Graham's Technology Blog

  The fourth website I have picked for effective literacy is Read to Me International ( http://www.readtomeintl.org ).   Read To Me International is a non-profit organization which promote reading aloud through a couple ways.   This Organization has programs which coach parents in the schools in Hawai‘i to read aloud to learners of all ages.   You will also find Presentations and workshops for parents, educators and other interested groups.   This website’s main mission is to share the love and joy of reading aloud.   According to the website, the main goals for this non-profit organization is to ensure that every child is read to every day for at least 10 minutes.   The website provides videos and lessons on reading aloud techniques so anyone browsing through the website can learn the simple steps of reading aloud and how fun it is when it is being done to young learners.               One reason this literacy website caught my attention was that it was created by Pacific Islanders

KQED (https://www.kqed.org/education/) is a free media literacy teaching and learning hub for educators and students. You’ll find professional development courses, classroom resources and unique tools that allow students to practice critical thinking, media making and civil discourse. This website is provided by the nonprofit public media station KQED. It includes lesson plans and resources aligned to Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  The main goal of each lesson is to promote youth voice and help middle and high school students learn civic engagement and media literacy skills through critical thinking, civil discourse and media making. KQED serves educators and students nationwide by providing free, high-quality resources that strengthen media literacy skills, empower youth voice and encourage civil discourse.  As a nonprofit and a leader in media innovation, KQED provides standards-aligned classroom content and professional development courses that educators can trust. The KQED

       Amplify Reading (https://amplify.com/) is a literacy program for K–8 students that provides activities that are both fun and engaging to reach each student needs in reading and writing.    This program has a vast number of stories that are made to engage students in personalized reading instruction and practice.    Excite and engage your class with game-based learning within a literacy program that supports teachers in building their students’ skills in decoding, fluency, comprehension, and close reading. This program also integrates Science and Math into its literacy program so students can be engaged any subject.    Many of the contents in this program is interactive and very appealing to young learners and everything has been filtered by professionals in this area to so parents and educators can trust that the program is doing its job.         This program provides contents that are aligned to the core curriculum.    Addition programs are also focused on intervention programs

One internet tool in which I will use and make sure my students utilize also is the  Google apps . Google has so many great apps, but I will only name some which I have find to be extremely helpful for both educators and learners. For those students who do not have MS Office, I will recommend them to use Google docs. This is a great word application to use because it automatically saves your work online and you can download it to the many word formats that are out there. Another google app I really like is the Google drive. I will use google drive to save files that are too large to send on email and then share it with my students so they can also access them through google drive. Google has many more apps that are great but I will only name those two. Another internet tool I like is the Prezi. This is a great way to do a presentation. I know Microsoft has powerpoint but Prezi is very simple and can add so many other options to a presentation. TeacherTube is another great internet tool

             Funbrain (https://www.funbrain.com/) is a website created for kids in grades Pre-K through 8. This website was created to give access to any use free access to all its contents.  Funbrain offers hundreds of games, books, comics, and videos that develop skills in math, reading, problem-solving and literacy.              The design of the site is very bright and colorful so with one first look most young learners will be hooked just by its design.  The website is very simple with clickable features that are easily accessed by learners.  The site has options to browse by grade level or by type while the front page has all its categories also in place.  Each of the contents, whether it is a video, book, or game has already been given levels so parents and students can know which video will be just right for the learner’s level.  The front page also has the top picks in each category and also give the user the option to expand on their searches by just clicking on the option.