Technology+Integration+Tools+for+Language+Arts

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Educators need to motivate, captivate, and relate to today’s students as never before. Students are constantly being bombarded by technology in the “real” world but many educators are still teaching students using the same old, traditional methods. These methods include lecture, overhead notes, tests, and quizzes, as well as trips to the library to take out books and look at encyclopedias. Today’s students need a more effective, learner centered approach which is through the use of educational technology. **Educational technology** as defined by [|Wikipedia] is the “systematic and creative blending of “idea” and “product” technologies with subject-matter content in order to engender and improve teaching and learning processes.” Plainly stated, when a technology is used to teach a particular subject (such as Language Arts), to a particular group (a Language Arts class) that is considered educational technology. To help facilitate student learning with technology there are many methods, techniques and tools. It is first however very important for instructors to understand exactly what the benefits are of integrating technology into a classroom. According to [|Teaching Today from Glencoe Online] technology can help students to:
 * Create visual aids for teaching
 * Improve access to resources, such as online literature libraries
 * Review and comment on student work more efficiently
 * Integrate video clips into presentations
 * Broaden choices for students to demonstrate learning

There are many resources to use for the integration of technology into Language Arts. These include: Rather than having to go to the library or bookstore to find fiction, non-fiction, verse, reference, and children’s books users can access books online. Students can access titles through their personal or school computers to find great works of literature to read. [|Literature.org]: the online literature library. [|Bartleby.com: Great Books Online]- find thousands of free online classics of literature, nonfiction and reference. [|Pantheon and Myths]- an online encyclopedia for information on mythology, folklore, and legends
 * __Books Online__**

Students and teachers can use search engines such as [|Google] or [|Yahoo!] to search for their favorite authors to use to research and create projects about. Some authors have their own websites for their fans to access. [|Biography Channel]- Website for the popular cable channel Biography [|Omnibiography.com]- Site offers biographies for many authors and other well known people.
 * __Author Websites__**

There are many reference sites that teachers can use as well as direct students to on numerous topics. These sites can be used as a means to begin research or a “do now” exercise at the beginning of class. Many of the sites available have not only resources but also current events, newspapers, quotations, and topic categories. [|Refdesk.com]- An all encompassing site that has something to offer everyone that is in need of information. This is a very large and complete reference source. [|Ansernet]- This site lists many online reference sources for students to use. The site lists these resources by topic and category as well as offering a search feature for easy searching.
 * __Reference Sites__**

Students can use various websites to help them in writing exercises. Sites include online dictionaries, basic writing tutorials, word games, vocabulary, glossaries, and famous quotations. [|The American Heritage® Book of English Usage]- This site offers grammar guidelines, word choice, word usage, word formation and a writer’s toolkit. [|Basic Elements of English] - Grammar tutorials offered by the English Department at the University of Calgary. [|GrammerSlammer]- Site has information to aid in writing including: Style and Usage, Capitalizing, Abbreviations, Punctuation, Letter Writing, as well as other reference materials. [|QuotationsBook.com] – Site which claims to be the foremost quotations, fortunes and proverbs database on the web.
 * __Writing Resources__**

Students who are auditory or visual learners can benefit from watching and listening to video and audio about related topics. There are many sites available to them in which to choose from. Teachers can search for a video or audio segment which will enhance learning. [|Google Video]- This segment of Google has many free videos to use in classes relating to many subject areas, including language arts. [|United Streaming]- This is a pay site but many schools are subscribers to this service by Discovery. Site has many content related videos for use in classrooms. [|BrainPop]- Animated site featuring movies that will help to teach and reinforce basic concepts of grammar. [|Standard Deviants TV]- PBS site where you can order videos/ DVDs from a collection of funny, fresh, unique episodes ranging from grammar to famous works of literature (Julie D) [|Favorite Poem]- Project that has video of Americans reading and speaking about favorite poems (Julie D)
 * __Video/Audio__**

The use of picture books in secondary education can be a fun creative way for students to learn. Especially in the mathematics classroom, the picture books provide the students with visuals and analogies of abstract concepts to enhance their understanding of mathematics. They often provide storylines which relate these concepts to daily life activities, which hopefully will promote a student to think about the math they encounter in their daily lives. [|Picture Book Database] - Here you will be able to search and find abstracts for over 5000 picture books
 * __Picture Books__**

These sites provide students with tools that can help them creatively respond to literature.
 * __Creative Tools__** (Category added by Julie D)

[|Flickr] and [|BIg Huge Labs] and [|Another Flickr Toy] and [|Splashr]- Flickr provides a photo database that students can access for free, using photos in a myriad of LA projects. The Flickr toy sites provide templates for creating such projects. (Julie D)

[|Comic Creator]- This tool allows students to create their own comic strips. (Julie D)

//Reading this blog I thought about a project that a 5th grade class had in February. The assignment was that students had to pick a famous Black American and then create a timeline with 10 important parts of their lives and then write a 1 page essay on the person. I think the project is a good project but I was upset because the children were required to use a book as one of their sources. Normally I wouldn't think that is a bad idea except I felt that it prevented students from doing people that are currently having a significant impact on our country and world. There was a student that wanted to do Barack Obama and he could not do this man because there was not a book published on a 5th grade level for him to reference as a source. I think students need to learn about reliable and unreliable resources because they amount and rate that information is being presented does not provide book publishers enough time before the information is outdated. (Jen K)

__**An Additional Tool**__ [|Son of Citation Machine] - http://citationmachine.net/ Don't be afraid of the name, it is a site that will help your students with writing a bibliography. I am teaching 6th grade ELA and our team assigned a research project on Ancient Egypt. Students were assigned a topic and they had to use three or more types of sources to find information to write a research paper, create a visual aid and then do a oral presentation. A part of the research paper was to have a bibliography page, and this was the first time the students had ever done anything with a bibliography page. Using this site helped my students understand what information they needed to find from their sources and helped them to create their bibliography page. Take a look at it, it is very helpful. (Ian W)//

When ever you’re writing songs or poetry with your classes this little tool can help. The student can enter words they need rhymes for and this dictionary gives them many suggestions. This tool can be especially useful for those students who have a difficult time finding rhyming words. It can really speed up the time it takes to complete these kinds of assignments. (Jamahl Black)
 * __[|Online Rhyming Dictionary]__**