Education: Sources

The 4 Cs of 21st Century Learning are Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity. *The following applications (apps) can be used to facilitate teaching and learning in each of the four areas.

Communication:

Seesaw - offers a way for students to demonstrate and record their learning, teachers to evaluate students' learning, and parents to stay informed about their students' learning   

TextingStory  - turns text conversations into videos that can be shared       

Wakelet - provides a place to save, organize, and share content from across the web

Collaboration:

Book Creator - allows for the combination of text, audio, and video to create digital books        

Jamboard - offers a way to collaborate through the creation of digital whiteboards          

Playmeo - provides a collection of games and activities to engage groups and encourage interaction

Creativity:

Creatability - a set of experiments made in collaboration with creators and allies in the accessibility community

Glide - turns spreadsheets into easy-to-use apps without code

Paper - provides a way to bring ideas to life through sketching, typing, painting, and drawing

Critical Thinking:

Parlay Universe - builds classroom community through meaningful and inclusive student-driven discussions

Pear Deck Flashcard Factory - transforms the way students engage with vocabulary as students pair up and work together to create flashcards

Scratch - provides a free programming language and online community where students can create their own interactive stories, games, and animations

*Source:

Goddard, B., Hall, J, & Hanley, W. (2020, March 5). App smackdown 2.0: Tools for assessment & the 4 Cs. Presented at the meeting of NCTIES, Raleigh, NC.

Miscellaneous Compilations of Apps:

50 Fabulous Apps for Teachers

Best Apps for Teachers and Educators

What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are materials intended to be used for teaching and learning that are in the public domain and are completely free for use and repurposing. Visit this site for a more detailed overview and definition of OERs.

Which OERs might be useful for you?

The following list provides a starting point for locating OERs for grades preK to 12.

cK-12

Contains resources for grades K-12 and college, including digital textbooks for Science K-12 and Math 6-12. Teachers (or teachers-in-training) can sign up using a Google account.

CommonLit

Offers tools, such as book pairings, text sets, and themes, to support English Language Arts programs focusing on grades 3-12. 

Core Knowledge

Provides downloadable curriculums for Language Arts, History and Geography, and Science for preschool to grade 8.

EngageNY

Contains full English Language Arts and Math curriculums for grades preK-12, including downloadable materials.

#GoOpenVA

Enables educators to create, share, and use a variety of digital resources to support the learning of students in Virginia. View this useful guide to join and get open!

OER Commons

Provides multicurricular resources for grades preK to 12 and college, including textbooks, units, and interactive materials.

Project Guttenburg

Contains over 60,000 ebooks, which can be downloaded or read online.

Welcome to the resource page for ED 350!

Listed below are resources to help you consider and select books to create a diverse classroom library.

Websites for Selecting Books for Your Collection:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Follett Titlewave

Follett, a provider of educational products for schools, offers Titlewave as a selection tool to support learning in the classroom. You can create a free account to search for books through Titlewave. Or, use the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion resource page to link out to other resources to help you locate books about different cultures, abilities, backgrounds, locations, and identities.

Reading Rockets Book Finder

Reading Rockets is a national public media literacy initiative offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. The Book Finder tool helps you create your own customized list of fiction and nonfiction books by enabling you to search by author, illustrator, age, reading level, genre, format, and topic.

First Book Marketplace

First Book, which sells books at a reduced rate to educators, provides a tool on its website that helps with the selection of diverse books for children and young adults. Educators can use this site as a way to locate books by category, but they do not need to purchase from this site. The Stories for All Project from First Book Marketplace also offers educators a way to explore a selection of diverse books and resources to help their students grow as readers, individuals, and citizens.

Children's Literature Assembly Online Resources for Diverse Children's Literature

The Children's Literature Assembly (CLA), part of the National Council of Teachers of English, provides a wide and extensive knowledge base of books published for children and young adults. This website includes a list of useful websites, blogs, and podcasts to assist educators in the selection of diverse reading materials.  

American Library Association (ALA) Suggested Reading Lists for Diverse Topics

The American Library Association aims to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all. This resource guide provides suggested reading lists for diverse topics, including award winner and honor books.

Website Articles with Tips on Creating a Diverse Classroom Library:

Creating a Diverse Classroom Library 

5 Steps to Build a Diverse Classroom Library and Encourage Empathy

How to Actually Implement More Diverse Libraries at Your School

Journal Articles with Suggestions for Classroom Teachers:

Howlett, C.M. & Young, H.D. (2019, Spring/Summer). Building a classroom library based on multicultural principles: A checklist for future k-6 teachers. Multicultural Education, 26(3-4), 40-46. 

In this article the authors focus on helping classroom teachers develop high-quality Multicultural Content (MC) literature for the classroom by suggesting ways to seek out the most effective assortment of literature for children in their classrooms. The authors suggest that using six MC principles as a foundation and employing an evaluation checklist (included in Appendix B) will enable teachers to create and expand classroom libraries in the most culturally responsive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

McNair, J. C. (2016). #WeNeedMirrorsAndWindows: Diverse classroom libraries for k-6 students. Reading Teacher, 70(3), 375-381. 

This article focuses on the teaching and use of children's literature and provides educators with information about a wide range of books across multiple genres that are representative of the diverse world in which we live. A strong emphasis is placed on the importance of having diverse library collections that take into account numerous factors, such as race, class, disability, and religion. The author also offers innovative approaches for bringing children and books together, as well as content analyses and rich descriptions of titles that share common features (e.g., endpapers, the blending of poetry and nonfiction). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classification System for Children's and Young Adult Books (for help with call numbers):

About Reading Levels:

Reading Levels Explained

Lists leveling numbers or letters that correspond to a child's grade level. Also includes explanation about the following leveling systems: Guided Reading Levels (GRL), Accelerated Reader (AR) ATOS Level, the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and Lexile Measurement. 

Leveling Resource Chart (from Scholastic)

Provides a chart in grid form listing the following levels: Guided Reading Levels, Developmental Reading Assessment Levels, and Lexile Levels.

Website to Help You Find the Level for a Book:

Follett Titlewave

Create a free account to access the Titlewave database and search for book information, including reading levels and full-text reviews from Booklist and others.

Banned and Challenged Books Information:

Frequently Challenged Books

Contains lists of the most frequently challenged books dating back to 1990. Also included are links to Banned Books Questions and Answers (Q & A) and other resources.

About Neurodiversity:

Harvard Medical School Webpage

This article provides the definition of neurodiversity, along with additional explanation of why words matter in neurodiversity, how neurodiversity relates to autism spectrum disorder, and how to foster neurodiversity in the workplace - which is transferrable to the school environment.   

Types of Neurodiversity and Neurodivergence

Lists and explains different types of of neurodivergence with an emphasis on spreading awareness and advocacy.

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