Author, Scott Nailor
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Dempsey Challenge 5K
Loyal Interactive Language Arts Readers, Because I live in Maine, my last week was a bit stressful with hurricane Irene knocking out power to more than 200,000 Maine residents–including me for four days. Add to that the start of the new school year, and I’ve been hard pressed to find the means or the time to write a new post in our Common Core Standards series. I hope to be back on track by Tuesday, September 6th. At least now I can iron my shirts for school because the power is back on! In the meantime, please take a minute to check out my Dempsey Challenge fundraiser page. I’ll be running the Dempsey Challenge 5K in Lewiston, Maine on October 9th to raise money for the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing at Central Maine Medical Center. Even small donations help me toward my goal of at least … Continue reading
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Bubble This and Dabble That…Free Brainstorming Tools Online
I’ve been working away at my last regular class for my M.A. in English at NAU…just the capstone class after this and I’ll have my Master’s degree! This week, I had to put together an extensive brainstorm map of ideas related to a specific problem and it got me thinking about and searching for good online tools for brainstorming and mind mapping. I found a few I like that I think you might also want to try. The one I used for my class is called BubbleUs, and if you set up an account, it is free. I like that it is simple to get started, colorful, and easy to export when you’re done by saving / exporting an image of your project. If you want something a little more complex with extra features such as the ability to add pictures and drawings to your brainstorm, check out Dabbleboard, where … Continue reading
Boost Up Offers Simple Ways to Make a Difference
It seems everything is on my plate at once this week so I’m a bit behind on the blogging. Parent teacher conferences are coming up, assignments are due in my Grad class, etc., etc. I hate to go a week without updating my readers though, so here is a quick one…I recently learned about an organization called Boost Up. Boost up is about addressing the problem of high school drop out rates. What I really like about the site is that it offers simple ways to support students so they will stay in school and excel. For example, click on “How to Help” and you’ll see a place to enter your zip code. Click Go and you’ll discover places close to you where you can make a difference as a mentor, a tutor, or as a volunteer. Think about volunteering to read to kids for even just one hour a … Continue reading
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Blog in Transition
Hello, If you’ve arrived looking for the Interactive Language Arts blog for teachers by Scott Nailor, you have arrived in the right place…sort of. The blog is in transition as I move it to an independent hosting service. The “original” blog is still available at www.interactivelanguagearts.wordpress.com. This site, www.interactivelanguagearts.com will be the permanent home of Interactive Language Arts once the move is complete. The advantage of moving is that I’ll be able to use video and many custom applications and plugins that are not available at the original site. Both sites will have the same content for a while but this one is a little disorganized right now because I’ll have to customize things a bit to make it work. Thank you for your patience and happy holidays, Scott
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Interactive “A Jury of Her Peers”
Hello fellow teachers and tech integration enthusiasts. I’m back from a short break. A major project in my graduate class has kept me away from blogging for nearly two weeks. The good news is I’ve been developing an interactive Shakespeare website I’ll soon be able to introduce here. For now, I’ve got another interactive text to tell you about. It is part of “Interactives” by Annenberg Media—a collection of lessons which span across the curriculum and that are meant to “enhance and improve students’ skills in a variety of curricular areas.” These activities range from 3D Geometry and History to the subject of this blog—Language Arts. Only four Language Arts “Interactives” are available at this time, but it is easy to imagine connections between Language Arts and some of the activities in other subjects such as history. For example, anyone teaching Marlowe or Shakespeare might find the Renaissance Interactives in … Continue reading
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Tagged digital, digital text, engage students, english, etext, high school, high school english, interactive lesson, language arts, language arts websites, lesson plans, online english, online high school, online lesson plans, technology integration, textbook
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Knowing Poe
Knowing Poe from Maryland Public Television offers an extraordinary interactive language arts experience for teachers and students of literature. No exaggeration, this is the perfect example of how technology can be integrated into the language arts curriculum. The words “explore,” “investigate,” and “learn” best describe this Webby Award winning website which is among the best I have used in the classroom. The site features all kinds of activities that are so engaging that students will forget they are learning, yet they are sure to come away with a deeper sense of Poe and a better understanding of his work. My favorite is the “It’ll Be the Death of Me” activity in the “Poe the Person” section of the site. Here students follow a video narrative about and by a girl researching the life of Poe for a class assignment. In “choose-your-adventure” style, the Real Player, Flash-based video pauses periodically and … Continue reading
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Read,Write,Think
Read, Write, Think.org, partnered with the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and Verizon’s Thinkfinity, hosts a large collection of interactive assignments for language arts teachers that are fun and engaging. Many of RWT’s ”interactives” are linked to specific, standards-based lesson plans with printable materials. One of my favorites is the “Hero’s Journey” interactive which can be used to relate to many characters from any of numerous books featuring the Hero’s Journey. I use it during my Odyssey unit to teach about Odysseus as the archetypical hero. Activities like this one capture students’ interest and offer them hands-on opportunities to relate to whatever they are reading. If you click the “Lessons that use this interactive” link, you’ll find a list of specific lesson plans you can adopt for your instruction. Or, you can create your own lessons based on these activities. On the left side of the home page, you can browse interactives by grade level. Read, Write, Think has … Continue reading
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