Missing November and Differentiantor, Respondo! and Byrdseed

Oops- looks like I missed November all together. Well my new job has been slightly demanding. I had a performance with third and fourth graders on November 16th, which went quite well I might add, and I have another coming up for Christmas on the 11th of December. Needless to say I have been extra busy and it seems to be consuming a lot of my time. I know, excuses, excuses. What can I say? I'm really not a slacker ☺

So I had created a Google site to help my new staff find some easy ways to integrate technology and to learn some tech tips. They haven't had much at this school although there are some teachers who are all over it and want more and more. I was looking for sites for integrating technology in the literature classroom and came across an interesting site called the Differentiator. The initial site I got this link from was Web English Teacher, a site I will need to return to on my quest for literature and technology links. Moving on-

Differentiator comes from a site call Byrdseed. Differntiator helps you re-evaluate and re-design assessments. It is a great tool and you really need to see it and try it to fully understand how it works. When you first go to the site you will see an example that once you click on it you will be given option to edit with the categories of Thinking Skill, Content, Resources and Product. Playing around I came up with this one:
Students will define the rules of composition using a website and create a chart in groups of two.
Not really the best example but I just wanted to see what I could do.

And since we are on a site linked from Byrdseed, we ought to look at Respondo! while we are at it.
With a similar looking front page, users click to edit and give your students a creative literature response question. Again, I think it is a nice tool that will get you thinking about some fresh ways of looking at things.

Byrdseed, by the way, is a "place dedicated to differentiating instruction for high level learners". Many of the ideas are not necessarily technology integrated but hands-on activities. There are some wonderful ideas that are worth your time exploring if you are looking for new ways to engage your students.