Languages, ICT, education

During revision, students should work closely together, share often, discuss models, add details, delete the unnecessary, and rearrange for clarity and effect.

What it means to be literate today is significantly different to what is
was in the not too distant past. Once, being able to decode text was
sufficient even if barely so. Today literacy involves the ability to make
meaning from a multitude of text types, formats and modalities. An increasingly significant aspect of literacy is an awareness of the visual elements that fall beyond the traditional components of written text. 

Letting children choose what they want to read helps foster a lifelong love for reading. 

The Kids & Family Reading Report surveyed 1,026 parents of  US children aged six to 17, plus one child aged six to 17 from the same household. The biannual report is conducted by Scholastic and managed by YouGov, using GfK’s KnowledgePanel.

Formative assessments are simply little gauges or indicators of how students are progressing towards a learning goal. It could be anything from a simple conversation to something like a clickers or response via a website. It is the formative assessments throughout learning that give us the indication we are headed down the right path with our learning or whether we should take a right turn to get back on track. The use of the formative assessments help teachers understand where their students are and, more importantly, where their teaching is.

Many reports and research studies have documented the adolescent reading challenge -- too many students are unable to learn and build new knowledge from the texts used in their subject matter classrooms. In addition to the challenges of general comprehension, reading in a subject area presents additional challenges that many students are unable to tackle on their own. 

Ah, listening, the neglected literacy skill.

So how do we help kids become better listeners? Check out these tactics for encouraging a deeper level of listening that also include student accountability: ...

Guest blogger Ali Parrish, educator and ed tech consultant, provides three strategies, low-tech and high-tech, for breaking through students' brain freeze when faced with the dilemma of what to write.

When you engage your English-language learners through the power, fun, and sharing of narrative, the formal elements of language acquisition will follow more easily.

As younger and younger children recognize and use electronic devices as sources of information and entertainment, what is the impact on their literacy skills? Largely a positive one, according to a study in the January edition of SAGE Open.

Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers is an important resource for Member States in their continuing work towards achieving the objectives of the Grünwald Declaration (1982), the Alexandria Declaration (2005) and the UNESCO Paris Agenda (2007) – all related to MIL.

Student blogging provides opportunities for sharing, reflection, and ownership. With ELLs, blogs can provide deeper engagement and a public forum to demonstrate their developing skills.

Engage young readers by showing them the value of composing and sending tweets to authors whose books they've enjoyed during a read-aloud.

Readers read strategically only when they have difficulty making sense of a text. ...

In the social media universe, blogging is potentially the most powerful tool. Time and again, blogging is proving its worth in education and training, with countless learners discovering that sharing their ideas, sharing content and discussion ideas worldwide has a whole range of benefits. Blogging requires a particular set of literacies to ensure that its potential is realised.

One of the new digital literacies bloggers need is the ability to encapsulate ideas succinctly and in a form that is accessible and engaging. Another literacy is the ability to be able to devise posts that draw an audience and provoke responses. One of the most powerful aspects of blogging is its social dimension which includes open discussion. Still another is the skill of managing those responses and replying in a way that promotes further discussion and sustains the discourse. 

If you're one of countless people who don't make a habit of reading regularly, you might be missing out: reading has a significant number of benefits, and just a few benefits of them are listed below.

There's nothing like a book recommendation from a friend. Encourage students to share their opinions by creating a student-driven book review site. Richard Byrne shows you how in the accompanying screencasts.