Ashley & Patty's List: ISTC501 Resource List for English Content

The essay map tool would be beneficial for students beginning the writing process. The tool is interactive and provides students with the best of both words during the brainstorming process: students can view their ideas in mind map form or in a linear outline fashion. Therefore, the tool would be helpful for different kinds of learners. I would use the essay map as a way of getting kids to start thinking about their essay topic.

The comic creator could be a useful and fun educational tool in the English classroom. The interactive allows students to collaborate or work independently to put course content into comic form. Not only is the activity fun for students, but it will help them to organize and recall important information. Students could create comics to reflect anything from texts read in class to depicting the writing process.

The Purdue Owl Writing Lab has been extremely helpful to me in my writing over the course of my higher education. I would recommend the tool to my students when they work on essays or formal reports, because the resource is extremely thorough and helpful. Students can use the website to find answers they may have regarding to sentence structure or grammar rules. Furthermore, I could teach students lessons on writing standards by utilizing sections of this website.

The Grammar Girl website is composed of podcasts that individually tackle common and tough grammar questions. Certainly, a teacher could record their own podcasts for students--but let's face it, teachers don't always have time! Using Gramma Girl to supplement in-class teaching will reinforce the lesson and be especially beneficial to auditory learners.

This website is designed for younger kids, ages 7-11, and is colorful and simplified information on the Trojan War. I would use this site when introducing The Odyssey to 9th and 10th grade students, because having background knowledge on the Trojan War is useful when reading Homer's text. The website is especially fun because the story of Troy is told through song, and a great way for kids to remember information is to provide it to them in a catchy song!

This tool is so cool!! Now teachers can use Twitter in their classrooms--get kids using the technology they love to use outside (and inside!) the classroom. Using the educational twitter would be a great way to send students--and parents!--updates and reminders of what is going on in class. Also, students could use twitter to carry on text based dialgoue--like assign students to roles of Romeo and Juliet and having them tweet from the perspective of their character.

The pinball machine interactive is a great tool for students to use when generating ideas for a new story, essay, or other project. The machine allows students to "blurt" out new ideas and organize them. Students can mix up their ideas, make "quick" decisions and more with this fun interactive tool. Because brainstorming and beginning the writing process can often be the hardest part for students, this tool could be a very engaging and helpful way of drawing kids into the assigned writing task.

The Grammar Gorilla Game is an interactive game that requires students to perfect their grammar skills. The game would be a great formative assessment for teachers to see how well students have mastered the parts of speech or punctuation rules.

The visual thesaurus creates a word image for students when writing is entered into the text box. Students could use the tool as a way of enriching their writing. For example, during the editing process students could log online and utilize the service as part of their revisions.

Voki is a site that allows users to create avatars. You can change the apperance, voice, and characteristics of the avatar. The site would be a useful interactive tool when students are writing creatively and want to develop characters.

Students can use this tool to create their own play! The tool is useful because it helps students to develop plot elements and characters. I envision this activity being useful with studetns collaborating to create a play. Students could enact the play in class, as well.

Ning allows you to create your own social network. Since Facebook and Myspace have become increasingly popular, utilizing a social network in any subject area could be very engaging for students. Teachers could create a social network for his/her classes where documents can be posted and discussions held. Furthermore, in the English classroom students can utilize the social network to share ideas and help one another with essays and understanding class readings.