Skip to main content

Tuesday Teacher Tips - May 6, 2014 Rewordify, Notability & Understanding Science



Rewordify

I just learned about Rewordify this morning from Richard Byrne on Twitter @rmbyrne. In the article “By Request – Five Apps and Sites to Help Students Develop Reading Comprehension Skills” on the blog Technology for Teachers for Teachers, Byrne describes Rewordify, a free site developed by a special education teacher and former computer programmer.  The site allows you to copy and paste or type a complicated passage into a box, then it rephrases it.  Words that are replaced are highlighted in yellow.  This could be a great resource for students who need rephrasing, or for students who are struggling with a difficult section of text.  

Check out the video: http://youtu.be/yURGZ960wWc

Notability

Notability is a great app that was just listed as the iTunes app of the week.  One of the great features of the Notability app, besides the ability to create and manage your own notes, is that you can use the Notability app to annotate PDFs.  For the classroom teacher dealing with a lot of reports or for students who are working with different PDF file articles or even handouts, this could be a great tool for highlighting, making notes or providing responses. 


With Notability you can then email your notes and annotated PDFs or save them in your Google Drive or Dropbox.  Here at school a great option would be to have students send their work to you using WebDAV.  Don’t know what WebDAV is? WebDav is a way in which a person can access and save to a shared folder.  Stop by and see me and I can help you out with that or setting up a generic classroom Google Drive.

See the basics of using Notability below:



Learn how to pull a PDF into Notability, Annotate and Save.




Understanding Science: How Science Really Works

In last Thursday night’s #NGSSchat on Twitter, a science teacher shared out a link to the Understanding Science Webpage.  This is a great resource as we transition into the NGSS.  On the Teacher Resources page, you can find many exceptional links including: Teacher Lounges by grade level, a Guide to Understanding Science, Teaching Tools, a Resource Database, Image Library, information about misconceptions and research.  On the Teaching Tools page, you can find PDF versions of checklists, flowcharts per grade level and a toolkit.  On the Teacher Resources page, you can limit the results by grade level and discover new ideas for science related lessons and activities you might want to try out. 

#NGSSchat happens every Thursday from 9-10 pm EST on Twitter, check it out if you have time!  There is always great discussion and plenty of resources!   

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Library Centers for Kindergarten & First Grade

Center Inspiration After much debate at the end of last school year, I was able to get 10 extra minutes added on to each of my classes for this year boosting class library time from 35 minutes a week to 45 minutes a week for my fixed schedule.  For me, 35 minutes a week, just wasn't enough to pack in all the awesomeness I wanted to achieve.  It seemed like we would just be getting started into something great when it was time to go. I was thrilled to know that this year I was going to have the extra time to work with my classes on research skills and technology projects while working in more time to allow them to browse the shelves and look at books.  That being said, truth be told, I was completely freaked out about what to do with my kindergartners for 45 minutes. Did I mention in my former life, I was a high school English teacher?  Four years ago, my first two weeks in an elementary library were a complete culture shock to me. I was used to walking into a room and just say

Project Genre-fy the Fiction Section!

After a lot of thinking, I finally decided to take the leap this summer and move the fiction section of my elementary library from the traditional first-three-letters-of-the-last- name organization to a genre based organization. Now that the project is almost complete, I cannot wait to get the kids back in the library so I can show them! Deciding Factors There are many reasons individual teacher librarians might choose to genrefy their library.  For me, I was driven to start with the fiction section because I've noticed an alarming drop off in students checking out books by the time they get to fifth grade.  This drop off could be for any number of reasons: increased activities after school, loss of interest in the materials they see on the shelf, lack of time, or they could be overwhelmed by book after book organized by letter. I realized, too, that although my 3-5 graders don't ask for "funny" books or "animal" stories, they seem to get stuck on c

Digital Interactive Notebooks: Getting Started

Post appeared also on FtEdTech It's no real secret that I love Digital Interactive Notebooks.  I create them every chance I get and encourage teachers to use them for everything from long term Project Based Learning (PBL) projects to weekly unit work with vocabulary .   The Interactive Notebook (INB) has long been a staple of the classroom to engage students more directly with their notes.  The traditional interactive notebook often includes traditional student notes, questions, and interactives that students cut, fold, color and paste into their notebooks. You might find graphic organizers, pockets with measuring tools, data charts, and foldables that act as study aides.  In the NSTA article " Science Interactive Notebooks in the Classroom " Jocelyn Young explains the benefits of INB when she shares that " By using notebooks, students model one of the most vital and enduring functions of scientists in all disciplines—recording information, figures, and data.