eLearning Blog

This is not the first time I have blogged about reading levels as you can see here.   Most newspapers are written on elementary and middle school reading levels.   It is important to assess texts for their levels of reading and then to test students to know who needs additional help to be able to read at grade level. I received an email yesterday about a new test that is call Jellymetrics that allows you paste in text and see the different levels (since there are a variety of reading tests). So, for example, I put in Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech from last night and found out that most 9th graders, if not middle school students should be able to read it.  The nice thing is that each of the types of testing ways is linked to its explanation.   As you can see the most used one, Flesch-Kincaid rates the speech as being on a fifth grade level.

If you were to read my book, Deeper Learning Through Technology: Using the Cloud to Individualize Instruction , I have an entire section on using Twitter to improve your teaching.  But if you want to very quickly learn how to set up an account and Tweet, watch the short video above. 

So with all the flack that Melania Trump has received for plagiarizing Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech , it is amazing that it wasn't run through a scan to check for copying as most teachers do automatically.   But if your student wants to do the same before turning something in, they (or the teacher for that matter) can use Duplichecker which looks for other online resources and compares them with a student paper.  In two seconds Melania could have avoided this mess - but now you and your students can for free.  

Here, in just seven minutes is everything you ever needed to know about Blackboard Collaborate which our teachers use to collaborate with our online students.  This video goes rapidly through many of the tools and shows them as it works through.  

I just received this tip from Caitlin Kimak saying that Amazon is now in the education business and has a search engine called Amazon Inspire for ways to help your classroom.  You can use the video above to help you.