Stanley Silbanuz

ED 638 Intersession Fall 2021

DR. M. Rivera

IRA News Project Effective Literacy Website # 6

 

            Actively Learn (https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/actively-learn) is a reading platform for the web where students can highlight, annotate, and discuss text as they read (Kievlan 2019). This website or tool is designed for 4^th grades up to 12^th grades. Concentrated in the content areas of English Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies to enhance or develop learners’ communication, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. It also empowers readers, keeps kids actively and independently engaged in any given task. Teachers can assign texts to students solo and in groups so that whole classes can read, annotate, and interact around texts at their levels (Kievlan 2019).

            The website or tool contains thousands of free ELA, science, and history texts, from "The Picture of Dorian Gray" to George Washington's Farewell Address to recent news reports on climate change. Teachers can upload any text of their choosing, from online articles to their own media. Most titles include Common Core-aligned and NGSS-aligned discussion questions for students to interact with (Keivlan 2019). These detailed, engaging questions and media make it easy to chunk readings and draw students into the text. Also, students can add their own questions, ideas, and comments to guide class interaction. It's also possible for teachers to monitor their students' progress, or even see students' notes as they're writing in their own "copies" of texts. The app's developers continue to add features that make the reading experience more flexible and accessible, including language translation options and flexible text-to-speech features. Plus, the developer's website features videos, blog posts, and extensive guidance on thoughtful ways to integrate this tool into the classroom (Keivlan 2019). 

            This website or tool is a great tool in implementing in the classroom in the content areas of English language arts, Science, and Social studies for 4^th grade up to 12^th grade to help empower learners to become fluent readers and keeps kids actively and independently engaged in a given task. At the same time, it helps develops learners’ communication, collaboration, and critical thinking skills.