Choice Lit Topic: Digital Literacy
Thoreau once wrote we are in danger of becoming the “tool of our tools,” but it’s doubtful he envisioned a day when there would be so much technology hardware and software to distract and empower us at the same time. Teachers who are grappling with iPads, laptops, kid blogs and cellphones in classrooms share their triumphs and struggles here.
Results
Beyond “I’m a Third-Grade Teacher”: The Power of Role-Specific Prompting in Educational AI
Everything is changing at warp speed with the landscape of AI tools for education. Many educators find themselves frustrated with inconsistent or underwhelming results. Or, worse yet, some default to...
Can AI Help with Assessment?
Recently, I tried something I probably wouldn’t have considered good practice one year or even six months ago. I used AI to help me grade essays. Faced with a pile...
Five Things I’ve Used AI for This Week
My mom slid into the passenger seat of my car and shut her door. “Thanks for driving me to the eye doctor, honey,” she said as she handed me a...
Considerations for AI in the Classroom
In a PLC meeting this spring, a principal suggested showing seniors how to use AI for help with their senior portfolios, which immediately sparked a debate among all the teachers...
Considerations for AI in the Classroom
When I first heard of ChatGPT, we were already into the second semester of the school year, when my capacity for learning about a new technology is admittedly very low....
Leveraging AI in Elementary Literacy
The often overused quote of Edward Bulwer-Lytton—“The pen is mightier than the sword”—is often used to describe the awesome power of the written word and its destructive possibilities. I have...
Getting to Know Digital Learners: How Playing with Technology Helps Facilitate Our Identities as Learners
Recently Josie’s four-year-old granddaughter became fascinated with slime YouTube videos. We thought the request for these videos was simply a filler during her quiet time. However, she was taking note:...
Picture of the Week
“Mrs. Parks, can you take a picture?” is a common question that I hear throughout the day. For better or worse, my smartphone and iPad camera have become an extension...
Using Digital Photos to Enhance Learning
Hmm . . . 32,249 photos in my iCloud account? Yes. I’m one of those people. I’m one of those people who are constantly taking photos. Looking back through photos...
The Answer Is Always “Yes”
When I first started implementing a writing workshop as a young teacher, I remember being paralyzed by the thought of my writers being in different stages of the writing process...
Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out (or, how to give students the resources, space, and time for self-directed literacy learning)
[R]ather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of education as a process of guiding kids' participation in public...
Lead with Art, and Literacy Will Naturally Follow
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. —Pablo Picasso There is one book that always makes it onto my personal...
Minilessons About Sound and Image
Digital content has opened the floodgates and immersed our students (and us) in images and sounds more than ever before. TikTok, Instagram, video games, memes, and YouTube, to name a...
Teaching Students How to Email
Email. It can be the bane of our existence, right? Not too long ago I saw a meme on social media. It showed two email icons. At the top it...
Google Classroom Boot Camp
One of my pet peeves about Google Classroom is that as a teacher, my view of Classroom isn’t the same as my students'. So until I had some enterprising and...
Four Tools for Hosting Online Book Clubs
Before the pandemic, there were some common technology integrations in literacy classrooms. Learning management systems, like Google Classroom and Seesaw, were becoming ubiquitous for teachers to post assignments and collect...
Finding Reliable Digital Reading Resources
One of the things I love about education is that it is always evolving. When tablets first became the rage years ago, I looked for ways to incorporate them into...
Fairy Tales with a Multimodal Twist: Process and Product
The lights in the library dimmed. The room, filled with parents and other distinguished guests, quieted. Students wiggled in their seats, whispering excitedly as they waited. It was time for...
Fairy Tales with a Multimodal Twist: Laying the Groundwork
“We picked the name Prince Sparklepants because we wanted people to laugh.” The three girls giggled as they told me about the main character in their twisted fairy tale. “Tell...
Student-Centered Learning Through Video Lessons
When we first started hearing the terms synchronous and asynchronous being thrown around casually as if we’d been using them forever in education, we thought about synchronized swimming. When we...
COVID Silver Linings: Positive Changes in Teaching Practices
Whether you're teaching remotely or in a socially distanced classroom (or some combination of the two), no doubt you have made substantial changes to your teaching practice this school year....
