IRA Literacy Website #3

Website:  PBS Learning Media
     URL:  http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/  

PBS Learning Media is a free resource for PreK-12 teachers and students.  It gives teachers direct access to digital resources.  Resources are aligned with the Common Core and national standards and include videos, interactive, images, audio, and lesson plans.  You can search for materials by grade level, subject, standards, or collections.  Some of the resources can only be streamed, this means you can only view it online, while others can be streamed and downloaded to your computer.  You can also share content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  In order to access material, you must set up a free account.  Students can create accounts but it is recommended that teachers create account for all students especially for those under 13 years.  Students must have an account in order to complete the online lessons available.  These online lessons are designed to help increase literacy skills of struggling readers in 5^th – 8^th grade.  Each lesson addresses a variety of literacy strategies. 

            Each video and interactive includes a background essay and discussion questions for you to review and use during your lesson.  For example, you could give the students the discussion questions before watching the video or doing the interactive to guide the students as to what they should focus on or have them find the answers to the questions and write them down as they are watching the video or doing the interactive.  Using the background essay, you could give a short lecture on what it is about before starting your activity that way the students have an idea of what they are about to watch or do.   This website is very well organized and there is so much resources available to help a teacher supplement a lesson.

Personal Reflection

The one thing that made this day easy was that I did the research for the third literacy website on Saturday and did the write up as well.  All I had to do was type it up and do some editing today.  If it wasn't for that, I would be up late tonight.  If I remember correctly there is another website reflection  and the midterm reflection due this week, so now I have some time to do that and hopefully go to sleep at a decent hour.  Have a good night everyone.