Tuesday, I argued that Twitter is a great classroom tool. Students can publish their ideas immediately to a ready audience of readers. This authentic audience and purpose makes Twitter one of the many ways that teachers can engage writers in…
Category: classroom activities
Is Twitter Classroom Worthy?
I have a confession to make. I spend more time sending out Twitter updates (commonly called tweets) than I do on email these days. Why is it a confession? Twitter has gotten a bad reputation in some circles. The College…
Want Free Pointers on Designing Class Projects?
Imagine a classroom full of engaged students busily researching, composing, and discussing their work. Project-based learning (PBL) can make such dreams a reality. As the name suggests, project-based learning asks students to participate in a project that focuses on a…
Lady Gaga and the Research Process
Okay, so maybe I’m a month behind on finding this (via @Lumpy), but it’s too fun not to mention it now that I have. Cory Doctorow shared “Librarians do Gaga” on BoingBoing back in May. In the YouTube video, librarians…
Text + Image = Tagxedo: The Next Generation of Word Cloud Fun
I’ve been a Wordle addict for a while. The online tool takes any text and creates a cloud of the words based on their frequency. It makes for some fun analysis activities that goes beyond the norm in the classroom.…
Piecing Together the Copyright Puzzle
Figuring out copyright can be like piecing together a puzzle. You have a good idea how it’s supposed to work in the end, but all the little pieces can be confusing to piece together. I’ve posted links to 15 sites…
What’s the Trick to Building Community in the Classroom?
Online or off, getting students to talk to each other is a tricky task. I’ve had my happy share of classes where discussion took off, but I’ve also had my quota of classes where not even bribery with cookies and…
Fun and Painless Summer Learning
Unsure how to help families sneak in summer learning without the kids staging a revolt? Encourage families to tie educational projects to the things they’re already doing and the events they’re already talking about. Whether it’s a trip to the…
Designing an Image to Represent a Character
Tara Seale posted details on a fun visual rhetoric and writing activity she recently used with students on the NCTE Secondary Section Blog. The activity, inspired by a similar task described by Shelbie Witte, asks students to design and explain…
A Year-End Activity with Literary Lists of “Ten Best”
There’s not much time left in the school year, and you may find that students are uninterested in reviewing for final exams when they could be making plans for summer fun or a few days off between terms. You can…