Summer tech: “Beach book” resources
Everybody loves a summer beach book. We all need time to sit, draw with our toes in the sand, and enjoy a paperback (or ebook) with an engaging plot, transparent characters, and a marketable title. We need to linger and muse.
My role as a Thinking Teacher splashes hundreds of web resources and apps onto my various screens. At this time of year, I am drawn to those resources that are the technology equivalent of a “beach book,” those that may have valuable learning potential but — above all — are engaging to me personally. They make me want to linger and muse. So I share a few of my favs from TeachersFirst’s recent Featured Sites.
Question Generator is a powerful tool for teaching at higher levels of thinking. It can be the technology equivalent of a visiting three year old grandson. Imagine the questions you can make — and debate. We could even make this an evening beach party game! Close your eyes and point to a word in your beach book, then spin the question generator to turn it into a question. I enjoy musing about the many ways to spin this thinking game.
The Literacy Shed brings the movies into learning, using the power of visual media oh so intentionally. I love the way the ideas are sorted into “sheds.” I have a feeling I will be building “sheds” in my head as I watch movies from now on. I want to just hang out and explore the sheds.
OhLife is the antithesis of this blog. You are reading where I “blog” professionally, playing my professional role and trying not roam outside that role or reveal too much “personal stuff.” Oh Life is a like blog BFF. It asks you about your day and keeps the answers to itself. In today’s post-and-tweet world, that’s as refreshing as a beach book, for sure!
Quotesome is a shell collection of quotes for beach days. I love to collect quotes. I have always used colorful, electronic sticky notes to collect quotes as I come upon them. Quotesome lets you do that in their online space. I can now take them home in my Quotesome shell-bucket, rinse them off, and arrange them into any containers I wish.
I’ll share a few more beach books as the summer goes on. For now, I wish everyone a great start to summer as I head off to ISTE 2013 (#iste13). Hope to see you there.
