Seven Ways to Integrate IT into your Literacy Program

[John Carr]

Keen to start integrating IT into your literacy program but not sure where to start. Here a seven simple starting points that you can use right now, just don't try and do them all at once.

1. Set up an email correspondence with a story character

Create an email address for a character in a text you are sharing with the class, for example, [e-mail] and have children email a question or comment to the character. Later that day, in total secrecy, reply to those emails in character. Next day allow the children to open, read, and share the responses with the rest of the class.

Some sites where you can set up a free email address are:

Gmail

Hotmail

2. Children create and email illustrated writing to an authentic audience

Go to Imagination Cubed and let children create an illustration and write a sentence about what they are doing in class today. Allow them to email their work to a parent, grandparent, a neighboring classroom, or, if the spelling and grammar are perfect, to the school principal.

Extension

Why not extend the activity to an exchange of pictures and sentences with another classroom somewhere else in the world. Check out Epals to locate a classroom to exchange with.

3. Create a digital Alphabet slide show

Using a digital camera and presentation software such as PowerPoint, the whole class can create a digital alphabet slide show. Each child creates a slide for the letter that is allocated to them. Children then brainstorm, locate, and photograph something or someone in the school environment that begins with that letter. Photos are imported into slides and each child adds a caption for their letter, for example, “p is for principal.”

The slide show can be used as a periodically updated classroom reading resource.

Extensions

In “thumbnail” mode, “jumble” the order of the slides and get children to put them back into alphabetical order.

Jumble pictures and captions and get children to correct.

Use email to share and compare your classroom’s digital alphabet with that of another classroom somewhere else in the world. Check out Epals http://www.epals.com/ to locate a classroom to exchange with.

4. Create and share a multimedia presentation online

Allow a group of children to take 5-6 digital photos of interesting things that happen in your classroom on a particular day. Children view the photos and write a simple one-sentence caption.

Upload the photos to a slide show on Voicethread http://voicethread.com/#home and have children record their captions for each photo.

View the resulting slide show in class and allow children to email the web address to parents, caregivers etc, so they can view it and comment on it at home.

Unsure what Voice Thread is? View this Voice Thread to find out more.

Extension

Share and compare your Voicethread with another classroom somewhere else in the world. Check out Epals http://www.epals.com/ to locate a classroom to exchange with.

5. Children create and present a “Color” Slide show

Use presentation software such as PowerPoint to create a collection of interesting photographic slides that feature particular colors. An easy way to find such photos is to search a photo-sharing site like Flickr using separate keywords “red,” “green,” “blue,” “yellow,” and to import the photos into your slide show. An even easier way is to use the "Colors" PowerPoint slideshow that is attached at the bottom of this article.

Allocate one of the four focus colors to a small group whose task it is to choose four slides from the slide show that feature their color. The children then copy those four slides into their own slide show, add suitable captions to the photos, and present their slide show back to the class as a shared reading activity.

Extension

Children use the digital camera to create their own “color” photos.

6. Use Google Earth to create a Shared Reading resource

Go to Google Earth and demonstrate to the class how it is possible to zoom in from a global view of planet Earth to an aerial view of your classroom.

Take “screen grabs” along the way, as well as a digital photo of the inside of your classroom with the children present.

Import all the pictures into a slide show with captions such as those below and use the slide show as a classroom reading resource.

This is our planet.
This is our country.
This is our city.
This is our school.
This is our classroom.

Extensions

Allow children to create their own slide shows in a similar format and then share with the class. For example,
This is my planet.

This is my country.
This is my city.
This is my home.
This is me.

Allow children to take a Google Earth “screen grab” that includes their home and their school. Allow them to import these images into an art program and label their home, their school, and their route to school.

Share and compare your slide show with another classroom on another part of the planet. Check out Epals to locate a classroom to exchange with.

7. Use an online tool to create a poem as a Shared Writing activity

Go to the Acrostics Poems Tool or the Diamante Poems Tool on the web

With contributions from the children, create a poem as a Shared Writing activity.

Extension
Encourage children to use the tools to create poems of their own.