Integrating
Technology into Language Arts
This is the second in a
series of guides that highlight how teachers can incorporate technology
into the core curriculum. This month focuses on ideas for incorporating
technology into the language arts curriculum.
Reading Strategies
Having students access
the thousands of public domain works available for free on the Internet
gives them unparalled freedom to read some of the greatest written
works produced by men and women. Bartleby.com
keeps an index of thousands of works in verse, fiction, non-fiction
and reference that are free for teachers and students to use.
Access author web sites
by typing an author's name into a search tool like Yahoo
or Google. Many contemporary
authors have their own web sites in which they can more personnaly
interact and inform their reading audience. For more classical authors,
there are many academic resources in which to use for further study.
Expand upon the setting
and themes of classroom reading by offering links to resources that
offer the students more in-depth coverage of time periods and ideas.
Creating a simple hotlist using a tool like Filamentality
can make a big difference to help structure a study of differerent
elements of a piece of literature. Using found web sites can also
be an excellent way in which to provide students with a greater knowledge
of the historical and social foundations in which many pieces of literature
rest upon.
Providing students structure
and concrete examples of literary criticism is important if they are
expected to be producing their own in writing. The Internet
Public Library has done an excellent job of organizing existing
literary criticism resources into author, title and time period categories.
This is a good place for students to begin searching for studies of
authors and texts.
A wide range of expository
texts from newspapers and magazines are available for student reading
on the Internet. Most magazines and newspapers have an archive that
can be searched through their web site. Many new informational sources
have emerged in the last few years that can only be accessed through
the Internet. As texts of all kinds of quality and validity can appear
on the Internet, it is advisable that students be trained on how to
evaluate resources on the web or that the teacher locate texts ahead
of time and make them available to students through a linked web site
or in a printed out list.
Writing Applications
Publishing student works
of writing on the Internet can make the idea of audience much more
real to students. It is advisable to retain anonymity when publishing
student writing unless permission has been granted to use their names
from parents.
Many web sites offer contests
for student writing. Take advantage of these to find new writing challenges
for your students and to inspire them to write for fun and profit.
Keeping a set of updated
thesaurus and dictionaries in the classroom is an expense that most
classrooms cannot afford. Many publishers now have online versions
of their reference books that can be accessed through school or home
computers.
Student produced newspapers
are great for students to practice their writing skills, as well as
creatively organize a product around a certain theme. To design and
produce the newspaper, students can use desktop publishing software.
Using a scanner will allow students to take transfer their art work
to the publication. Setting a newspaper in s different time period
is a great link to social studies curriculum.
Prewriting and organizing
are two tasks that are much easier and fun with programs like Inspiration
and Kidspiration.
Both programs give students the flexibility to structure and create
graphic or text outlines and story maps to better prepare them for
later stages of writing.
Introducing weblogs, or
blogs, as a new medium of writing would be appropriate for high school
and middle school students. Some students might already be maintaining
a weblog of their own. A teacher could use the blog model for both
non-fiction and fiction writing.
Online discussion boards
are another tool that can get students excited about writing. There
are several free, secure options in which to get a class setup, most
notably Tapped
In. Students can discuss each other's writing and pieces of literature
from class.
Written and Language
Conventions
Reinforcing grammar skills
with online games and activities can make students have fun with what
many think is dry material. Using a paid service like Quia
allows to teachers to create custom games that students can access
anywhere with an Internet connection.
Students can also Brainpop
to view animated movies that reinforce and reteach grammatical concepts.
Oral Communication
Allowing students to use
PowerPoint or other presentation software is a good way to help them
better organize their speeches and add multimedia elements to their
presentations. It also makes it easier for audience to follow along
with the presenter and for the teacher to assess a student's performance.
Project-Based
Learning
Getting students involved
in projects that use technology is not difficult with all the web-based
project based learning units available online. Many teachers have
developed language arts WebQuests
and Cyberguides
to easily allow students to create projects that use the web as a
source for information. Teachers can use the existing curriculum on
the web or creatively modify it for their own class.
Students can also get involved
with collaborative language arts projects with other classes around
the world. iEARN
has a directory listing language arts projects that are currently
active.
Research
Provide structure and resources
for students to do research. The Internet
Public Library contains a great site that can act as a reinforcement
to research skills taught by teachers or as a refresher for those
students with limited experience.
Using a library book's
statistical resources for reports often means that students must settle
for statistics that are likely out-of-date. Using online resources
from research organizations and government agencies, students can
now include up-to-date statistics in research projects.
Not only is the Internet
essential for finding research material, it is also an excellent resource
for learning about how to properly cite references and put together
a bibliography. Noodle
Tools has a bibliography generator that correctly formats citations
for students. It also structures the citation so students know exactly
what parts are needed for a bibliography.
Visual Learning
Digital storytelling challenges
students to take their written ideas and translate them into a visual
medium. Digital video is relatively cheap and easy to produce thanks
to programs like iMovie. Students rewrite their story as a script
and go through the entire development process of making a video. Who
knows you might inspire the next Hitchcock or Fellini.
Creating advertisements
and public service announcements is another way that that teachers
can use digital video to challenge their students to develop their
skills in persuasive communication.
Students can develop how-to-videos
to expand the area of expository writing.
Involve your students in
one of the many digital video and multimedia contests open to K-12
students.
Teacher Productivity
Blue
Web'n is the perfect tool for locating resources to be used by
students in the language arts classroom. The customizable searches
through the indexed database makes it simple and quick way to find
the best sites and tools for increasing students achievement in the
classroom.
Finding existing lesson
plans that use technology as a central component to the learning process
can open the eyes to skeptics or those who feel timid about using
technology in language arts. Both ISTE
and NCTE offer
web sites that offer model lesson plans and units that teachers can
use to begin using technology more effectively in the classroom.
Use the Internet to locate
and create rubrics for assessing student's writing and speaking performance.
This substantially cuts the time it takes to create a rubric and also
allows teachers to use better tools for assessing performance-based
activities. Rubistar
is a free site that lets teachers create custom rubric for many different
types of projects and activities.
