embracing visual literacy as a viable and effective writing form!), this could be your chance to unleash their visual writing tendencies — pair them with prolific student authors and let them transform a buddy’s work into a visual masterpiece and then switch and let the student illustrators have their pictures be the prompts for magical stories by the collaborating writer buddy. For even more collaborative fun in the classroom … tackle a whole-class piece by allowing each student to claim a part of the writing to work on that best fits their interest or aptitude (maybe you’ll need illustrators, traditional writers, graphic designers, storyboarders, copy editors, musicians, photographers, translators, a score, a title sequence, etc.) — just like in the theatre arts, there will now be room for everyone to feel like and show that they are a writer! (Head on over to Folger Shakespeare Library and try a group sonnet to get things started.)

So, what does hitRECord look like in your classroom? TELL US IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

Interactive Digital Word Tiles

Word tiles are a great brainstorming strategy to spark creative word combinations and force us to think critically about how we can concisely communicate a message to others. Inspired by the familiar flashcards and magnetic poetry pieces that can be moved around to form various combinations, interactive digital word tiles come in many options that can be accessed via an Internet browser or downloaded as an app to a smartphone or tablet.

EXAMPLE
When using the “Prove It!” prompt to engage in descriptive writing, this example was created using Magnetic Poetry Online. Can you guess what they were trying to prove? With a confined list of words, conventions are thrown out the window as the creator negotiated ways to prove that it was hot.

TRY IT FOR YOURSELF

1. Go to the Magnetic Poetry Online website, which does not require an account or sign-in.
2. Tiles are viewable on the right side of the screen and can easily be shuffled or refreshed by clicking the buttons at the bottom.
3. Simply click on the tile you want to move and drag it to the blank space to form ideas and phrases.
4. Once you are finished, click “Save and Share” at the bottom left of the screen and add a title and author.
5. You can share your creation by clicking “Save and Share” to type in specific email addresses you would like to email it to or by copying the URL in the browser address bar and adding it as a link to your webpage.

OTHER TOOLS TO TRY
Word Mover by ReadWriteThink.org is an amazing tool that lets you even write in a word to add to your options of word tiles.

Hyperlink Poetry

The text of poetry is the star. Sometimes it is graced with visual imagery alongside it to enhance the message being conveyed; however the imagery can tend to overtake its supporting role. Have you ever wondered how you could find a balance that maintained the focus of the text but simultaneously incorporated additional imagery and audio? Consider using hyperlinks. These common clickable breadcrumbs of the Internet allow readers to navigate the world wide web in search of finding out more about something that interests us. When added throughout your poem, they can do the same for your readers by allowing them to click and access the depth of your message.

EXAMPLE
This example was created by a 6-year-old. She used hyperlinks in Google Documents to link selected words to copyright free images found online at Wikimedia.

TRY IT FOR YOURSELF

1. Type poem in a new Google Doc (or word processing program like Microsoft Word).
2. For each keyword and/or phrase in your poem that you want linked, do the following steps:
   • Locate an online image for the word and/or phrase (i.e. Wikimedia Commons, Advanced Google Image Search for images identified as copyright free, or upload your own images to Flickr).
   • Copy the URL of the online image.
   • Highlight the word or phrase you want linked in your poem.
   • Select “Insert” -> “Link.”
   • Paste the URL in the box and click “Apply.”
3. Save the Google Doc and share the link via email or posting to social media.

OTHER TOOLS TO TRY
Try TACKK, which is a free webpage creator. With a simple click you can change colors, fonts, and add links to media.
Here is the same example created in TACKK.