Helpful+Links

**NCTE**  [] A professional organization of educators in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts

===**[|**Read Write Think**] ** === provides teachers with a wealth of quality, activities, lessons, and resources for both teachers and students.

[] Dr. David Byrum, Professor at Texas State University Do you want to learn more about the Web 2.0 technologies, and how to use them in your classroom? Dr. David Byrum, professor at Texas State University in San Marcos, together with some of his graduate students created and amazing wiki full of resources for teachers. There you can find readings on the technologies you want to learn, ideas about how you can integrate them into your classroom, and video tutorials so you can learn how to use the technology at your own pace.
 * Web 2.0 for the 21st Century Teacher**

**Uses for Wikis**
Looking for suggestions on how to use wikis in your classroom? Then check out the Ways to Use Wikis page for ideas. Please add one of your own if you have had success with wikis in your classroom. Post a link to your wiki if you wish! If you are looking for concrete examples of classroom wiki pages, then check out the Educational Wikis website.

===**[|Comic Strip Creator] ** === is a resource on Read Write Think that allows students to create comic strips that may show things such as alliteration, satire, debating, etc.

**Blogs**
Blogs are one of the most effective tools to encourage students to write, reflect and respond critically and appropriately.[|Blogs] also have a wealth of information in them so students need to evaluate the information discriminately. Blogs have been used by educators in many unique ways such as students blogging as a character from literatuer and responding to each other's blogs in character.

**Google Docs**
Commonly used platform for communication and sharing. Multiple students can work on the same document at the same time.[|Google Docs] is great for collaboration opportunities.

**Wordle**
A wordel is an application that creates **Word Clouds** from text. The more often a word is used, the larger the text representarion of that word will be. You can print them or use the wordles as screen capture for use on blogs or wikis. Wordles can be created to identify frequently used words in a student's writing or parts of speech. You can aslo create a wordle from another writer's text. To create the wordle, highlight the text that will be created into the wordle and then follow the directions on the [|Wordle] Web site.

**Animoto**
A site where users can upload and create instant multimedia presentations. Why not use [|animoto] as an alternative to a book report.

===**<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Voki] ** === Voki enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking character. You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of lots of other types of characters… animals, monsters, anime etc. Your Voki can speak with your own voice which is added via microphone, upload, or phone.

===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|XtraNormal Beta] ** === Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century. Turn your text into a movie.

<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**New Ways to Explore Literature!**
[|Google LitTrips]

10 Ways to use the New York Times when teaching literature: [|New York Times]

High School English Sites: http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/tools/english-hs.html

Internet Resources for Educators: [|Internet Resources for Educators.doc]

Kansas State Department of Education: http://www.ksde.org/

Language Arts Websites: [|lasites (1).doc]

Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab): http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Text Structure: http://www.literacyleader.com/?q=textstructure

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[] Published jointly by NCTE and the International Reading Association (IRA), **//The Standards for the English Language Arts//** is designed to complement other national, state, and local standards and contributes to ongoing discussion about English language arts classroom activities and curricula. Required reading for ELA professionals at all levels.
 * NCTE/IRA Standards for English Language Arts**