IPartner

1) Which web tool/initiative class did you complete? What made you decide to complete this class?

I completed the IWonder, What is Inquiry, and Literature Online pathways. I decided to complete the IWonder course because it coupled well with inquiry. And, I chose to complete the inquiry course because it has always been a buzz word for me that I'm not sure I implemented into my own classroom with fidelity, so I'd like to better understand what it is in order to provide educators with adequate resources. I completed the Literature Online course because I'm an English nerd and because I think students having access to rich literary texts is a vehicle for equity in Language Arts classrooms. 

2) What features of the web tool are most appealing to students? To educators? To parents?/How is the initiative important to supporting student learning?

I think IWonder would be very appealing to both teachers and students. I'd assume many educators like me are a little scared of the word "inquiry." The scaffolding and teacher resources provided by INFOhio in regard to IWonder are phonomenal. Teachers aren't reinventing the wheel; they can take resources provided by INFOhio and create the framework for what they want an inquiry-based class to look like. Students will love the resource because it gives them an opportunity to take ownership of their learning. It will be inherently more interesting because it will pertain to things that the student WANTS to know. 

For parents, I think simply knowing their student has access to these resources is a game changer. They can be exploring IWonder at home over the summer to prevent some of the gaps in learning. They can be accessing relevant texts through Literature Online. The opportunities are endless in the classroom and at home. 

3) One of your co-workers has approached you in the hall for help with a lesson. Write two to three sentences you would use to explain why they should use the INFOhio web tool or initiative to support student learning.

If one of my Languag Arts co-workers asked for help with a lesson, I would direct them towards Literature Online. I'd provide them with the details of the text: "You can find some supplementary documents on Literature Online. Students will be able to create an account, download texts, bookmark pages, favorite texts, and take notes. You could task them with using the filters on the resource to find a relevant text from the time period you are working on." 

I believe we are supposed to post a review for each tool/initiative. I completed the age 3-5 and the K-5 Pathways. Since some of tools overlap, I created one post.

1.Using Technology with Early Leaners - this initiative is designed to help educators understand the research behind what kinds of technology, how much, and the importance of joint integration. There are articles to read and quizzes to take to help with the support of this initiative. If my colleague wanted to know where to find research to support the use of technology with our younges learners, I would direct him/her here.

2. Early Learning Portal - this portal is designed for educators to find resources to assist with varying domains of pre-school education. It also has a portal for parents to help them provide additional learning and support at home. There were some activities and websites that were vetted to be specifically for pre-K learners and to cover a variety of topics. If a teacher were looking for resources to use to differentiate learning needs using technology, I would direct him/her here.

3. BookFlix - pairs fiction and nonfiction texts with a variety of accessibility features for our earliest readers. There are lesson plans and resources for teachers as well. I would direct a teacher to this site, if he/she was looking for texts surrounding a specific theme or was looking to inrease his/her pair reading library.

4. Explora for grades preK-5 - This is more like a search engine that finds articles, books, magazines, and reference materials on a single topic. Results can be viewed in HTML along with accessibility features or as a PDF without any. I would direct a teacher here who was looking to conduct research reports with her students. This site is set up like a search engine with citation capabilities and multliple resources at varying reading levels.

5. Gale in Context: Elementary - includes books, magazines, and news articles based on topics. The educator tools are limited. This website is visually appealing. I might recommend this site to those who are wanting students to navigate learning based on topics of interest. It is super easy to navigate and could be a good gateway for students into research.

6. Highlights Library - includes books with accessibility features galore and rewards for students who read. There aren't really any educator resources that I could find. I would recommend this site to teachers looking for the best accessibility features to help struggling learners or for those who want to encourage copious amounts of reading. This would be a good one to use at home to encourage reading nightly. 

7. PebbleGo - is very user-friendly for students and has interactive experiments they can do. The teacher resources on this site are the best of all of the others. They can be downloaded by theme to give the teacher multiple texts or differentiated materials. I would recommend this website to Elementary Science and Social Studies teachers who want to incorporate more student reading.

8. World Almanac for Kids - Topics, games of the day, fun facts, and more are everywhere on this site. The usabilility is low due to the ability to go down a wormhole from clicking, and the teacher resources leave a lot to be desired. But I would recommend this to a student who wants to know everything about a certain topic. Those kids who LOVE something and want to find out even more.

9. World Book Early Learning - includes videos, games, stories, and activities for students that can be completed alone. This site is also visually appealing and can be very much student-centered or directed. The grown-ups section is not great. I would recommend this to a teacher who wants to let kids explore topics of interest.

10.World Book for Kids - this is another site that lets kids explore by topic. There are tons of activities and games that encourage reading and learning. Again, the educator resources and lesson plans aren't the best, but I would recommend this for teachers who want to allow students the ability to read about topics of interest.

11. Reading on the Screen - this initiative is all about the difference between reading digital materials and reading printed materials and how to balance them accordingly so students are accessing all types of texts in all types of formats. I would recommend this training and the articles included to a teacher who needs to find the balance in their instruction.

1. Which web tool/initiative class did you complete? What made you decide to complete this class?
   1. I completed the iWonder, Isearch, and PebbleGo classes.  I liked these three courses as they provide many universal resources for teachers and reach a broad audience.  
2. What features of the web tool are most appealing to students? To educators? To parents?/How is the initiative important to supporting student learning?
   1. I think Isearch is an appealing tool to students as they conduct research. I learned a lot in investigating this tool. Educators would find all three of these tools useful, but if I had to pick one, I would say I wonder had some wonderful guides that teachers can direct students to use to help support learning in specific subjects.  I liked Pebble Go as a tool that parents would most like.  These tools, and INFOhio provide great tools to support teaching and learning. We are fortunate to have funding at the state level to provide these resources. 
3. One of your co-workers has approached you in the hall for help with a lesson. Write two to three sentences you would use to explain why they should use the INFOhio web tool or initiative to support student learning.
   1. ​​​​​​​Mike -- you should consider using the free resources at INFOhio. They provide high quality vetted digital content, web tools, professional development and support, library software. 

I completed the K-5 digial content learning pathway, I chose this pathway because in my current role I am supporting teachers in an elementary building of K-5 students. 
I completed the World Book Kids, Book Flix and the World Almanac for Kids, I was specifically looking for resources that could also be used for research purposes. I liked the World Book Kids resource, it had great information broken into different categories. I feel this resource is better suited to the older elementary students and the World Book Early Learning is more suitable to the younger elementary students. I really enjoyed the BookFlix resource, it is very students friendly and gives students several book choices based on the topic of their interest. My favorite part is that for each selection students are given a nonfiction text option and a fiction option, these makes it a very easy tool for comparing text, great for discussions with students about fiction and non fiction. 

I decided to focus on the World Almanac Kids as a resource for elementary teachers, I felt the overall use of the website was students friendly. It was colorful and appealing and easy to navigate as an adult and a child. The World Almanac Kids is broken up into many topics that students can navigate. They could use this site for research, reading practice, games, video teaching and learning. There is a wide variety of activities available for teachers to utilize as resources as well as reteaching tools.  Educators can rest assured that as an INFOhio resource World Almanac is a safe research tool for their students to use. Outside of the abundance of information for educators to utilize they will also enjoy the additional teacher resources available, such as graphic organizers, handouts, science diagrams, science projects, and maps. It is important for students to be able to research about topics of interest to them, but it is equally important that educators ensure that students are using appropriate resources to access this information. It is also important for educators to have access to wide variety of resources that vary such as text, video, and game format.

A co-worker approaches and ask for help with a lesson. “There is a great resource available to you and your students on INFOhio called World Almanac for Kids. You can use this to support any subject topic with additional video, text, and games options. It is easy to navigate and geared towards students. There is also a program available online that will train you on how to use the important parts of the resource.”