Literature Circles with Subtext

As a part of a recent iPad planning day, I was fortunate to participate in a Google Hangout with some colleagues about the free iPad app Subtext and some tips and tricks for using it in the classroom.

Image: www.subtext.com

Subtext is a free iPad app that allows teachers and students to share, annotate and discuss the same e-reading materials. Teachers can also add notes, discussion questions and quizzes to the reading, which students can see and respond to within Subtext.

I came away from this Google Hangout with some great ideas and resources for getting started with Subtext.

Getting started with Subtext:

Here's a helpful 5-minute introductory webinar from the Subtext website:

Welcome to Subtext: 5 Minutes from Subtext Video on Vimeo.

There is also a more in-depth intro and training webinar on the Subtext website.


My vision for using Subtext with students:

I am really excited to try out Subtext with two of my English learner classes - one of which is a small group of 6th graders, and the other is a 3rd grade class.  Both groups are focused around social studies content, so I'll be using Subtext to share e-reading materials about WWII (Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr) and the three branches of the government.

Image: http://blogs.sd41.bc.ca/learningtech/files/2012/02/lit_talk.jpg

In both classes, I am hoping to use Subtext to help facilitate a variation of literature circles.  I haven't used literature circles with either of these classes yet this year, and I am still working to develop the specifics on how they might work best with Subtext.  I'm thinking we'll all start out with the same literature circle roles to get the hang of how they work, and all of the cool ways we can use Subtext to make literature circle roles easier and more intuitive.


My favorite features of Subtext so far...

• The app will read a text aloud to you (great for English learners!)
• You can save and share websites to read together with students (free nonfiction!)
• You can connect Subtext with your class Edmodo account for easy access
• You can add a 'Save to Subtext' button to your browser's bookmarks toolbar to save material from the web to your shelf
• The Subtext support team is very helpful and responds quickly to questions
• Subtext will give you one free book from Google Books!

A few challenges with Subtext...

• Subtext is only able to read epub files at this point - they are hoping to come out with PDF compatibility by this summer or next fall
• Books have to be purchased from Google Books - paid per student 

Here are a few other resources and blogs that could help you get started with Subtext:

• Edmodo's Subtext App
• EdTechDiva's Review of Subtext
• Greg Kulowiec's Blog Post on Subtext and Custom ePub Files
• Subtext Mentioned on EdSurge

How are you using Subtext in your classroom?  Do you use other e-reading apps with students?  

Blogging with English Learners

With the first few days of school behind us, I know many students (and teachers) are ready and anxious to really get started with this year's learning. The milestones that everyone talks about stick out like neon signs to students in the fall...I am so glad I'm finally in 3rd grade so I can learn cursive, multiplication and division! Isn't 6th grade when we get to engineer robots? My brother told me all about the states research project in 4th grade and I want to choose Minnesota.

I love hearing students express their excitement about upcoming topics of study, and am always interested in ways to channel and extend their enthusiasm throughout the year. I also want students to be able to archive their work so that they can share their learning with others and look back in a year or two (or ten) and reflect on the all that they've done.

The 3rd grade teachers in my building began having students blog about their experiences during the school year, sort of like an online journal. The kids loved it because it gave them an authentic purpose for writing (they had an audience who could..and did... comment on their posts!), because they could add their own photos, audio clips and videos to supplement their blog posts, and because they could easily go back and make changes (from school, home, or anywhere) if they discovered mistakes or wanted to revise what they'd written. After hearing about the success of blogging from my colleagues (and their students), I knew I wanted to try it out with my English learners.

I decided to have my 5th grade ELs try out blogging as a part of our fiction and nonfiction literature circles (which we called book club). In class, we chose literature circle roles for the week, and each group decided on the number of pages they wanted to read. Then, usually on Thursdays, we spent our time together blogging about what we read: everyone wrote a summary as a part of their post, and then they recorded their lit circle role for the pages read. On Fridays, we discussed our literature circle role responses together and then had time to read and respond to each others' blog posts. My students really loved reading the responses to their posts and answering their classmates' questions -- both on their blogs and in person.

Blogging was a great motivator, and we eventually discovered that we wanted to delve deeper into many of the topics we were reading about...by the end of the year last year, our literature circles had morphed into very motivated inquiry circles. I can't wait to use blogging again this year with students!

Blogging platform used: kidblog.org

Here are a few snapshots of our blogs:

My initial blog post:

And here are a few examples of student blogs: