A Look at Some of the Interactive Student

Materials

ASSET Technology ConferenceMarch 17, 2008

Information compiled by Angela DeChiara and Doreen Redlich

Powerful Plug-ins{A small application that can be added (plugged-in)

to a program to give it more functionality}.

ReadWriteThink.org provides educators and students with many interactive plug-ins that provide students with proactive reading and language instruction.

Student Material plug-ins support literacy learning and can be used as part of the lessons given on this Web site or can be integrated by the teacher to support the curriculum.

Student Interactive Lesson Plug-ins Include:

• Alphabet Interactives• Biographies/Autobiographies• Bookmaking• Fairy Tales• Genre• Illustration • Inquiry Based Projects • Letter Writing

• Mapping/Graphic Organizers

• Publishing Tools• Story Elements• Timelines• Vocabulary Building• Writing Poetry/Riddles

Alphabet Interactives

                                                   

                                                  

The Alphabet Organizer has numerous applications for classroom instruction. Students can use the tool to print an alphabet chart or pages for an alphabet book.

ABC Match is a game that has students practice letter-recognition fluency while honing their memories. Students match initial letters with pictures, playing either with a timer or without. 

Biographies/Autobiographies

The Bio-Cube allows students to develop an outline of a person whose biography or autobiography they have just read.

It can also be used before students write their own autobiography.

Bookmaking

The Flip Book is designed to allow users to type and illustrate tabbed flip books up to ten pages long. Students and teachers can use the flip book for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating question and answer booklets.

The Stapleless Book allows users to create an eight-page book simply by folding and cutting. No tape or staples are required. Students and teachers alike can use the stapleless book for taking notes, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets.

Fairy Tales

Fractured Fairy Tales gives students a choice of three fairy tales to read. They are then guided to choose a variety of changes, which they use to compose a fractured fairy tale to print off and illustrate. Useful for teaching point of view, setting, plot, as well as fairy tale conventions such as they lived happily ever after, this tool encourages students to use their imaginations and the writing process at the same time.

Genre

The Multigenre Mapper invites students to create original multigenre, multimodal works—one drawing and three written texts. The tool asks students to name the genres for each section, making the tool flexible for multiple writing activities.

Illustration - Let’s Have Fun!

                                                                                                       

Teaching high school students to visualize what they are reading and to create graphic symbols helps them develop as readers. The Literary Graffiti interactive combines the process of drawing with analytical thinking.

The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). Students can choose backgrounds, characters, and props, as well as compose dialogue.

More Illustration

Teaching K-8 students to visualize what they are reading and to create graphic symbols helps them develop as readers. Doodle Splash interactive combines the process of drawing with analytical thinking about a text by pairing an online drawing space with writing prompts that encourage students to make connections between their visual designs and the text.

Letter Writing

The Letter Generator is a useful tool for students to learn the parts of a business or friendly letter and then helps them to compose and print letters containing all the essential elements needed for both styles of correspondence. 

Mapping/Graphic Organizers

The Animal Inquiry is and inquiry based graphic organizer that invites students to explore four facets of animals; basic animal facts, animal babies, animal interaction with others, and animal habitats.

The Circle Plot Diagram can be used as a prewriting graphic organizer for students writing original stories with a circular plot structure (e.g., If You Take a Mouse to School).

More Mapping/Graphic Organizers

The Compare & Contrast Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for different kinds of comparison essays.

The Comparison and Contrast Guide outlines the characteristics of the genre and provides direct instruction on the methods of organizing, gathering ideas, and writing comparison and contrast essays. 

More Mapping/Graphic Organizers

An updated version of the Story Map, the Drama Map best suits secondary students in literary study. Students can map out the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution (shown at left) for a variety purposes and activities associated with works of drama.

The Essay Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for an informational, definitional, or descriptive essay.

More Mapping/Graphic Oranizers

The ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic organizer. This tool provides a quick way for students to rearrange connections in prewriting and post-reading activities. 

The Plot Diagram is an organizational tool focusing on a pyramid or triangular shape, which is used to map the events in a story. This mapping of plot structure allows readers and writers to visualize the key features of stories. 

Publishing Tools

Students use the Profile Publisher to draft online social networking profiles, yearbook profiles, and newspaper or magazine profiles for themselves, other real or fictional characters.

The interactive Printing Press is designed to assist students in creating newspapers, brochures, flyers, and booklets. Teachers and students can choose from several templates to publish class newspapers, informational brochures, and flyers announcing class events.  

Pondering Poetry

                                                   The Riddle Interactive outlines the characteristics of riddle poems and provides direct instruction on the prewriting and drafting process for writing original riddle poems. 

                                                   With Shape Poems, elementary students can write poems about shapes in four different themes: Nature, School, Sports, and Celebrations. Elements of the writing process are also included. 

Timelines

With the Timeline interactive, students can generate descriptive timelines that can be plotted with their choice of units of measure (date, time, event, entry, or other). Entries on the timeline automatically become links that allow students to easily navigate from one point on the timeline to another. 

Vocabulary Building

What’s in the Bag? invites primary students to play with vocabulary common to their environment. 

Using Word Build & Bank, students generate words by adding a beginning letter or blend to a word ending. This engaging tool helps students with letter-sound correspondence.  

Word Family Sort helps students recognize word patterns by having them sort a series of words into short-vowel word families.  

Read*Write*Think and Thinkfinity.orgThinkfinity.org is a free, comprehensive digital learning platform and is built upon the merger of two acclaimed programs Verizon MarcoPolo and the Thinkfinity Literacy Network.