Tool #9

If you don't tie technology to the objective, it's the same as not making students responsible for their stations: there's no accountability and nothing to tie the concepts you learn together. 

Since there aren't many sites that address middle school language arts, I'd have to say that the sites that focus on basic grammar skills would be a good "center" for students who are struggling with a concept. A sort of way to re-teach them without the poor kids having to hear me repeat the same ideas. Because I'm lucky enough to have 90 minutes a day with the kids, I can budget time at centers easily. (online-stopwatch.com is perfect for helping keep me honest when timing the kids!) I like Karen's rule of having each kids always use the same computer (or device in this case), since you can narrow down the culprits if someone doesn't use the technology appropriately.

I found this blog: Apps in Education, a site that chunks iTunes apps by subject and price. Found a few great ones that would work well in English "centers," where students could sign in to log the amount of time spent on computers, netbooks, iPads, or even iTouches:

•          StoryKit: FREE: "Create an electronic storybook. Create the text, add photos or drawings and then add sounds or music."
•          Free Audiobooks: FREE: We take 2,947 of the greatest classic books in human history, package up their audiobooks, and make them available to download and listen to anytime, anywhere. 
•         Wordflick: FREE: A fast-paced, arcade-style, word game for the Touch devices. Wordflick is truly addictive, because it is so intuitive; it is easy to play, yet a challenge to master. The goal of the game is to score points in the allowed time. Flick or drag game tiles to the bottom of the screen to spell words. The longer the word, the more points. (This would be a reward-based center, one that would help dyslexic and ESL students gain fluency with sounds and spelling.)

Tool #7

EDMODO: The Face(book) of Education

So the sixth grade language arts team worked together to create an online Edmodo "book club". (Thanks to Michelle and Kathi for chatting with me about their experiences first!)

Here's how it came together:

We wanted to give kids a forum -- Edmodo -- to communicate with other students in other classes about the books they read -- to create a real academic book talk. This was put together during the first six weeks with our "dog book" clubs (students chose from a selection of dog-themed books...Where the Red Fern Grows was too much sad for some kids!)

I set up an Edmodo account with groups for all the books. The other teachers joined the groups and I set them up as "cooperating teachers" so they could grade their own students without needing extra permissions from me. We posted polls, questions, and comments, and so did the students. 

The only glitches seemed to be students who couldn't use academic language -- there was some know-it-all-ness and snarky comments and bizarre little shout-outs to each other, but we addressed them individually. Overall, I think the students liked it and more kids who are reluctant to speak out in class were given a voice online.