Many school districts have recently adopted a brand new English Language Arts curriculum created by National Geographic called “Reach for Reading”. Once a new curriculum has been adopted, it can be a HUGE challenge sifting through all of the materials received, and it takes quite a while for teachers to sort through all of these materials.
The chrome cart is sitting in the back of your room and ….. collecting dust. It’s time to teach past tense irregular verbs. What to do? Start by using your devices in your ELA or Literacy block to teach some literacy skills such as parts of speech! We use technology throughout the day, because if students are engaged in learning their critical skills and having fun, it is much easier for your to pull small groups and work with students who need you. Students are less likely to “go sideways” and be off task if they are doing something that they love…. And they LOVE using technology.
A new school year is here and there are not enough hours in each day to get everything done. More technology is being integrated into classrooms. We are hearing more research about Blended learning , which mixes technology and traditional face-to-face instruction in the classroom. In a typical model, Blended learning combines traditional classroom learning with online learning, in which students can, in part, control the time, pace, and sometimes even place of their learning.
As the new Chromebooks, laptops, iPads, and computers are being delivered , there is a great need for ideas on how to use them and integrate this new technology into our Language Arts block using our adopted curriculum. There are so many benefits of using digital resources, but two main reasons are that you don’t need to make copies and student engagement is incredibly high! This was the inspiration for converting our Journeys story activities and resources into interactive, Google drive based activities to fill this need.
When doing Literacy Centers, it makes life so much easier when you have repeatable “centers” that students learn at the beginning of the year so they know what to do each week. We have formatted our resources so students quickly learn how to use the resources and they quickly are able to work independently from the teacher.
One of my very favorite parts of incorporating small groups in a Language Arts block using a Daily 5 framework is the variety if offers students. I have yet to meet a student that has not LOVED Daily 5. I think their absolute favorite rotation within Daily 5 is what we call the “Technology” rotation. You can incorporate “Listening” (which is what many teachers call this rotation), but if you call it “Technology” there are so many more fun things you can do with this rotation.
Years ago, my partner teacher and I had heard about “issuing a technology license” from a fellow teacher, so we decided to use this concept in our classroom. It ended up being a very effective classroom management too to support the proper use of technology in our classrooms. We wanted to share them with you for free! Click here for your free set of technology licenses!
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