Sunday, September 5, 2010

Skills & Standards Learned with Kit

The Resource Kit for ePublishing strongly fosters learning Skills & Standards in the following areas:
-
TECHNOLOGY Skills: Word Processing, Desktop Publishing, Online Research, Digital Graphics, Miscellaneous Tech Skills / ISTE Standards for Students + MCREL Standards in Technology. Click here for a chart with details
- English Language Arts/WRITING Skills: Over 20 skills essential to writing including - Identifying a Theme, Creating Outlines, Writing Drafts, Proof Reading and Editing, Writing Letters, Procedural Narratives, Descriptive Writing, Expanding Vocabulary, Creating a Bibliography, Punctuation, Using Graphic Organizers, Revising Drafts, Citations, and more...
click here for a chart with details and specifics
- SOCIAL STUDIES and SCIENCE Skills: Research Skills (i.e. Conducting a Survey, Using Search Engines, Image and Video searches, tc.) - Use of online thesaurus/dictionary and language translator - Creating a Time Lines, and more... click here for a chart with details
- VISUAL ART & DESIGN Skills: Over 15 important design skills and techniques, including - Illustration, Publication Design, Word Art & Text Effects, Photo Collage, Create a logo, Create and use Borders, Create Author Headshots, Create Graphs (line, bar, circle), Setting up a Storyboard, and more... click here for a chart with details and specifics

- 21st Century Skills: Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes, Learning and Innovation Skills, Information, Media and Technology Skills.
Click here for an explanation of how the kit's activities relate to this emerging body of skills and standards


Saturday, September 4, 2010

Student Publishing: Key to Developing Writing (and other) Literacy Skills


A pillar of Writing instruction is the Writing Process, whose 5 phases include: 1) Pre-writing (research, outlining, story boarding, etc.) 2) Draft: initial composition 3) Revision (review and modification) 4) Editing (proofreading for clarity, conventions, style, etc.) and 5) PUBLISHING (design, production in hard copy or digital, and distribution of final version).
The Resource Kit for ePublishing uses the PUBLISHING phase as an entry point to engage and guide students in writing and publishing their own ePublications.

Sample Covers of Class Publications

Please wait a couple of seconds while the slide show of publication covers loads!

___Resource Kit for ePublishing
Students develop writing skills as they collaboratively produce professional looking publications. The Resource Kit for ePublishing contains everything needed to guide students through the experience of writing and publishing professional looking books or magazines. The kit’s continuum of high motivation writing activities culminate in the production of a class publication. Along the way, students experience everything from identifying a topic of interest, to writing skillfully about it, and finally designing their own ‘e Publications.’ Other than common word processing software that school computers already have, as well as access to the web, no other resources are required. The Kit may be used across grade levels and is particularly appropriate for upper elementary and middle school classes.

Writing is a skill set that represents an important gateway to success in: reading and other literacy competencies, learning across the curriculum - subjects like science and social studies require writing continually, test taking, and the world of work. It is universally regarded as a key skill in thinking and problem solving. Writing, however, remains an area that eludes a great many students. Traditional writing “exercises” often have little positive impact on this area of learning. The Resource Kit for ePublishing, however, uses Publishing, the culminating phase of The Writing Process, as an entry point to offer high motivation, relevant activities that result in the production of class publications that all will be proud to share with peers, parents, the school community… and beyond.
The kit illustrates many easy and appropriate ways to upload a class publication to the web. These 'eBooks' and 'eZines' are easy to open and read on any computer and can be presented to parents and audiences by sharing their links, putting them on disc, emailing them, or placing them in a class or school blog or website.


The kit also shows a variety of ways to produce a class book or magazine in hard copy.

With the kit, teachers easily guide students in the creation of eBooks and eZines that are easy to open and read on any computer and can be distributed by email, by easy upload to a class or school website or blog, or to one of the many free, media sharing resources on the web.

The kit contains:
60 activities for students (upper elementary through middle
school and beyond) 20 Beginner – 20 Intermediate
and 20 Challenging Level activities. Each activity is supported
by 4 items: a) Lesson Plan, b) Student Project Card
(explains the project), c) Student’s Planning Sheet, and
d) Rubric and Assessment Sheet
• A Classroom Management & References resource book with
Background research and information, Curriculum Matrices,
Classroom Management and Assessment instructions.
100 “How-To” Cards for Macintosh users and 100 “How-To” Cards
for Windows users.


The ePublishing Kit will inspire today’s students to learn a challenging set of skills that all must acquire in order to succeed in and beyond school. These include traditional writing skills, technology skills (especially those that support writing) and 21st Century Literacy Skills. The challenge in teaching writing effectively has been compounded in recent years by the emergence of communications technologies, resulting in the need to learn new skills along with traditional ones. As a result, educators have a bigger job than ever in ensuring student success. The kit is a resource to support teachers and learners in meeting this challenge.


@ $299.99 the Resource Kit for ePublishing is a low cost way to introduce an innovative approach to teaching Writing while Integrating Technology into the classroom - Available from the publisher, Teacher Created Materials:
http://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/estore/product/12034
Visit the publisher’s website for purchasing details