Scholastic Inc. has a new (well, new to me) YouTube Channel with the unforgettable name "The Scholastic Channel's Channel," and it's all about reading and Book Talks. Well, maybe they could have been a little more creative with the name but there are also channels for Scholastic Kids and Scholastic Teens. It is super exciting for a librarian to have YouTube Channels directed at getting kids to read. The Scholastic Channels also have author interviews and so far the comments seem positive! Too bad YouTube is blocked in my district. But the good news is that the powers that be are thinking about unblocking it for teachers so librarians like me can use this wonderful tool to promote reading!
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Students Can Write Dynamic Content Too...
I came across this blog post by accident while following another Twitter post. It is from Ralph Jean-Paul a marketing blogger who is trying to get more visitors and subscribers to his site so he can turn them into customers, but I think the message can be translated to the classroom no matter what subject we are teaching. Jean-Paul calls for dynamic content and really isn’t that what we want from our students when we ask them to write? Check out Jean-Paul’s blog for his explanations of the following, here’s my take on what he says:
Be Unique- Jean-Paul says not to just share common information but to personalize your writing. In this day and age when teachers worry about plagiarism this is good information. We should ask our students to share their stories, not just spit back the information they have gathered from other sources.
Write for Humans- I know you are going to say... well duh... and Jean-Paul’s reasoning here is blog specific... he says write for humans and not Google. Write so you get human attention and not so the aggregators at Google will pick up your blog and make it a top hit. But in educational terms this is where we can tell students not to use the same words over and over again. Librarians can teach about key words and how if I wanted to learn more about the topic you are writing about why would I want to read or listen to what you have to say!
Be Interesting- Jean-Paul says: “Using captivating and exciting descriptive language will help your readers stay interested in your writing.” And really isn’t that what we are trying to teach our young charges? He suggests using stories, examples, and humor to keep readers engaged. How can we do this in the classroom? How about instead of an audience of one (the teacher), your students had an audience of thousands or millions? How would that change their writing? Even if it is not through technology your students can write well for a real audience. Why not add a comments and compliments page to their next written assignment, or when students are giving a presentation have the other students write comments and compliments as they are listening?
Commit to Quality- Jean-Paul suggests that readers will know and forget your blog if your topic is not “well researched and organized,” if there are too many grammar and spelling mistakes. Here is our library lesson in a nutshell! Research, Research, Research! But after students research they need to read the volumes that they find. If students do not know enough about their topics they will plagiarize. You can not write from your own knowledge unless you first gain that knowledge.
Have a Call to Action- Jean-Paul asks “What do you want your visitors to do once they have read your post?” He says to emphasize the desired action “somewhere in the beginning, middle, and conclusion of your post.” Here is the perfect opening for an inquiry based project. We do not want our students to simply spit back researched information. We want them to ask why and to expect a reply. We want them to make their readers want to do something after reading or listening to their report. For this reasons teachers need to start our projects with the end in mind. What is the action we want to come out of the project? Why are we having our students do a project in the first place? If we ask for a state or country report should the report not reflect a desire to visit that state or country? A call to action on the part of the reader will do away with those dull facts and figure reports. Ralph Jean-Paul has several blogs, none that I have read have dull facts and figures, most are dynamic in content. That's how I want my students to write!
Be Unique- Jean-Paul says not to just share common information but to personalize your writing. In this day and age when teachers worry about plagiarism this is good information. We should ask our students to share their stories, not just spit back the information they have gathered from other sources.
Write for Humans- I know you are going to say... well duh... and Jean-Paul’s reasoning here is blog specific... he says write for humans and not Google. Write so you get human attention and not so the aggregators at Google will pick up your blog and make it a top hit. But in educational terms this is where we can tell students not to use the same words over and over again. Librarians can teach about key words and how if I wanted to learn more about the topic you are writing about why would I want to read or listen to what you have to say!
Be Interesting- Jean-Paul says: “Using captivating and exciting descriptive language will help your readers stay interested in your writing.” And really isn’t that what we are trying to teach our young charges? He suggests using stories, examples, and humor to keep readers engaged. How can we do this in the classroom? How about instead of an audience of one (the teacher), your students had an audience of thousands or millions? How would that change their writing? Even if it is not through technology your students can write well for a real audience. Why not add a comments and compliments page to their next written assignment, or when students are giving a presentation have the other students write comments and compliments as they are listening?
Commit to Quality- Jean-Paul suggests that readers will know and forget your blog if your topic is not “well researched and organized,” if there are too many grammar and spelling mistakes. Here is our library lesson in a nutshell! Research, Research, Research! But after students research they need to read the volumes that they find. If students do not know enough about their topics they will plagiarize. You can not write from your own knowledge unless you first gain that knowledge.
Have a Call to Action- Jean-Paul asks “What do you want your visitors to do once they have read your post?” He says to emphasize the desired action “somewhere in the beginning, middle, and conclusion of your post.” Here is the perfect opening for an inquiry based project. We do not want our students to simply spit back researched information. We want them to ask why and to expect a reply. We want them to make their readers want to do something after reading or listening to their report. For this reasons teachers need to start our projects with the end in mind. What is the action we want to come out of the project? Why are we having our students do a project in the first place? If we ask for a state or country report should the report not reflect a desire to visit that state or country? A call to action on the part of the reader will do away with those dull facts and figure reports. Ralph Jean-Paul has several blogs, none that I have read have dull facts and figures, most are dynamic in content. That's how I want my students to write!
How do you get your students to write dynamic content? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Magic
Powerlibrarian has always been about moving elementary readers to the next level. Something happened to me on Friday night that I won’t long forget. I met author Kate DiCamillo. The picture on the left is of Kate and myself. I dragged my daughter away from her husband and my 15 month old grandson on a Friday night to go and meet Kate at a book signing for her new book, “The Magician’s Elephant” at Children’s Book World on Haverford Station Road in Haverford, PA. It turns out that Children’s Book World is less than 6 miles from where Kate was born at Lakenau Hospital, which is in the neighborhood where I grew up and is where my brother was born too.
My daughter was speaking to some of the other moms who had shoved their kids to the front of the line, she was saying, “yes, she is 12.” And I realized she was talking about me. And she was right. I was 12 because there was magic at Children’s Book World that night and it transformed me into a 12 year old. The magic was books, Kate DiCamillo’s books. When Kate read from the first chapter of “The Magician’s Elephant” something happened. Something more than the hush that fell over the room. It was as if the elephant were really there in the room, or it soon would be tumbling out of the ceiling like the elephant in the book. When I took my first library class some 8 or 10 years ago I thought elementary libraries were going out of style. I wanted to make sure that technology played a big role in whatever Library Skills I was teaching kids. Well, listening to Kate DiCamillo reading from the first chapter of her new book “The Magician’s Elephant” made me realize that elementary libraries are not all about technology; they are all about magic. And the magic is different for each student. The trick is to discover where the magic spark lies in each student and make it happen for him or her in the short 40 minutes I see them each week. I have decided this week to let Kate’s words stand for themselves. I am showing two short videos I took of Kate reading from her book “The Magician’s Elephant” to my students this week. For me her reading was magic. Meeting Kate on Friday night was magic, I want my students to feel that excitement. I want to share my enthusiasm about Kate’s books. Let's hear it for the magic in children’s books, especially Kate DiCamillo’s books. The magic that can transform a children’s world in ways that no other reading in their later life can!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Week 9, #22
Free books a librarian’s dream! Free books are wonderful whether they are physical books or e-books. E-books are another way to get kids to read and or listen to books. I often recommend audio books to special education students but I require them to have the book in front of them as they listen. Finding free sources of audio and ebooks is wonderful. FriedBeef’s Tech is a website that touts itself as the ultimate guide to the best places to get free ebooks. So many of the books in the public domain are now available as PDF files and can even be read on my iPhone with a free application called “Stanza.” I enjoyed exploring the site LibriVox because it has both a listening and ebook catalog. As a birthday gift a few years ago my son gave me a year’s subscription to Audible.com. Since then I have won a grant from Donor’s Choose and I got 2 iPods for my library that I allow students to check out loaded with audio books. Most of the books I have are in the public domain so it is easy to find ebooks that go with the audio books. Students love using technology in this way and it makes reading fun even for the most reluctant readers. I love audio books and ebooks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
