Madrid Borja's Technology Blog

Figure 1 : Screenshot of https://freerice.com/ I have known of Free Rice ( https://freerice.com/ ) for years. It is a free website that offers a fun and educational way to solve a global problem. Millions of people around the world struggle with hunger and over the years I have used and promoted the website to help confront the issue. Its potential to promote literacy went over my head until I recently Googled “websites that promote literacy” and it appeared. After exploring the site more, I see exactly how it does that. The premise behind the site is that guests play a game and the equivalent of ten grains of rice will be go to The World Food Programme ( https://www.wfp.org/ ) , the leading humanitarian organization that committed to ending world hinger by delivering food assistance in over 80 countries around the world. The organization purchases the food and materials and then is repaid through the funds made from advertising through the website. Theoretically, guests could...

LitPick’s (www.litpick.com) mission statement is to, “inspire adults and students of all ages - preteens, teens, and young adults - to read books and become better writers.” As a reader and a Reading teacher, I could not have said it any better. This website offers reviews for books between grades 3 through college level. Most of the student books are reviewed by students and adult level books are reviewed by adults, however some adults review the youth books as well. The books do not seem to be titles that I am familiar with. In the FAQ portion of the website there is mention that authors and publishers can submit books to be reviewed. This website seems to be at the forefront of promoting new books and the opportunity to be a part of that is exciting. People can become reviewers for the website and can receive copies of the book to keep in exchange for an honest review. Paid subscribers will be given the choice of eBooks or hard copies and free subscribers are give eBooks...

Newsela (www.newsela.com ) is an award winning online literary resource that offers lexile leveled articles, questions, writing prompts, data and tracking. One of the major features is that the website can automatically adjust every article in the existing library between five different lexile levels ranging from 3 rd  grade to 12th grade. So each student can read the same content but at their level. Each article also has writing prompts and a quiz. Teachers with free account are limited to the current events genre and cannot access the data from the tests and quizzes but students are able to get feedback and use it to improve their scores.                                               Teachers with paid accounts have access to the data for their students as well as the entire Newsela library which includes articles on money, arts, kids, sports, s...

           For my Internet Tools research assignment, I explored Glogster.com, Webquest.org, and Learnoutloud.com. All three of the websites promote literacy and after exploring them, I will utilize all three of the websites in my classroom. They are all very different but effective. Glogster is good for creating projects or resources. Webquests are great for research or supplementing lessons. Learn Out Loud is a library of resources to support reading lessons. Glogster ( www.edu.glogster.com ) is a digital bulletin board where students can combine multimedia content such as text, photographs, videos, and other digital resources. There are many ways that Glogster can be used in the classroom. Students can p ublish projects or teachers can create fun and engaging resources. It can also be an opportunity for advanced students to expand upon lessons. There are different price options which offer various levels of special features including number of ...

https://www.theteacherscorner.net/   The Teacher's Corner  is not exclusively a literacy website. However, I feel that its features focus on literary resources. The website offers printable worksheets, lesson plans, seasonal items, bulletin board items, thematic units and other teacher resources. The more I explored the website, the more I knew I wanted to share it with others. Not only do I want to share the website as a resource to all teachers but the story behind the website is an inspiring one that needs sharing. The website promotes literacy in many ways. The website offers a “maker” features for making crossword puzzles, word searches, word scrambles, CLOZE passages, and other kinds of word puzzle worksheets. There are also writing prompts organized by month and grade level which can be used daily, monthly, as an “after you’re done” activity, for substitute teachers, or any time. There are so many Reading and Language Arts lesson plans available. There is so muc...

     We were instructed to research and choose a c ourse management system and create a sample course. I choose to use Schoology and created a unit on haiku poetry. It is very user friendly and filled with features. I created a course but I know I still haven't scratched the surface of what this website is capable of. I haeve a lot more exploring to do.       My haiku unit includes a powerpoint presentation, notes, links to videos, quizzes, activities, a project, and assignments. This will be a great way to introduce a topic and supplement my classroom activities and lessons while engaging my students with technology.