The future is in their hands: Using cell phones for literacy - Free book!

Willyn Webb and I contributed to the International Society of Technology Educators (ISTE) Literacy Journal. The journal features innovative ways to enhance learning with technology. Our chapter is called, "The future is in their hands: Using cell phones for literacy learning. Unlike other journals, there is no pay wall to access the journal. It is available free!

Here is what you'll find in the journal:

Table of Contents Forward 
 Editor, Mark Gura Page 4 

 Text Meets Video in the Blogosphere: Complex Informational Content for Today’s Students 
by Dr. Rose Reissman Page 6 

 Using Creative Technology to Engage Struggling Readers and Writers as Producers of Literature 
by Melinda Kolk Page 12 

 The Future Is In Their Hands: Using Cell Phones for Literacy Learning 
by Lisa Nielsen and Willyn Webb Page 21  

 Boosting Oral Language Fluency through Technology Intensive Literature Exploration (TILE), a Learning Centers Approach 
by Kevin Amboe Page 32 

 Learning to Teach with Edmodo: Social Networking-based Activities 
by Kathy D. Shields Page 44 

 Using Online Discussions to Develop Literacy Skills and Integrate the NETs
by Sandra Wozniak Page 54 

 Student Led Podcast Projects Make Common Core Literacy skills Come Alive
by Dr. Rose Reissman Page 64 

 Using Technology To Enhance Reading Skills For English Language Learners
by Kimberly M. Thomas Page 74

Interested? You can check out the journal below.

Scribd.com Version:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/227311233/Literacy-Special-Interest-V1-Number2Read or Download as PDF (requires free registration) scribd

How Social Reading Enhances the #CCSS

Guest post by Travis Alber

ReadUps is an online discussion platform where students can read online and discuss content inside the book. Actually, it doesn't have to be a book, it can also be an imported URL, an uploaded course packet, or whatever you paste in. But the purpose of the ReadUp is to "meet up" inside what students read, and to discuss it. Discussion features allow students to leave comments and responses on any paragraph, or message other readers in the book at the same time. When the ReadUp expires (usually within 2 months), the conversation and book disappear from the website.

ReadUps are “Meetups” inside Books

Here are some ways ReadUps can be used to implement the Common Core

1. Contextual discussion

ReadUps is great for the close reading of texts, and a good platform for students to help other students. Students attach questions to a paragraph and get multiple answers. It's like a distributed study group that meets outside of class to help students get more from their peers.

2. Detailed analysis of the work

CCSS has a focus on critical thinking. Some teachers assign a chapter to students, and sprinkle questions throughout the text, asking students to answer a requisite number. Readups provide a good way for students to demonstrate a deep understanding of the text, and to show improved comprehension when they ask questions back.

3. Focus on Feedback

ReadUps provide an effective means to engage students in their writing assignments. Students can paste content in, ask classmates to read it, and learn how to improve their work. It's not a word processing program, it's a discussion platform, so students take away suggestions at high level, learn to consolidate their thoughts, and then edit their original document in whatever other program they’ve been writing in. Since the ReadUp only lives for a short time - in fact, students can set it to expire after a day - it allows detailed, comprehensive feedback as a simple step in the writing process.

So what do you think? Is this something you might try in your classroom? Want to try it out? Join " Sherlockian Diversions," a public ReadUp in progress [http://rdup.me/hkzit1cens714i].

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Travis Alber is an entrepreneur focused on publishing innovation; her latest startup, ReadUps, offers paragraph-level discussions and reading groups inside content. Based in NYC, she has been working for 15 years on a number of web, ebook, education and mobile-related projects. Reach her at  @screenkapture [http://www.twitter.com/screenkapture].

Five Ways to Build Lifelong Readers

Guest post by Maddie Witter

The new Common Core State Standards list skills to prepare American young people on the path toward the college and careers of their choice.  Yet as students are on their journey to and through college, and ultimately through life, I also hope they are lifelong learners with an insatiable thirst for knowledge driven by their unique passions.  It’s that self-driven desire for knowledge that will empower students to grow and reach their potential beyond the reach of our classrooms.  Building love of learning is a top priority in my classroom.

Where do lifelong learners often turn to get their knowledge? Books!  Below are five ways you can help build lifelong readers.

How Kids Really Learn to Write

Patricia Zaballos shares some radical notions about how kids can become writers in her article in Life Learning Magazine. These notions share little resemblance to what writing looks like in schools today. 

Though she has extensive experience as a public school student and teacher, her insights are drawn from her fifteen years spent homeschooling her own kids and watching them become writers as well as more than a decade of facilitating writer’s workshops and the twenty years she spent becoming a writer.  

In her article Zaballos explains what kids do and don’t need to become writers.   You can read the thinking behind each do and don’t at the original article or on her blog.  Below are the highlights.

Don't miss the Google 4 ur library webinar - July 18!

Check out 50 Ways Google Can Impact Your School Library Program tomorrow as part of  edWeb.net's Using Emerging Tech to Improve Your School Library Program. This interactive workshop will feature award winning Librarian Michelle Luhtala take participants through a Smackdown of 50 Google resources in 60 minutes. Participants will be invited to contribute and comment throughout. 

Thanks to Follett Software's continued sponsorship, Emerging Tech webinars are not only free of charge, but attendees receive certificates of participation whether they participate in real time or asynchronously. All 24 Emerging Tech webinars are archived on the community homepage.

Details
Google in the Library
Explore 50 ways in which Google can impact your school library program - from Google Apps to Google Scholar. Find ways to search smarter, think harder, teach better, be more productive, and embed a plethora of 21st century learning skills into your library program, and its administration.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012 11AM EDT – Session 25 
Register at this link.. 

Are schools making our children illiterate to make a profit?

Professional writer and filmmaker Peter Kowalke didn't start reading until he was 11 which wasn't a problem for him because he didn't go to school.  He explained it to me this way.  

In school you read about doing things.  I preferred to spend my early childhood doing things rather than reading about doing things. 

He shared that this wasn't even something he thought about much.  When learning to read independently became more of a priority for him, he began picking up reading and from that point on there was no turning back. Peter is not unusual.  Dr. Peter Gray studies young people who were never schooled because they were unschooled or attended a Democratic school. The age these children learned to read has a wide range from about 4 - 14 years old. He found that when not coerced or forced, EVERY child learns to read well and by age 15 it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between a child who began reading at 4 and one who began in later years. (Note: This did not include children with severe cognitive impairment or those who don't speak English.)  For those unfamiliar with unschooling or Democratic schooling, it provides children with a natural learning environment where they have access to plenty of resources and support, but learning is not forced and children are given the freedom to learn what they choose when they choose. 

From Students First 

Get On-Demand Support for Your Writing for Free with PaperRater.Com

I recently discovered PaperRater.com, a paper grading and feedback resource that is free and does not require a download.  Developed and maintained by linguistics professionals, subject matter experts, and graduate students, PaperRater.com does this by combining the power of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, information retrieval (IR), computational linguistics, data mining, and advanced pattern matching (APM). The program is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help authors improve their writing.

PaperRater.com provides helpful feedback on grammar, spelling, word choice, and style, but not the author's arguments, logic, organization, and ideas. There is also an Auto Grader rates the grammar, spelling, word choice, and style and has been found  to be nearly as accurate as human graders for that part of the work, for most papers.  At the end of your paper rating, you get a professional looking PaperRater Printable Summary Analysis that gives you an overview of your paper.

Here’s why I love this for writers.
It’s always great to get instant feedback on your writing and added bonus is not having to bug anyone for it. I ran some of my blog posts through PaperRater and received useful suggestion on things like using active of active voice, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.  

Here’s why I love this for teachers.
For teachers who are grading student work, it is terrific to have your students get this sort of feedback before handing in their papers. This means less time focusing on grammar, spelling, style, and vocabulary, and more time focusing on content. There is also a plagiarism detector (though most innovative educators don’t give work that can be plagiarised).

If we really want to empower writers to work independently, it is ideal to combine PaperRater  with a tool like SWoRD, the free web-based, system that uses peer review as its backbone.

The Innovative Educator Dispels Popular Myths about Learning to Read and Write

"The little learning machines who learn to walk by walking and talk by talking also learn to read by reading and write by writing." Linda Dobson

You know that license plate, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”? What if the truth was you didn’t need a teacher to learn to read or write? What if in fact you might be able to read and write more effectively without one? There are many young people who are doing just that...learning to read and write without the benefit of schools or teachers.  

Don’t believe it or want to know more? 
Read on.

• How do kids really learn to write, 2.0 - Patricia Zaballos 
• You don't need to teach reading
  Unschooling mom and career advice expert Penelope Trunk shares five reasons why kids can learn to read without school.
• Only Half of Pupils Like to Read
  Standardized testing leads to a dramatic decrease in the joy of reading.
• Parents react with a promise to opt out in this post.
• How to create non readers - Alfie Kohn
  Kohn explains how teachers are killing students motivation to read by relying on coercion and extrinsic inducements..
• Why required reading needs to be removed from our vocabulary - Amy Milstein A look at how force kills the joy of reading.
• Learning to read without school
  The Innovative Educator (that’s me) shares her experiences about learning to read without school.

Join Teaching Generation Text Authors for Txtn N D Library Live Webinar!

Join my Teaching Generation Text co-author Willyn Webb and I live tonight, November 3rd at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for a conversation about ways real librarians are using their cell phones to enrich teaching and learning.  This webinar will be great for librarians and anyone who loves reading with children.  During the show you'll discover how librarians are enriching teaching and learning with tools like Polling, Twitter, Flickr, and QR codes.

You can join us at this LINK. See what we'll be discussing in our online presentation below.

iPad Literacy Program Increases Reading & Writing Ability

Footsteps2Brilliance (F2B) is an impressive educational game platform that supports students in prek - 3rd grade in learning to read and write. Their Academic Language Program for Students (ALPS) teaches young children the 1,000 key words they will need to develop a powerful reading and writing vocabulary through animated ebooks and games. There is a back end management system tracks mastery of each child's vocabulary and comprehension development as well as standards-based concepts.  The program was developed in response to the landmark Hart-Risley study on language development that shows that an underprivileged child enters school with 25% of the vocabulary they need to succeed academically.  This program helps to rectify this situation by creating a language rich environment for all children.  

Research Supporting the Benefits of Technology In Reading and Writing

Despite the fact that we’re well into the 21st century innovative educators often still have to make a case for using the tools of the world inside school. This post was written for those looking to justify their decision to use technology to support readers and writers.  Below you will find a compilation of research that outlines the benefits of technology in supporting readers and writers.

Leaders Share How Tech Has Helped Students Learn

Part of my work is helping educators partner with students to innovate learning using technology. You can see some of the cool things learners are doing at http://innovatemyclass.org/featured.  I recently had the chance to hear from school leaders about their feelings in regards to how they felt about their teachers and students who were using technology in the classroom.  They explained that not only are students more motivated, engaged and excited about learning in general and writing in particular, but instruction is also changing and becoming deeper. They explained the focus on innovative and authentic publishing has resulted in the culture of the classroom becoming more collaborative.

One leader said it this way:

Using the netbooks, iTouches, Smart Pens, digital cameras, etc., never cease to amaze students and create excitement in the classrooms.  It would be very hard to go "back" to only the paper and pen activities.  Students and teachers see literacy in a different way.

Make and Publish Books for Free Using A Cell Phone and Flickr

If your students have access to a cell phone (or any digital device i.e. iPad, laptop) that can take and send/email pictures, they can make and publish their own books quickly and easily using Flickr.  This is a great way to bring student books to life by publishing them digitally in a format that can be easily shared with the world or printed as a book for the classroom or school library.  

With Flickr you get an email that you (or anyone you share the email with) can use to send all your pictures to and Flickr makes it very easy to sort and group pictures using tags or drag and drop features. You can get a link or code to embed any picture or group/sets of pictures into any online space. When emailing your subject line becomes the picture caption and the message/body becomes the description. To follow are the steps to making a book using Flickr, a sample book, and ideas for the classroom.


Steps to making a book with Flickr

Education Reform Lessons from an 8-Year-Old Author

Guest Post by Gwyn Ridenhour





Eva is a self-published, touring author of two books. She has sold over 100 copies. She has her own website, and she lectures about the craft of writing. Eva is my 8-year-old daughter who was given the freedom to begin developing these amazing talents two years ago when our family left school and began to home educate. She, along with my 11-year-old son, are members of a family that studies traditional subjects, such as history and math, and also devotes a large portion of our time toward creative endeavors.

It seems everywhere I look lately, teachers and parents are increasingly dissatisfied with the one-size-fits-all approach of public education. Many feel that our nation’s fixation on standardized testing is ruining the prospects of our country’s young minds. While there are many ways to approach this issue (I am prone to rant about policy changes, the inefficiencies of differentiated instruction, and the pathetic wages and support we provide our teachers), I think there is a lot to learn from my experience with my daughter.

Why Johnny Still Can't Read

Long before computers were used in the classroom, conversations about how to best teach children were discussed and debated in many forums. From educational videos, to Whole Language, to Balanced Literacy, to the new Math and the new new Math; there never seemed to be a shortage of ideas that will change the face of education. Much of these discussions amounted to no more than edu-babble, as they did not use measurable data to back their claims.

Many years later, we seem to be having the same discussions over again. Sure, the names have changed. However, the arguments and causes have not changed much. Really? Have we been going in circles all these years? Have we simply done a 360 and are just running in place; yet moving nowhere? 

Well… Consider this:

Advice for teaching typing

The only useful class I remember taking in school was typing. I was 13 and I took the class from  Miss Web, long before the Web was anything more than what spiders wove.  Back then, typing meant taking something written somewhere else and then typing it on your own paper complete with erase tape, that you used on mistakes, and that bar that you hit to put the typing carriage back to where you started.  Years later, I was very excited about the electric typewriter, then selectric typewriter which was faster with its typeball instead of those long long bars each with a letter hitting the page.  I haven’t typed someone else’s words in more than a decade.  Today, that’s replaced with a simple file download or cut and paste.  Now the words I put on the page come from my head to my fingers on a keyboard.


I’m often asked, what about today?  When should kids learn to type?  

As someone who learned to use an iTouch/iPhone from a three-year-old and an iPad from a six-year old, I’m keenly aware that kids can start using technology well enough to teach an innovation specialist very early. Teaching children to touch type is a great skill to have early on that will save a tremendous amount of time later.  Also, typing can be fun!  It’s like a race.  


Perhaps the most important reason to get kids typing is it helps get to the thinking faster.  In academic terms this is called cognitive automaticity. With typing we are freed from the slowness of handwriting, finally allowing us to get our ideas down at the speed of thought.  If you’re hung up on the lost art of handwriting, here’s some food for thought.  I haven’t written by hand in more than five years, except for my signature and at the annoying doctors offices that are stuck in the past having me write the same information 500 times over and over.  If I was smart, I’d type it up on sticky labels and paste it on the sheet. 


When it comes to reproducing thoughts, keyboarding is a more efficient and effective way to produce information that is easily sharable allowing the expression of ideas, not the rendering of letters, to take center stage.  


If you like hard facts, here’s what this looks like broken down by words per minute with  handwriting speed. 

Grade	Handwriting Speed (Words Per Minute)
1 - 3	5 - 7
4 - 6	8 - 12
7 - 9	14 - 17
Source	(Amundson, 1995)

With a one-semester typing program a student will usually be able to type about 30 words per minute and a second semester can as much as double the speed.  


So, when should kids learn to type?  

Why not now?  It’s great for hand-eye coordination, letter recognition, and it’s an effective way to share your thoughts and ideas in an authentic medium.  Learning to touch type not only saves time, but it enables one to type while maintaining eye contact.  Additionally, you’ll find that when you learn to touch type on the keyboard, touch typing with your thumbs transfers naturally.  


But what age is best to start?

A kid can learn to type as soon as they have access to a device with a keyboard though it’s generally believed that they may not have the motor coordination or finger span to truly touch type until about seven or 8 years of age.  If you don’t have a device with a keyboard, you can find a picture of one, print it out and they can still practice the basic drills like these. Fold it up and bring it on the go.  This can be an activity children can do in the car, bus, subway, or waiting room.  

How to Start Kids Typing on Keyboards Even if They’re To Young to Touch Type

This video has some useful tips, tricks, and ideas to get children started keyboarding who may not be ready to touch type.


What is a good age to start a child using a typing software program?

There are several free and paid for typing programs.  They suggest that they are generally for children 7 and up.  The nice thing about typing programs is that they provide a fun learning environment for children.  The paid for programs generally start at around $20, with most hovering around the $30 range, and the highest end programs coming in around $50.  Here is a nice comparison of some popular kids typing programs.  Strangely, it is missing the one I’m most familiar with for children which is Mavis Beacon for Kids which comes in at $19.95.  


My favorite speedbuilder game is TypeRacer and it’s FREE! What I love about TypeRacer from a pedagogical perspective is that it provides literary passages for typing which is a nice way to expose players to a variety of writing.  The other thing that is really neat is you have a little race car and you can invite friends to compete against you virtually.  The scores of you and your friends are posted making for a fun competition.  You can also race at anytime with others who happen to be using the program when you are.  


In short children of any age can begin exploring keyboards, letters, and screens.  It is an essential 21st century skill and helping them master it early, not only provides a fun and useful activity for children to work on, but it will also help them share thoughts and ideas while saving a tremendous amount of time.  

The Story of How I Learned How To Read and Write Without School

Kate Fridkis writes about being a young woman at Eat the Damn Cake and alternative education at Un-schooled.

This is going to be shocking, so please hold on to something steady: kids learn at different paces.

Wait, there’s more…They learn from doing things, rather than just being told about how to do things. And here’s the most terrifying, overwhelming part: they don’t really need to be “taught.”

The Innovative Educator writes about how problematic standardized reading tests are. They fail to measure how well a student will be able to read (which is usually quite well, given some time and support), and instead place enormous amounts of pressure on students to be at the same level as their peers, even when we have plenty of information about how the factors that influence when students will begin to read fluently have nothing to do with the classroom.

And what about writing? Lisa worries that too much emphasis is being placed on formalized written communication. She suggests that writing doesn’t feel relevant for students, because their projects stay within the classroom, rather than relating to the world outside it. They could be writing blogs and columns and letters to the editor. But they write essays that begin with a thesis statement, are followed with two points in defense of the thesis, then a counterpoint, a summary, and a neat conclusion.

She asked me how I learned to write. Which is something I remember much better than I remember a lot of things that happened that long ago.

But first, this is how I learned to read: my parents read to me. All the time.
(My dad was a pro at reading this one. source)

Books were exciting and mysterious and magical. I don’t know a single unschooled kid who didn’t learn to love reading. We learned at different ages, of course, but no one had to take a test, and so no one got left behind.

Teachers are sometimes amazed to learn that a kid who started reading at four and a kid who started learning at twelve will read with the same fluency at thirteen.

As the founder and leader of The Manhattan Free School, Pat Werner recently explained to a group of educators, kids never stop learning. They are learning all along. They don’t “learn to read” the moment when they pick up a book and can sound out the words. They’ve been processing relevant information since they were born, and that moment is only the moment when the information begins to fit together in a way others can plainly observe and categorize.

My mother worked with me, showing me how to shape letters with my pen. And then she gave me a journal. Every day, from the time I turned seven or so, I wrote a sentence or two in my journal. I wrote about my life. What toys I wanted for the next big holiday. Why my brother had hurt my feelings. How much it was snowing. How much I enjoyed going to the Sam’s Club because of the free snacks they gave out. Lots of scintillating, forbidden, and provocative pieces about my secret desire for more ice cream. The subject matter wasn’t the point– what was important was my connection to it.
(I always wanted one that looked like this. source)

Later, when I was nine or so, I wrote stories about stories. Stories inspired by the books we were reading together and I was reading on my own. And I illustrated those stories. There aren’t very many stories from that time in my life that aren’t accompanied by marker and colored pencil sketches of princesses in gowns speckled with fat pearls. I don’t know why, but they always had pearls on their dresses. I think that meant they were really rich.

It seems like I shouldn’t have any concept of grammar. Mom used to sit me down with a purple grammar book, and one with a picture of an owl on the cover. I memorized a string of prepositions once. But we weren’t thorough. And we didn’t need to be. I already knew how to write in complete sentences. Grammar was memorization. It was meaningless. Writing was expression. It was natural.

I learned grammar from every book I read, from the way my parents spoke, from Mom reading over what I wrote and saying, “Why does this sound wrong? What would you change to make it sound right?” Grammar is what sounds right. You know how words fit together when you read for hours every day. You also get pretty good at punctuating.

My very smart schooled friends sometimes make grammar jokes that I don’t get. They reference past participles, dangling modifiers, and synecdoches. I put in a polite laugh and nod to show that I’m educated. And then when I write something that doesn’t seem right I read it aloud. How does it sound?

My grammar isn’t perfect. But not a single college professor has ever had a problem with it. Freshman year, one of them even nominated me for a writing fellowship.

It sounds too simple. How can people learn things if they aren’t taught the proper way? If information isn’t broken down for them into bite-sized, manageable little chunks? It’s almost like magic, and no one seems willing to believe in it. No one seems willing to believe in how much children are capable of learning and doing when they’re permitted to exist in a world where everything is interconnected.

As a kid, everything I wrote was related to my life. Everything I wrote was part of something bigger. It was never an isolated essay, it was part of a collection; a journal, an illustrated fairytale about a larger fairytale with much sturdier binding and better cover design.
Writing was connected to drawing which was connected to reading which was connected to experiencing the world which was connected to fairy princesses. The world could not be separated from writing the world. Even now, I want to write about all of the interesting things I read. Luckily, I no longer have the urge to draw princesses in pearled gowns in the margins.

So Lisa, I hope that helps answer your question.
(source)