Kids Can Create Alphabet Books With Alphabet Organizer

Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of common words. This is accomplished by having students choose a letter of the alphabet, write a word that begins with that letter, then upload a picture that is representative of that word. For example, I chose "D," wrote "dog," and upload a picture of my dogs.

Alphabet Organizer allows students to create charts or simple booklets from the words and pictures they've uploaded. Completed works can be saved as PDFs, printed, or emailed to teachers.

Applications for Education
Read Write Think offers a bunch of lesson plans based around the use of Alphabet Organizer. Some of those lesson plans include alphabetizing with original stories, creating ABC books as assessment, and learning about the alphabet book genre.

Students Learn About the Science of Hearing on The Interactive Ear

The Interactive Ear is a neat website through which students can learn about how the human ear works. The site has three sections; the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. In each section students can click on little pinmarks on the drawings to learn about the parts of the ear and their functions. Students can also click the "journey" button to see how sound travels through the ear.

Applications for Education
On its own The Interactive Ear is a good resource for students of anatomy and physiology. Combine use of the site with the free iPad app Sound Uncovered to help students understand how sound travels and how we hear it.

Your Next Read Helps You Find Books You Might Like

Your Next Read is a neat little site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here's how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a web of books that might also enjoy. Click on any of the books appearing the web to create another new web. Below you'll see the web of recommendations that appeared when I typed in Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet.

Applications for Education
Your Next Read could be a great resource for teachers that are trying to locate fiction works that their students might enjoy. Rather than having to rely on your own list of books, you can have students name books they've enjoyed in the past and instantly find some other appealing titles.

Free Webinar - Digital Storytelling With Comics

Last month I hosted a free webinar on digital storytelling with comics. More than 100 people attended the live session. Next week on February 25th at 7pm I'll be conducting that webinar again. You can register for the webinar here. If you're interested in this topic but you cannot make the live session, please register anyway to have the recording emailed to you. The webinar is sponsored by Storyboard That, but will not be limited to only using Storyboard That. You will also see WeVideo and Widbook in use.

The webinar will be based on my free ebook Digital Storytelling Projects With Comics.