In the old days (allegedly), teachers received apples. Now they want apps (to use on their Apple iPhones).
Some years back, I created an online digital anthology for students in my freshman classes. The idea was that we needed functions (color, animation, video, audio) that the cool, quiet, static page could not provide. So I created The Weekly Reader to incorporate a wider range of texts and reading demands on my students. Kelly Gallagher has something similar, though it has a different emphasis: The Article of the Week. (Kelly, Penny Kittle, and I are planning to present together at NCTE next year in Chicago!)
I just moved The Weekly Reader over to this blog site as part of my effort to consolidate my online resources and provide more ongoing content to you in the year ahead. You can also access it at all times through the link on the menu bar up top.
Whether it is an app or a website, a blog or a book, the materials of our work are evolving, as they are for those such as myself who create such materials. As I write the new edition of English Teacher's Companion, I find myself thinking, even as I write out pages on the computer, what an app of the book would do, what it would look like, how it would be similar and different.
2011 will be here soon. The forecast calls for: more of the same: change.
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