Literacy Resources

For some time now as a team we have been thinking about the role of talk for writing in improving writing.  This has been aided by Pie Corbett through attending training and reading his books.  It has become clear to us that there are several key points when planning teaching sequences that need to have [...]

I have been sharing ideas over the past few weeks about digital storytelling and have previously mentioned the website The Digital Narrative .  This site is such a wealth of information that I thought it would be worthwhile pointing out some of my favourite parts of this site. The front page is where updates about new [...]

I recently joined a fantastic group called Images4Education where as a very large, international group we are undertaking a six week course in using images in education.  Our task for week 3 was to use  some photographs and try out three slide shows; Animoto, Slideshare and BigHugeLabs.  I was already familiar with the first two so thought [...]

Digital Fiction?  What on earth is it?  After a short search I have managed to find some with thanks to Penguin. Penguin have commissioned six stories that are inspired by classic titles but are written for the digital world.  Each story is written in a different way and are fascinating being as much about design as [...]

You have a 30 page document which you really need to get to grips with that has been emailed to you.  Would you choose to read it on screen or would you print it off? Personally I have always preferred to print off longer documents to read them.  According to Marc Prensky this makes me a [...]

‘We can’t get YouTube in school.  How can I download a video to use it?’  It is almost guaranteed that this question will be asked after using video in training or in schools.  Well thanks to Jenny Luca at Lucacept for passing on this fantastic resource because now you can use KickYouTube. This is simplicity [...]

Get a Voki now! Click on the play button to hear what she has to say. Five (or more) things to do with Voki in a literacy classroom Create an avatar for a character in a book and tell us something they would say. Create a series of characters from a book, e.g. the wolf [...]

No Two People Read the Same Book Uploaded by Postkiwi Book talk is one of the most important things that we can do with our children, be it at home as parents or in school as teachers.  It is the personal response to texts, how they make us feel, what we are puzzled by, the [...]

   On the wonderful www.animoto.com site you input the images and choose the music and the site will then analyse them, add movement and create a film for you.  What could be easier?  They have even thought about e-safety features and offer a secure environment for teachers and schools.  (Scroll to the bottom of their page [...]

Using PowerpointPlex This is a downloadable add on for Powerpoint that means that you can set up slideshows that can travel through the slides in any order and can zoom in and out on any of the slides.  (This is a bit like the movement in Photo Story 3).  Have a look at it on [...]