Did you know???
There is a valuable website available to help you teach your Civics AKS.
www.iCivics.org was founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to prepare young
Americans to become knowledgeable, engaged 21st century citizens by
creating free and innovative educational materials. The site offers the
nation’s most comprehensive, standards-aligned civics curriculum that is
available freely on the Web. Order in the court. Hail to the chief! Roll
call…yea or nay… iCivics is a game, activity, and resource filled website
that helps people of all ages learn about branches of government,
citizenship, separation of powers, media influences on government, the
budget, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Games can be accessed by
topic or playing time. In addition to games and webquests, iCivics provides
lesson plans with supporting resources for teachers. Check it out!
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Did you know???
There are so many Web 2.0 tools that will encourage your students to
research and write by giving them a creative way to share this writing.
The most recent tool I have discovered is called Blabberize. On this site
(www.blabberize.com), you can upload a photograph to the site, add a mouth
to the picture, and record text so that the picture moves its mouth to the
words. It's hard to describe, so take a look at these two samples:
http://blabberize.com/view/id/1049
http://blabberize.com/view/id/1001146
Can you imagine a student sharing their animal research by having a picture
of their animal share facts about itself? Can you imagine a student
sharing their famous American facts by having a photograph of the famous
person telling information about him or herself? The possibilities are
endless!
There are so many Web 2.0 tools that will encourage your students to
research and write by giving them a creative way to share this writing.
The most recent tool I have discovered is called Blabberize. On this site
(www.blabberize.com), you can upload a photograph to the site, add a mouth
to the picture, and record text so that the picture moves its mouth to the
words. It's hard to describe, so take a look at these two samples:
http://blabberize.com/view/id/1049
http://blabberize.com/view/id/1001146
Can you imagine a student sharing their animal research by having a picture
of their animal share facts about itself? Can you imagine a student
sharing their famous American facts by having a photograph of the famous
person telling information about him or herself? The possibilities are
endless!
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Measuring Readability of Online Texts
Did you know???
There is an amazing tool available to you when trying to determine the readability of digital text. Read-able.com (http://www.read-able.com/) is a website where you can input the url for the text you would like to use with your students. Click "Calculate Readability" and a grade level readability score and suggested ages will appear for the text. If you scroll down a bit further, you can see the scores on various indices such as Flesch Kincaid, Gunning Fog, etc. You will also get statistics such as sentence count, number of words, number of complex words, etc. Finally, you get an explanation of the various indices used to score the text.
For example, I put in a Scholastic News article I found online. I entered http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3758216. Following are my results:
Readability Test Results
Web Address: scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3758216
This page has an average grade level of about 7.
It should be easily understood by 12 to 13 year olds.
Readability Indices
Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease 75.3
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 5.2
Gunning Fog Score 7
SMOG Index 6.5
Coleman Liau Index 10.9
Automated Readability Index 4.9
Text Statistics
No. of sentences 80
No. of words 733
No. of complex words 87
Percent of complex words 11.87%
Average words per sentence 9.80
Average syllables per word 1.43
There is an amazing tool available to you when trying to determine the readability of digital text. Read-able.com (http://www.read-able.com/) is a website where you can input the url for the text you would like to use with your students. Click "Calculate Readability" and a grade level readability score and suggested ages will appear for the text. If you scroll down a bit further, you can see the scores on various indices such as Flesch Kincaid, Gunning Fog, etc. You will also get statistics such as sentence count, number of words, number of complex words, etc. Finally, you get an explanation of the various indices used to score the text.
For example, I put in a Scholastic News article I found online. I entered http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3758216. Following are my results:
Readability Test Results
Web Address: scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3758216
This page has an average grade level of about 7.
It should be easily understood by 12 to 13 year olds.
Readability Indices
Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease 75.3
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level 5.2
Gunning Fog Score 7
SMOG Index 6.5
Coleman Liau Index 10.9
Automated Readability Index 4.9
Text Statistics
No. of sentences 80
No. of words 733
No. of complex words 87
Percent of complex words 11.87%
Average words per sentence 9.80
Average syllables per word 1.43
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Encourage Your Students to Burst Out Their Stories!
Did you know???
There are numerous free web tools to help encourage and inspire writing in your students! One such tool is ZooBurst (http://www.zooburst.com/). ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials. Students can add speech bubbles, titles, and text to their pages. ZooBurst authors can share books with readers using a simple hyperlink, and books can easily be embedded in any website. As an educational tool, ZooBurst provides students with new ways in which they can tell stories, deliver presentations, write reports and express complex ideas. ZooBurst contains a powerful “classroom management” feature for teachers that lets them easily set up protected, safe spaces for their students. Teachers can assign usernames and passwords to their students without having to input any sensitive or personal information and can manage and moderate student work in a protected environment.
The best way to learn more about ZooBurst is to give it a try! I did! Check out this link! http://www.zooburst.com/book/zb02_51fc58817659b
Let me know if I can help you in any way!
There are numerous free web tools to help encourage and inspire writing in your students! One such tool is ZooBurst (http://www.zooburst.com/). ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials. Students can add speech bubbles, titles, and text to their pages. ZooBurst authors can share books with readers using a simple hyperlink, and books can easily be embedded in any website. As an educational tool, ZooBurst provides students with new ways in which they can tell stories, deliver presentations, write reports and express complex ideas. ZooBurst contains a powerful “classroom management” feature for teachers that lets them easily set up protected, safe spaces for their students. Teachers can assign usernames and passwords to their students without having to input any sensitive or personal information and can manage and moderate student work in a protected environment.
The best way to learn more about ZooBurst is to give it a try! I did! Check out this link! http://www.zooburst.com/book/zb02_51fc58817659b
Let me know if I can help you in any way!
Friday, August 2, 2013
Welcome!
Welcome to the Simpson Monday Media Minute Blog! My goal with this blog is to provide resources and teaching tools that will help enhance teaching and learning for teachers and students at Simpson! Teachers, each week I will continue to email you a Monday Media Minute. I will then post the Media Minute on this blog. You will no longer need to try to keep up with the resources and tools described in the emails, they will be right here on my blog in a searchable format! Simply type your search term in the box found in the upper left corner of the blog to find the resource for which you are looking. As always, please let me know how the media center can better help you meet your teaching and learning needs!
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