Online Resources for Developing Readers (and their Teachers)

Check these out!

1. Story by Story Phonics Lessons

2. Reading Skills for Today's Adults

3. Reading Practice with Word Families

4. Adult Learning Activities

Website Readability Calculator

Here's a website that calculates the readability of any website. Just paste any URL into the box and click Calculate Readability. In order to make sense of the results, it would be a good idea to read through the brief descriptions of what tools they use to make the calculations. For example, you may be familiar with the Flesch-Kincaid grade level tool, which Microsoft Word uses. I'm sure you can imagine lots of examples of how this tool could be useful for you. Click on the blog post title or the word 'Here's' to link there.

Tech, Pedagogy and Education Article

Here's a link to a good research article titled, At the intersection of technology and pedagogy: considering styles of learning and teaching
If you want to download the pdf, just go to the link and click on View Article.

Tech Integration Table: Three Tiers

Here's an interesting page with a three-level/tier table describing a teacher's ability to integrate technology into their classroom. It's useful because it gives brief examples.

Clean Water Device (Not directly related to teaching, I know)

This is just brilliant. I have no words...

Information Literacy

Here's a brief article about helping learners to develop the basic skills to be both technology proficient and info-savvy while reading and researching online.

*FYI: You can usually click on the blog post title to get to any link I have in the text body.

Reading stories for adults website

Here's a great website with dozens of stories. It's suitable for adult high ELL and developing L1 readers. Various exercises are provided with the story on screen. Take a minute to check it out. Click here.

Why I use Mozilla Firefox

I'll give you four simple reasons why I use Mozilla Firefox (MF) as my web browser, both at work and at home, versus Internet Explorer (IE) or Google Chrome (GC).

1. Speed: MF is just plain faster, in my experience. Websites are increasingly becoming 'busier' and including more multi-media (animation, video, audio, ads, etc.) and MF loads pages completely, faster.
2. Bookmarks toolbar: Although GC and IE now both have versions of this, I find MF's the easiest to use. It's a simple line that runs across the browser window and contains the titles of the websites you choose, usually the ones you regularly visit. No more clicking on the Bookmarks or Favorites menu and then scrolling through a list with your mouse. One click and you're at your favorite websites.
3. Text size-Increase and Decrease: Hold down the Ctrl key and the plus(+) or minus(-) key to increase and decrease text and, in most cases, image size on any webpage. Both IE and GC have a similar feature, but neither work as consistently and smoothly as MF.
   
4. Safety: MF is proven to be much safer web browser than IE. It catches viruses, malware and unwanted third party add-ons much better than IE.
   

But, you don't need to take my word for it. Just do a web search and you will find similar statements and reports all over the web. Or you can read here or here or here.

Tech Resources Page

In case you didn't know, there's a tech resources page for Hubbs Center teachers. Click here to go there --you'll have to enter the Hubbs website password. There's lots of good websites, helpful manuals and tutorials for using technology (COWs, video camera, ceiling LCD projector, etc.) and a tech FAQ. Check it out.

The Internet and Our Brains

Here's an article from The Sun Magazine I recently sent to my colleagues. It's actually an interview, but the interviewee, Nicolas Carr, is extremely articulate and covers a wide range of topics on how the internet is shaping culture, our brains and behavior. Well worth the read.