The Purple Parade

One very important part of the reading block in elementary classrooms is shared reading.  Shared reading is when all students are reading together from the same text (for example:  a big book, a poem, etc.).  Recently, I have been exploring the web to find places for online books to use for shared reading.  My favorite one so far is MeeGenius. You can go to www.meegenius.com and get 6 books for free to read together with your class.  It will either read it aloud and highlight each word, or you can turn that feature off and read it at your own pace with your students.  You could even set up students individually with this site during group time or reading workshop time.  Another way to get even more free books with MeeGenius is through the iPad/iPod/iPhone app or through the Google Chrome App Store.  There are more books that you can buy through the app for very reasonable prices (and they never get torn or lost). iStoryBooks is another good site that you can find in the Google

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) is beginning to become more popular in school districts today.  Due to budget cuts, it is difficult for school districts to keep up with the ever changing technology world.  However, most students already own the technology needed.  So, why not let them use what they already have in order to enhance their learning.  There are so many sites out there that can be used for BYOD/BYOT.  A fun one to start with when students enter the door is Poll Everywhere .  Put up a question on the board and have the students respond to it on their technology devices.  A graph will appear and change as each student enters their response.  This is a free resource that could take the place of classroom response systems.  If students do not own a device, you can provide a district laptop or mini notebook to use in class. I've been working on a list of BYOD resources for high school. After that, I will work on an elementary school list