Em's Ever Evolving Erudition

I have designed many websites in my life. In college, in the early 2000s, I created my first website with just jokes that my friends wrote (all not very good). Since then, I've create many more using tools such as Blogger, Google Sites, Wix, Weebly, and Finalsite. I love the new Goolge sites because it vastly improves the user friendliest of its features. It continues getting better but one thing I hope that eventually gets added back is the levels of visibility on the web. Keeping somethings more private with a "only those with the link can view", like a students portfolio, without adding specific users to the site used to be super helpful. I've used websites to share information with students, to display library resources, and for students to create to share their learning. With students I've had them create a Google site to be their learning portfolio, but I've also used it with students who created a site at the end of their research unit, sharing the info...

Link to my reflection using voicethread:  https://ed.voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/13054149/78783142/73255639

I LOVE PADLET! I've been using padlet for a long time now (7 years?).  Kids really love it and I like the different formats that students can use to show their learning.  I actually created a padlet this summer to use with my teachers as a way to post book suggestions and questions to ask students for reading when it comes to building a more diverse classroom library (and school library too).  The idea was that we all know a little, but if we put it all together it could be a great resource to increase the equity literacy in our school.   I've also used padlet as way for students to group brainstorm ideas.  Once all ideas were in the padlet, they could start organizing the posts into main ideas.   Padlet is great for a variety of learners because of the different modalities that are offered.  Students that have a hard time putting words down on "paper" can video or audio record their ideas.  Students who are more visual ca...

I’ve made eBooks before in the past. I collaborated with 1st/2nd grade teachers to create a school ABC book. Each student picked a letter from the alphabet, picked something at our school that began with that letter, wrote a short paragraph about that thing and why it was important to our school, took a picture of it, and then created one of the pages on our shared eBook using Book Creator. It was a lot of fun and the books came out great. For this eBook, I decided to write a picture book based on true stories that my mother likes to tell. There is an introductory video on the first page of the book to explain this as well. I decided to do this for two reasons. One was to send to my mom and the other was an example of writing a narrative fiction story for 3rd/4th grade writing unit. I really love using Book Creator. I think it is fairly easy to use, looks professional at the end, and uses so many different modalities it is engaging for all students. My biggest challeng...

Dear Parents, I want to share with you an amazing resource that is available to you and your student through our library: audiobooks!  Using a program called Overdrive, you can download a huge variety of audiobooks (and eBooks too!)  These can be loaded on to any computer or device for an easy and convenient way to listen.    Why listen to audiobooks? Audiobooks are a very engaging way to access a story and all readers benefit from listening.  Think about the time when your children snuggled up to listen to a story being read aloud.  There is a strong emotional connection to listening to stories that helps bring literary worlds to life.  That special moment in time was also a moment when your student was learning what it means to be a reader.  Audiobooks can give your student a similar experience now.  Listening to audiobooks can help students learn to decode, comprehend, and pronounce difficult words.  ...

I love eBooks.  I love reading physical books too as there is muscle memory that feels comforting and familiar.  When reading for pleasure, I will often choose a physical book for this reason.  BUT there are many reasons I will opt for an eBook instead.  When traveling, it is much easier to bring my device loaded with eBooks than shoulder the weight of many books in my bag for example.  When engaged in reading for learning, eBooks are best.  For any class I take, I will always purchase the eBook version of required texts if they are available.   Being able to highlight and annotate what I'm reading and then having the app automatically gather these notes in one place to review is a life saver.  I can quickly find the passage I need when writing or look up word meanings or even directly search the internet to further my learning of a new idea.  An added benefit is that all of my books are in the cloud so I can use any...