Tag: Digital reading response

Using A Digital Fiction Book Project for Distance Learning

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One of the problems that I’ve noticed the most with distance learning, is the amount of extra time that teachers are having to take to get resources ready for digital distance learning. The strategies and resources that teachers are using is new for so many of us and the learning curve itself with what works for this, and what teaching looks like in this time, is new and requires big changes. Change takes time.

My Digital Fiction Book Project is one resource that could save some of that time. The beauty of this Google Slides project is the amount of flexibility it allows for the teacher and students. The project can be used with any text and provides two versions (pages with graphic organizers and pages without) of the most common fiction reading comprehension skills. Several of the pages can also be used with nonfiction texts as well. The teacher can assign the reading, with a specific text for students to show comprehension, or have students choose their own book, allowing for differentiation and higher engagement. Yay – said the students!

See a blank version of the project here.

Teachers can either assign the pages with the graphic organizers pre-made, or have their students create their own ways of showing their comprehension and use/mastery of each skill. Teachers can choose to only assign certain comprehension pages, or all, or assign the project to a collaborative group of students and have them work on separate slides in the same project. This is a resource that could be used multiple times, allowing the teacher to also establish a routine during distance learning, making the work easier for their students and parents to navigate each week.

To complete the project, students use digital snapshots (use their snipping tool or screen capture tool) of the text to prove their thinking along with their own explanations to provide evidence of their understanding. This can be done with either digital ebooks or with print text. Students who need to complete the resource without wifi can use a print version of the project pages, or use the “edit offline” option that Google allows. And because it’s a Google apps project, students can use any device that allows them to connect to Google Apps (a PC or device with Google Slides downloaded from the app store).

The project can be easily assigned by using an email link or through your Google Classroom.

My students and I have always enjoyed presenting the projects as well, which could be done through a Zoom or Google Meets class meeting, on Flipgrid using a Screencastify video (free versions available for teachers and students) or any other screen/voice recording tool.

This project has always been one of the favorite comprehension project assignments in my classes and I hope that it would be the same for your students, along with being a helpful and valuable resource for your distance teaching materials!

remove.bg for book and writing responses

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I recently learned about this site in an email from my tech coaches. I knew I wanted to use it but didn’t have a legitimate reason to use it in my reading classroom. Today, however, when I introduced digital reading responses, specifically #booksnaps, it was the perfect site.

#Booksnaps – Do your students do a daily response to their independent reading? I’ve always used a variety of strategies (worksheets, post-its, reading journals, interactive notebooks) but have never found one that really excited my students, until today, using the remove.bg site. I introduced Tara Martin’s #booksnaps to my readers using the Google apps options of Slides and Drawings. We began with a focus on our metacognition … what thoughts did you have while reading? I used our whole group informational texts that we’d analyzed throughout this week and had my students find a page, section, paragraph, etc. that affected their thinking the most. We followed the procedures for a typical #booksnap, which can be found here at Tara Martin’s site. However, instead of searching for emojis or using bitmojis (neither of which is completely appropriate for my students) I had my students take selfies of themselves using their webcams, trying to portray their emotions and feelings or thoughts while taking the picture. Then they used the remove.bg site to remove the background from their selfie and they had their own little picture of themselves, ready to be added to their slide and turned into a real-life “selfmoji’ or inserted onto a new background that related to their reading using a new Google Slide. We downloaded the slides as a jpeg or png file to add to our #booksnaps.

My fourth graders were in! In our excitement we played around a bit. (It was one of those moments their excitement just needed to be let it before they could focus on their actual task.) I’ll admit, I created a “selfie” with the president and first lady, I went to the Super Bowl, and my students put their faces on athletes, past presidents, video game characters, and one even floated in a pool of gold coins. The excitement was a bit out of control, but the ideas and creativity were endless. When it came time to respond to our reading, students were also excited to find creative ways to show their thinking, and for a minute, I’m pretty sure my classroom was magic. Everyone was working, thinking, collaborating, and sharing their thoughts about their reading in a way that I’ve never seen them before. They were genuinely excited to talk about their books. My teacher heart left school full and excited for next week.

Here are a couple of the photos I made while playing around, and an example of what one of my students made.

Now, the possibilities are great for how we could use this website in our writing. My students are currently working on a research PBL about the planets. Guess what their next background will be?