Katherine McKnight has quickly become my go-to resource for great concrete exercises that support reading instruction and for great web tools to help in student literacy development and in responding to student work. Her explanations are practical, and her ideas are quite inspiring.
Her most recent Tweet gives a link to her blog that provides a focused and organized list of Web 2.0 tools that support literacy for adolescents.
She divides the web tools into various categories and justifications. She starts out discussing slide shows (like the kind that can be created at PhotoPeach.com) that can build students’ schema by beginning to place mental images in students’ minds that will help them visualize concepts in the reading assignment before they even read it. This will give students a knowledge base (at least a visual one) to rely on as they read.
Blogger.com gives students a personal platform that can be geared at their reading. That is, the teacher can assign a blog for students to keep as they read and require that students read and interact with other students’ blogs. This gives students incentives to unpack insights about their reading because they know that it will be publicly displayed. Because students are motivated to have others respond to their work (much the same way creative Twitter or Facebook posts inspire more response from peers and followers), they will take a pride in the creativity and intriguing nature of their posts.
If you are interested in more practical web tools like these and the justifications for how they can provide inspired efforts at literacy by students, check out all of Katherine McKnight's presentation and blog here: http://www.slideshare.net/KatieMcKnight/web-20-tools-that-build-literacy-skills
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