Week 14: CITEd toolkits

For my toolkit, I chose to include resources for using technology in the middle grades English/Language Arts classroom.  I chose this avenue primarily because I wanted to look for resources that I could potentially use in my own classroom (yes, a selfish motive!) but also because the colleagues that I interact with most teach the same thing as I do, so creating a toolkit that I could share with the people I talk with the most just seemed like a logical thing to do.  I also included some resources that maybe don't link directly to English/LA, but that I have used and liked or that would be helpful given our current curriculum.  For example, I included a link to a resource on conducting effective online searches and evaluating primary source documents as tools for the (very large) research paper that teach the kids how to write at the end of the year.

Using Technology in the English/LAL Classroom

Since I chose to share this resource with colleagues, I decided to put mostly online interactive tools, resources, and websites into the toolkit.  Had I shared this with an administrator or tech coordinator, I most likely would have included more scholarly resources and articles related to the importance of tech integration in the classroom.  However, since most of my colleagues barely have time to eat lunch during the day, let alone read a long article, scholarly articles did not feel like the right direction to take with this.  One of the teachers I shared with is as techy as I am, but the other two are not as comfortable using technology -- one of them actually calls herself the grim reaper of computers because everything she touches breaks! -- so also tried to choose resources whose titles and page names were not overwhelmed with tech terms so they would be more accessible. 

I was impressed with the quantity of resources linked from the CITEd page... it was very extensive.  I do wish there were more options for sorting the resources (maybe there are and I couldn't figure it out though...), and unfortunately some of the links I wanted to investigate were dead.  I wonder how often they update their database?  I am looking forward to speaking with my colleagues this week to see what they thought of the toolkit.  I am definitely interested in the potential that something like this has for collaborative professional development!