Pure Manaʻo

The Hawaii Council of Teachers of English (HCTE) sponsored "Professor Nana," Dr. Teri Lesesne (rhymes with insane) for their fall workshop this morning at Mid Pacific Institute in Mānoa. Neither the $50 fee nor the fact that this was a gorgeous Saturday and we were in a 1/2-day workshop was enough to dissuade the packed cafeteria of teachers. If you LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YA and tween books like I do. . .if it's your guilty pleasure. . .if you read YA books in order to find something one of your reluctant readers will devour, then Professor Nana is the ultimate source in YA books. I first saw her in San Antonio for a literacy workshop with Kylene Beers. I have followed her blog The YA Goddess since 06, and whenever I'm at NCTE, I make sure I go to at least one of her sessions. It's true that her power points are always on her slide share account, but I always get more insight when I watch her because she book talks some of the covers that are in her slide show. ...

Storyline Online is a site Esther Kotke of Hilo Union told me about. The premise is to take powerful picture books and create a video of professional actors reading these books. I listened to To Be a Drum read by James Earl Jones, but I noticed some other favorites like Thank You, Mr. Falker , Knots on a Counting Rope , and Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge . While the actors do the reading, the video shows the illustrated pages and subtitles appear on the bottom so that students can follow along in their own books or read together from the screen. In addition, there are activities and questions for each book. The site is out of funding, so they probably won't add any more books, but they have a nice little collection. This is great for elementary, but since I ' m teaching 9th graders this year, I just thought it's a novelty to pass on, but I chose the right book to compliment what I'm doing right now. To Be a Drum can still be used in my high school class be...

If you are a secondary teacher on the Big Island, you and your students are invited to the Big Island Reading Festival on April 16, 2010. Location TBA, but our authors are set to come and are eager to meet the students. If you would like to participate, or you need more information, drop me a note at caikeda@ksbe.edu.

and why we must provide the tools for our digital natives. Nwp Digital Is De Voss View more documents from devossda .

As an English teacher, there are two professional organizations that have made an enormous difference in my career. The first is NWP (the National Writing Project) and the other is the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English). Both annual conventions happen simultaneously in the same location, so next year is in Orlando. If we want the public to treat teachers as professionals, I think we must treat ourselves as professionals and get involved in the professional organizations in our area, not just as a member, but as a presenter, and as a committee member. Here's a video made by NCTE to celebrate their centennial.

I forgot how much I love the Muppets. We can't forget the educational brilliance of Sesame Street and the Muppets!

Stephanie Shepherd led us through a FABULOUS technology workshop on blogging and podcasting and had the teachers set up their own blogs. Yeah! To check out all the resources Stephanie provided, here's a sharetab of her links as well as some of our own blogs. http://sharetabs.com/?tahoeshepherds So why should we use blogs and podcasts/vodcasts in our classrooms? ▪ Offers another sense modality (aural) for students to express themselves and absorb or manipulate information ▪Increased student motivation ▪Teachers or students can record audio about homework assignments, assignments, feedback, announcements, etc. thus the classroom is extended and enriched ▪Many students already have audio players, so it taps into an existing technology. ▪Blogging is highly effective way to help students to become better writers. Research has long shown that students write more, write in greater detail, and take greater care with spelling, grammar, and punctuation, when they are writing to a...