Literacy+Ideas

[|Writing with Art Email Exchange] Children had to write a very detailed description of a character and then emailed it to a partner class who tried to draw the characters. The [|picture] is one of these drawings. They also did the same activity with descriptions of settings.

Monster Project This is a similar project to the email exchange above except that a wiki is used to publish the art work based around the theme of monsters.

Dangle Video - [|Case study of using Dangle video with class for writing] media type="custom" key="566227"

Children read the same text in separate classrooms and the children develop questions based on the text. They then use iChat/ Skype to contact the other partner classroom and children ask each other their questions. You could also do this in other ways such as using [|VoiceThread] with a picture of the book/page in the middle and children add their responses to the question around the outside.
 * iChat/ Skype for Reading**

There is a great example of how to use Google Docs in combination with Skype to develop writing on two teachers blogs that were involved in the project. [|Lisa's Lingo blog] and [|Learning is Messy Blog.]
 * Skype and Google Docs**

Using Keynote/ Powerpoint to publish Poetry. Given the nature of transitions and animations, the children had to think about the importance of each word, what they needed to emphasize, how they were going to emphasize it.
 * Kenote or Powerpoint for Poetry**

They had to add a further ending onto the book using Comic Life. It was successful because I got a few older kids to assist them (buddy system) integrated with reading. The children enjoyed using their imaginations and loved the story and were therefore motivated. These were shared with the whole class at the end.
 * Comic Life to Add Alternative Book Ending.**

This can be done with a data projector or with small groups. You can base it on a current big book for reading or for other purposes such as to explore ideas in the current topic. Our children enjoyed working together to make a class book.
 * Clicker 5/ Kidpix to Create Class Book**

We made photo stories of children's experiences. It was about them personally and they enjoyed reflecting on an activity they did. They could shape and craft their story in their own design.
 * Digital Storytelling with PhotoStory 3**

In our class, learning how to use caps lock reinforced learning about capitals and fullstops in writing programme [|technology optimization]. You could fix an incorrect passage as a whole class using the data projector and asking the children which keys they would need to press on the keyboard.
 * Keyboard Skills to Reinforce Punctuation Skills**

I have used ICT when writing procedural texts in language. Reluctant writers seem more motivated showing their new knowledge and understanding of writing up recipes, experiments, instructions etc using word as they can put into books and share easily cuts down on drafting and publishing. Practicing a wealth of ICT skills inserting wordart and pictures changing font size colour style, bullet points, thinking about visual layout increasing confidence and speed with typing. also simple power points on how to make... etc would be cool to add some video and voice overs rather than all still photos.
 * Wordprocessing with Procedural Texts**

[|ICT Applications in Literacy] This has a large number of ideas on how to incorporate ICT into literacy organised by objectives and strand.

[|NGfL Literacy Ideas] Almost all of the ideas in this list have an ICT component.

VoiceThread for Literacy Here are a range of ideas on how you could use Voicethread.
 * media type="custom" key="585721" || media type="custom" key="585725" ||

We used Kidpix to make simile poems. Students chose a background and wrote a simile based on the image. Extras were added to pages and the slides combined to make a class poem.
 * Kidpix for Simile Poems**

Digital stories on dinosaurs. Children could be as creative as they wanted. Sharing their work with others was a special time for the class as we reflected on others hard work. media type="custom" key="566325"
 * Kidpix for Dinosaur Topic Poems**

I have easy access to a scanner [|technology professional services] so decided to scan my weekly shared texts and use the projector for shared reading. The children responded really well to this and as a result, narrative writing improved alot (also created an excel doc ). You can also use a scanner's scan to text function so that you can put the text into a word processor and make activities from it such as substituting vocabulary or mixing up sections to reorder etc
 * Scanner for Class Texts**

I used podcasts in my writing programme to record the children's advertisments. You can hear the results of these on our podcast channel. the children really focused on improving their oral language skills and loved sharing their podcasts with their families. [|http://sanantonio.podcastpeople.com/posts/15384">Fabian's Chocolate Dipped Strawberries Advertisement]
 * Podcasting for Language and Style of Advertising**


 * Shape Poems Using WordArt**