Cool+Tools+for+Learning+and+Speakers

=** Cool Tools for Learning and Speakers: Session Schedule for 6.22 & 6.23 **= Each cool tool session will be presented twice starting at 1:00 to 1:45 and again from 1:50 to 2:35 on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Participants: After reviewing the Cool Tool selection, please sign up for Cool Tool Sessions here.


MASSOne Portal **TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** The MASS One Portal sessions will be facilitated by Ann Rutledge and Diane Porter on Tuesday and by Beth Dichter on Wednesday.

The WordSift & Google Lit Trips session will be facilitated by **Dr. Jill Castek**. Jill is a former Reading Specialist in grades K-8 with extensive experience working with English language learners. She graduated from the University of Connecticut where she studied online reading comprehension and its application to teaching and learning. Her dissertation examined the instructional contexts and scaffolding conditions that facilitated the acquisition of new literacies in upper elementary classrooms. Jill is post-doctoral researcher with the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading Project at the University of California, Berkeley.

[|WordSift] **TUESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** (View the WordSift Cool Tools session )

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WordSift instantly captures and displays the vocabulary structure of texts that are pasted into an application embedded within the Word Sift website. Word Sift creates a Tag Cloud of the 50 most frequently used words text you pasted in. It and brings up Google images that correspond to any word that you click on and provides a Visual Thesaurus word-cloud web of target words. You can also instantly see how the words that you select are used in their original context. The possibilities for word study using this site are endless.======

[|Google Lit Trips] **WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** (View Google Lit Trips Cool Tools session ) The virtual expeditions housed on this site offer a unique reading experience that make it possible for students to visit geographical locations virtually as they learn more about the places where book characters lived, traveled, struggled, and triumphed. Google Lit Trips encourage higher-order thinking skills, such as interpreting, analyzing, comparing, and explaining.

**Dr. Julie Coiro** will facilitate the Glogster sessions. Julie is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Rhode Island. She has taught in preschool, elementary, and middle school classrooms. Julie has a Ph.D in Educational Psychology, a Masters Degree in Curriculum and Instruction, and a B.A. in Special Education. Julie's research focuses on strategic reading comprehension, new literacies of the Internet, and effective practices for technology integration and professional development.

[|Glogster EDU] **TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** (View Glogster Cool Tools session) Glogster EDU is a Web 2.0 platform that easily allows users to upload photos, videos, text, audio, and other multimedia resources to create an online interactive poster. You can easily print out your poster or embed it into a website, wikispace, blog, or other social networking tool to share with others.

The VoiceThread sessions will be organized by **Heidi Everett-Cacopardo**. She is a graduate researcher with the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut and a former secondary science teacher. Heidi Everett-Cacopardo is a master’s student in Cognition and Instruction at the University of Connecticut. She taught secondary science for 3 years in New Haven, Connecticut. She is studying how struggling adolescent readers become more engaged in learning through international, Internet-based projects between classrooms.

[|VoiceThread] **TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** (Click Here to view my Google site on VoiceThread) VoiceThread is "[|a tool for having conversations around media."] Easily upload common media types like powerpoint presentations, documents, videos or photos. Once uploaded, others can provide comment on the media in 5 different ways. Comments can be shared via text, audio, video, drawing or telephone. The educational possibilities for this tool are limitless! Come try it out. We will set up educator accounts together and "play" with the comment features. Finally, we will develop ways to incorporate this tool within your existing curricula. These ideas will provide you and your students new ways to deepen thinking and conversation.

The Apple Remote Desktop session of the institute is organized by **Dr. Donald Leu**, who is the John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology and holds a joint appointment in Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. He directs the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut and is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and the Reading Hall of Fame.

10 Great Ideas For Integrating New Literacies Into Your Classroom and [|Apple Remote Desktop] **TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** Not one cool tool, but 10 great cool tools and ideas for integrating new literacies into your classroom plus Apple Remote Desktop (ARD). ARD manages the Mac computers on your network. Distribute software, provide real-time online help to end users, create detailed software and hardware reports, and automate routine management tasks — all without leaving your desk.

**Greg McVerry** will focus on tools to support collaborative learning ecologies that promote critical thinking skills. Greg, a Neag Fellow from the New Literacies Research Lab, has researched how Web 2.0 learning ecologies can provide formative feedback, model strategy use, and increase student engagement.

Twitter **TUESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** (Click Here for the Twitter Cool Tools Session) Twitter is becoming a quick tool for teachers to build their professional learning network. In this session we will examine ways to use Twitter to start building your Professional Learning Network. We will also briefly discuss some learning activities to try Twitter in the classroom.

[|Zotero] **WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** (Click Here for the Zotero Cool Tools Session) Zotero 2.0, a free Firefox plug-in, is a collaborative library where your students can share resources, gather in discussion, and learn important skills using citation and note taking tools. Educators can use Zotero to model and assess the students need to read in complex environments such as the Internet.

We will focus on using both Zotero and Zotero Groups. Participants should visit the Zotero website and have the latest version of Zotero and Firefox installed on their computers.

**Ian O'Byrne** will facilitate the Creating Visual Tutorials & Xtranormal tool session. He is a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut studying literacy and technology. He received his Masters of Education from the University of Massachusetts. Ian has taught English Language Arts in both the middle schools and high schools of Springfield and Chicopee Massachusetts.

Creating Visual Tutorials: [|Jing] and [|Skitch] **TUESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35** //Jing is a free video screen capture tool for creation of video tutorials to allow students & teachers to easily follow directions on use of online tools.// //Skitch is a great, free tool that is dead simple and great for creating screencaptures that you can use to identify items on your computer screen you want to share with others. Then take the image and attach to powerpoints, emails, word docs, etc// //.//
 * (Click here for the Creating Visual Tutorials Cool Tools Session)**

[|Xtranormal] **WEDNESDAY, 1:00 - 1:45 & 1:50 - 2:35 (Click Here for the Xtranormal Cool Tools Session )** //A free, easy to use animation creation tool. Billed as a "text-to-movie" tool, if you can type, you can create a movie.//