HyperTEXTS: Teaching English in the Digital Age
A collection of web-based resources for educators
Greetings! As of July, 2011, I'm no longer updating this wiki.
Welcome!
Welcome to a wiki of Web-based resources made with English teachers in mind. You'll find a site map below, as well as on each page, in the right-hand column titled Navigator. Some of the links you find here bring you to pages here on the wiki. Others bring you directly to the tool or resource. This wiki is updated* regularly.
New Stuff!
- Collaboration Tools - by Educause
- Confessions of a Podcast Junkie: A Student Perspective, May 2007
- Reflecting, Writing, & Responding: Reasons Students Blog - by Educause
- Quickstart Guide to iMovie - The 4-page guide contains everything you need to know to get started and to publish your first video using iMovie.
- Seven Things You Should Know about Online Video Editing
- The 2011 Horizon Report - Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years.
- 7 Things You Should Know About Microblogging
- Digital StoryTelling
*06.04.2011
What's Your Opinion?
I'd appreciate your feedback on a couple of questions about this site. Click on the link to get to the survey. And, thanks.
~Karen 06.04.11
On the Site
Ideas & Perspectives
- Why Tech, Why Now? Videos to start a dialog.
- Information R/evolution - a video by Cultural Anthropologist, Mike Wesch
- The Machine is Us/ing Us - a video by Cultural Anthropologist, Michael Wesch
- Did You Know 4.0 -
- A Teacher's Guide to Web 2.0 Tools - A fun slide show & resources from the wiki, Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century
- New Media Literacies- Participatory Culture - explores how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape.
- Perspectives on Digital Literacy - Two videos from Canadian public television where educators discuss the myths and realities of literacy in the digital age.
- Teaching and Learning Strategies for the Thinking Classroom - A publication of the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Project. This staff development project came about to satisfy the need in schools for deeper, lifelong learning. It focuses on the "small ideas"-- how to actually teach for active learning and critical thinking in the classroom.
- What is Social Media? A great overview by Visually Speaking.
- On 21st Century Learning-a thought by David Warlick
- What Does the Network Mean to You? - Perspectives from educators all over the world, shared via VoiceThread.
- The Evolving Web - Two videos
- Web 3.0 by Kate Ray - The semantic web has become somewhat of a buzz word for what has been labeled web 3.0. But what is it? And why should you bother? Watch this very instructive and entertaining video.
- Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web
20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.
Kids Today
- Digital Youth - Who are we teaching? Four videos explore this essential question.
- The Networked Student - A video by Dr. Wendy Drexler
- No Future Left Behind - Created as the Keynote for Net Generation Education Project, Suffern Middle School students spoke candidly about education and their futures.
- A Vision of Students Today - A short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Professor Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.
- My PLE (Personal Learning Environment) - One student describes her PLE and why she likes it. This is more than a student talking, it's an example of a student learning experience that's been transformed by digital tools.
- The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create with Digital Media - A webinar sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, he National Writing project, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. This forum, entitled "The Power of Youth Voice," brought together experts in digital media and learning to share their research and experiences using digital media in and outside of the classroom.
- Are Kids Different Because of Digital Media?
- That's Not Cool dot com - Sponsored and co-created by the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the Office on Violence Against Women and the Ad Council, the site is designed to address new and complicated problems between teens who are dating or hooking up—problems like constant and controlling texting, pressuring for nude pictures, and breaking into someone's e-mail or social networking page.
Schools and Schooling: What's Now, What's Next?
- The Ecology of New Media - You Tube and the Politics of Authenticity. A presentation by Cultural Anthropologist, Michael Wesch, at the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A thought-provoking presentation about media, action, and identity.
- Looking Ahead - Two videos explore what's necessary for educational change to occur
- Learning to Change, Changing to Learn: Advancing K-12 Technology Leadership, Consortium for School Networking(COSN) Video
- 21st Century Pedagogy: Transforming our pedagogical DNA
- Are Schools Killing Creativity?- Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
- 21st Century Literacy - A wiki of the International School Bangkok's comprehensive vision of the school's vision and implementation of 21st century learning across the curriculum, grades PK-12.
- Playing to Learn? - Children love to learn, but at some point they lose that and become adults that don't like formal learning. Let's explore why "play" has gotten such a bad rap and figure out how to get it back in education.
Tools for Collaboration
- 7 Things You Should Know About Collaborative Editing
- Blogs, Wikis, Docs: Which is Right for Your Classroom? A comparison chart
- Google Docs and other Google Tools
- Primarypad Real-time collaboration
- Wikis
- 7 Things You Should Know about Wikis
- 7 Things You Should Know about Wikipedia
- Wikis in Plain English
- Educational Wikis
- Tips for Teaching Wikis: How I Explain it to Students
- Social Bookmarking
- General Information 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking
- Social Bookmarking and Annotating - from the Digitally Speaking wiki
- A Bookmarking Tool: Delicious
- Diigo Three videos
- Diigo: Improving how we find, share, and save information;
- Diigo: Highlight & share the web
- Teacher feedback with Diigo
- Diigo for Educators Special features for educators, including tools to manage classes.
Tools for Building Community
- Youth Voices
- Edmodo: Social networking for education in a secure learning environment.
- Edmodo Home page
- The Edmodo Blog
- Edmodo: Ning for Kids!
- Using Edmodo in the Classroom: 5 Days Later
- From Classroom 2.0 LIVE: Edmodo An hour-long webinar/discussion with teachers & the founder of Edmodo.
- GROU.PS - http://GROU.PS GROU.PS is a do-it-yourself social networking platform that allows people to form interactive communities around a shared interest or affiliation. Free basic account
- Grouply - Create your own social media site; Used online; free
- Webs.com - Create your own website; Used online; free
- A wide-ranging discussion of the pros and cons of websites for class use - EC Ning
- Netiquette - The form and content of internet communications, or, how to be a good digital citizen.
Tools for Teaching Literature & Writing
(Also, see Specific Tools, below.)
Writing
- Blogs
- Blogging From the wonderful wiki, Digitally Speaking
- Learning to Blog Using Paper A step-by-step guide to teaching kids the ins and outs of blogging before they ever get online! From the blog Notes from McTeach.
- Reflecting, Writing, & Responding: Reasons Students Blog - by Educause
- 7 Things You Should Know About Microblogging
- The Digital Narrative: Finding Your Story with Digital Media by Martin Jorgensen - Discover new ways to teach storytelling; explore dozens of free tools to build your stories; find other websites dedicated to telling stories with new media.
- Digital Publishing Resources: A collection of six free publishing resources; used online; free
- Digital Story Telling: Tips and Resources: A 32-page resource book by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Ph.D. Associate Director of Academic Technology, Simmons College. Overview, lessons, strategies, rubrics, a "webography" of resources.
- Igniting Student Creativity through Digital Storytelling -
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National Novel Writing Month - is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Used online; Free
- One Page Per Day - a very simple web typewriter that presents you with a single blank page each day. You are free from the tyranny of the infinite page. You get a gentle reminder to do your page each day, then you just sit back and watch your book come together. Used online; FreeOne Word: prompts a writing teacher will love - used online; free
- Research Tools
- Teaching Argument through Role-play
- Writing Resources
Reading & Literature
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60second Recap™ wants to make the great works of literature accessible, relevant, and, frankly, irresistible to today’s teens. Through 60second Recap™ video albums, we seek to help teens engage with the best books out there ... not just to help them get better grades, but to help them build better lives.
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Promise into Practice: What It Now Means to Teach Adolescent Readers - this session by Sara Kajder for the K-12 Online Conference will address any doubts you may have about the value of digital tools for writers & readers.
- Exploring Literary Terms - Metaphor
- VoiceThread and Literature
- Illuminated Texts- One Source is www.awaytoteach.net
Additional Curriculum Resources
- Teaching with Ted Talks - Initiated by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D., this wiki contains recordings of original TED talks, with references, resources, and activities about the topic and/or speaker to spark further discourse, exploration, reflection, and action.
Tools for Teaching Media Literacy
Media Literacy
- Media Literacy Resources- Center for Media Literacy
- More Media Literacy- Temple University Media Education Lab; National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE); American University's The Center for Social Media
- Teachingmedialiteracy.com: A Web-linked Guide to Resources and Activities
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Media Literacy Curriculum and Resources From the Teaching Media Literacy wiki site by Richard Beach
Tools for Thinking & Creating
General Resources
This collection of web 2.0 tools began with a conversation with 8th grade students, about what school would look like if all of the rules we currently had were disbanded. They were no longer bound by walls, schedules, age restrictions or standardized tests. No technology was outlawed.... Here are the tools they think we ought to consider using.
- Bloom's Taxonomy in Digital
- Digital Tools - HOW TOs for Teachers - Two short references by Mike Zimmerman, Technology Integration Specialist: Tools for the 21st Century Teacher and A New Way to Lecture: Using Web 2.0 to Create Interactive Lectures with Your Students
- Digitally Speaking - The purpose of Nationally Board Certified teacher Bill Ferriter's wiki is to introduce a few of these tools to users---and to include practical examples of how educators can make digital dialogue a real part of their classroom instruction. The wiki also contains audio clips from Bill's presentations and comments from students.
- Educational Origami - Matching ICT tools to traditional classroom practice & Bloom's Taxonomy.
- Joyce Valenza's - Amazing Compilation
- More Resources - Lists of Web resources for educators.
- Poducate Me - Practical solutions for podcasting in education. PoducateMe features a comprehensive podcasting guide that reveals exactly how it's done. The entire PoducateMe Podcasting Guide can be read online and free of charge.
- Google for Educators - "At Google, we support teachers in their efforts to empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. That’s why we’ve assembled the information and tools you’ll find on this site. Learn more about Google for Educators."
- Google Tools for Schools - Jennifer Dorman, a Google Certified Teacher, has assembled a comprehensive collection of Google tools with extensive resources on how to use them. She uses the collection for workshops she offers and, in the spirirt of open access, has shared the site with the Web.
- ePortfolios with Google Apps - a comprehensive web site by Dr. Helen Barrett, renowned for her work in ePortfolio research and development. This site also offers lots of great how-to information about Google Apps.
- Google Guide - Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial and reference, with sections for expererts, novices, and teens. "I developed Google Guide because I wanted more information about Google's capabilities, features, and services than I found on Google's website." --Nancy Blachman, creator. Used online; free.
- Integrating Google Tools for Educators - Run, do not walk, to take advantage of this superb resource - Used online; Free
Specific Tools
(Thanks to Drew Buddie and his wiki, Indispensible ICT Tools for Teachers, for the format & many of the resources listed below.)
- Animoto - make a simple slideshow from still images; Used online, Free
- Animoto for education - Apply to Animoto for a free, all-access pass for use in the classroom
- Animoto advice - A collection of tips and pieces of advice for teachers from respected ed tech blogger, Steven Anderson
- Hello Animoto - Andrew Marcinek's discussion, with examples, on the Classroom 2.0 Ning
- Teaching with Animoto - English Companion Ning (EC Ning) discussion
- Use Animoto with Read 180 - ECNing; applicable to any program or activity
- Examples
- Teacher-made Animotos used to introduce new literature units- ECNing
- The Tragedy of Haiti - turning to literature in the face of tragedy - ECNing
- Audacity - open source software for recording and editing sounds. Downloadable app; Free
- Blabberize - "Making pictures talk;" Used online; Free. There's not much information on the site itself, but their blog has some interesting ideas.
- Bubbl.us - tool for brainstorming; Used online; Free
- Bubbl.us Basics - a quick YouTube video
- Comic Life - make your own comic; Downloadable app
- Comic Life in Education - From the folks at Comic Life
- How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom
- Tech Module: Using Comic Life in the Classroom
- Comic Life PD through the Ontario Teachers Federation - many more resources about Comic Life than can be listed here, this wiki includes
- PowerPoint presentations, by Barbara McLaughlin
- A link to a recorded video session about how to use Comic Life
- Video clips on using Comic Life
- Dropbox - store your files online & access anywhere; Downloadable app & Used online; Free (2GB)
- Flickr - photosharing site; Used online; Free
- Flickr Advanced Search Use this page to limit a search to images licensed for sharing.
- Flickr search http://compfight.com Great tool for searching, can be limited to images licensed for reuse.
- Glogster Edu - interactive poster maker; Used online; Free (N.B. Be sure you're on the .edu version!)
- Examples of Glogs
- Glogging Not Blogging by Tara Seale for the NCTE Secondary Section blog
- Detailed Tutorial on Glogster
- Goodreads - create book groups & share books you're reading; Used online; Free
- Using Goodreads with Students: from Lisa Huff's Workshop Wiki
- From the blog, The Literabuss: Goodreads.com in the Classroom: a Slam Dunk Resource
- Jing - Capture your screen & add voice; store your videos online; Used online; Free. Pro option offers ability to save in more formats, etc.
- Make Beliefs Comix - "Art by Tom Bloom, comix by you." Existing galleries of art make it easy for students to focus on creating the story; Used online; Free.
- Ning - build your own social community; Used online; Fee
- Ning Pricing Plans, announced May 4, 2010
- OneWord - see description above, in Writing Tools
- Podcasting - In 2009, the Ontario Teachers Foundation sponsored a digital "summer camp" for teachers. This comprehensive wiki page can get you and your class started with this exciting activity.
- Posterous - a very simple publishing platform that works well for class blogging; Used online; Free
- Screenjelly - record your screen activity with your voice; Used online; Free
- Skitch - a Mac OS X application that allows you to take a picture of the entire screen or selected areas of the screen. It also allows you to post those images on the web through the Skitch site; Free.
- Skype - Talk with people anywhere in the world; Used online; FREE!
- TED Talks - repository of inspirational & life-affirming videos; Used online; Free
- Teaching with TED wiki, by Jackie Gerstein Ed.D. - lesson plans, ideas, more!
- TokBox - Free video chat and video messaging *Big changes coming in April 2011
- Tumblr - a very simple publishing platform that works well for class blogging; Used online; Free
- VoiceThread - collaborative, multimedia slide show; Used online; Free/Minimal fee
- How to Make a VoiceThread - a great wiki by the folks from VoiceThread
- VoiceThread for Educators - a Ning community
- Voicethread - from the wiki, Digitally Speaking
- Wallwisher -
- 19 Interesting Ways to Use Wallwisher in the Classroom (and tips!)
- Wordle - create word pictures from text files; Used online; Free
- Using Wordle in an English Classroom by Tara Seale for the NCTE Secondary Section blog
- Zoho - tools for productivity & collaboration. Includes word processing, spread sheets, much more; Used online; Free
- Zotero - collect, manage & cite your research sources; Downloadable app; Free
Tools for Personal PD
- Podcasts and Video for Ongoing Learning
- Classroom 2.0 Live
- K-12 Online Conference - Annual free online conference.
- Teachers Teaching Teachers - Free weekly podcast offering a multiplicity of tools & tips.
- Developing a PLN (Personal Learning Network)
- English Companion Ning An online community of English teachers, comprising blogs, discussion forums, and much more. Collaborate, share resources, commiserate, give & get support.
- English 2.0: A Webstitute for Teaching & Learning in a Digital age - A free online conference hosted by the EC Ning in the summer of 2010, the 2 recorded keynote addresses and 6 mini-sessions, with the related discussion forums, will remain on the the Ning for on-demand access.
- Free Tech for Teachers A blog by Richard Byrne about, well, free tech for teachers. Reviews, advice, descriptions of how teachers use the tech.
- Great Tech Tips for Teachers A feed of Richard Byrne's blog posts to this site
- What should I read? - A few suggestions.
- Social Media Reading List - The idea for this page is to build a 'best of the web' reading / watching list for school leadership regarding using social media for school advancement. Rather than talk about how great social media is we're using social media to build this reading list.
- A 21st Century Professional Development Proposal: a Personal Learning Network + specific web tools = a true 21st century teacher.
Tools for Creating, Downloading, & Converting Videos
Creating & Editing Videos
- 18 Free Screencasting Tools
- Quickstart Guide to iMovie - The 4-page guide contains everything you need to know to get started and to publish your first video using iMovie.
- Seven Things You Should Know about Online Video Editing
Downloading Videos
- Two options for downloading YouTube videos to use in school:
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Converting Videos
- File Converters
- Format Factory - Format Factory is multifunctional media converter (Windows); Download; Free
- WinFF - File converter (Windows & Ubuntu); Download; Free
Images
Image Quest - Copyright-free image bank launched for teachers by Encyclopaedia Britannica - Used online; Free
Miscellaneous
- How to Create a Safe Password - A short video by Animated Explanations
- Password Safe - Store passwords, user names, and other security information. Developed by the computer scientist who (literally) wrote the book on Web security. Download; Free.
NCTE Statements & Standards for Teaching with Digital Tools
- 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment Framework - NCTE 2008 Position Statement
- Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies
- 21st Century Skills Map - Developed in conjunction with The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, this curriculum map illustrates "the intersections between 21st Century Skills and English."
Web-based Resources for the English Classroom by Karen LaBonte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.