This week, we’ll wrap up our theme of edtech in specific content areas. We will continue sharing exciting, content-related tools, resources, and ideas -- of course! In recent weeks, we’ve highlighted math, science, elementary classrooms, and social studies. This week, we focus on ENGLISH and LANGUAGE ARTS. In the post below, you’ll find TOOLS, RESOURCES, and IDEAS related to ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS and EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY*.
TOOLS
Student research platform with MLA, APA and Chicago/Turabian bibliographies, notecards, outlining. Students in the middle school use the express version, which allows them to create citations, while students in the high school use the paid subscription, which helps them through every step of the research process, including collaboration with teachers and classmates.
Steve Wick shares a thorough list of resources that “cross over multiple categories of curricular skills.” His list includes Chrome extensions, Google Drive Add-Ons, and Drive Apps.
Zaption provides free interactive video tools and ready-to-use video lessons to engage learners. Teachers can search in the gallery, customize videos to meet specific needs, share lesson with others, and track learner data. EDpuzzle is a similar tool. Both web tools offer teachers and students access with a Google single sign-on.
RESOURCES
Shmoop’s Learning Guides are like a new-school Cliff’s Notes. For English Language Arts, students can access learning guides in Literature, Grammar, Poetry, Shakespeare, and more. Students and teachers can prepare for AP English tests too! Shmoop offers accounts for teachers and students through Google single sign on.
Unlimited access to hundreds of leveled news articles and Common Core–aligned quizzes, with new articles every day. Every article at five (!) levels: Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that’s just right for each student.
There are many apps and web tools available for digital storytelling -- peruse Kathy Schrock’s page above, or view Christopher Pappas’s list here. Digital storytelling allows students and teachers to be more interactive in their storytelling. We know students learn best when they have a combination of words, pictures, and sound, plus many enjoy hands-on activities; it follows that students would be able to SHOW their learning with a combination of these things as well. Give digital storytelling a try!
IDEAS
For their third independent reading project this year, students in English 9 classes created digital book talks using Sound Cloud. Students worked independently to write a script, record a book talk podcast to share with everyone, then listen to and comment on their peers’.
After learning about propaganda in Miss Allen’s and Mrs. Cooper’s 8th grade ELA classes, students put those concepts to work. They developed new apps for electronic devices and advertised them using the persuasive techniques they learned in class.
In English 10, students read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Afterwards, they created comic strips online, incorporating the themes of friendship and betrayal, set in Ancient Rome, and including Shakespearean English. Students used Shmoop to unpack literary themes and “translate” into Shakespeare, and shared their storyboards with their peers, who then critiqued. Mrs. Berry, Mrs. Dalrymple, and Mrs. Travelpiece collaborated in planning and implementing the project. View student examples here, here, here, and here.
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* Please note, just because technology is new, doesn’t mean it’s always better. If traditional flashcards work for you and your students, keep using them! But if StudyBlue could work for you, ask some of your kids to give it a whirl. 
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