Free Webinars
WriteReader as a Learning Portfolio and Formative Assessment Tool
Formative assessment can help educators modify their teaching to help students achieve mastery and answer essential questions about students’ learning. Digital portfolios provide a space to collect student work and allow them to reflect on their own learning.
- In this webinar, you’ll gain a basic understanding of WriteReader, plus we’ll discuss:
- How to utilize WriteReader multimodal books as a formative assessment tool
- Creating portfolios of student work in WriteReader
- The importance of engaging students in self-assessment and self-reflection
Sign up for the free webinar here.
Motivating and Supporting Reluctant Writers with WriteReader
We’ve all had students in our class who struggle with writing for one reason or another. Maybe they are not interested in the project or topic, think they are not good at writing or might need accessibility support to be successful at writing.
In this webinar, you’ll gain a basic understanding of WriteReader, plus we’ll discuss:
- Sparking engagement and motivation for all writers
- The importance of providing autonomy to students
- Utilizing student writing and reading utility settings for individual adaptations
Sign up for the free webinar here.
PAST: SLIDING INTO SUMMER LEARNING WITH WRITEREADER
Talking Points:
- How to easily integrate WriteReader and Summer Learning Program standards
- Discover WriteReader tools and features that can support summer school language and literacy skills
- Experience sharing sessions using WriteReader with Elementary and Middle School students
Bio Katie Gardner
Katie is an Elementary English as a Second Language Teacher in Salisbury, North Carolina. She is an Apple Distinguished Educator Class of 2017 and a National Board Certified Teacher in English as a New Language. She has a passion for creating blended learning lessons to engage early learners and support second language acquisition. Katie has been a featured presenter or workshop leader at National early learning, technology, and ESL conferences.
Bio Katherine Bostain
“Katie” has been an educator in the Rowan-Salisbury School System for over 20 years. She has taught: Kindergarten, First Grade, K-5 ESL and is currently teaching 6-8 ESL. She enjoys finding different tools and techniques to meet student needs. She loves sharing what she learns through PDs (professional development). She is a LEGO Master Educator, Qball Ambassador, Seesaw Ambassador, Apple Teacher and was just named The North Rowan Middle School Teacher of the Year 2021.
Recording of webinar
PAST: WRITING DEVELOPMENT STAGES FOR 1ST & 2ND GRADERS
Sharing points
- a definition of the emergent writing stage for children 5-7 years old
- ideas and strategies to support young children’s growing literacy skills and motivation
- the importance of and correlation between writing and reading
- ways to support young learners’ book creation by using templates
Speaker bio: Traci Piltz
Traci is an award-winning educator, with nearly 20 years of experience teaching young learners. She holds an M.Ed. degree in early childhood reading & literacy, and has spent the past 6 years of her career as a technology integration specialist.
Presentation from webinar
Click on the image to open the presentation
PAST: DEVELOPING EMERGENT WRITERS
Sharing points
- Discover ways to engage and excite emergent writers in writing tasks with Writereader.
- Use Writereader to scaffold and differentiate writing tasks.
- Multimodal features of Writereader guide and support emergent writers in the creation of personalized digital books
- Explore ways Writereader promotes the integration of content areas and literacy skills within writing tasks found in a variety of learning environments.
Bio Katie Gardner
Katie is an Elementary English as a Second Language Teacher in Salisbury, North Carolina. She is an Apple Distinguished Educator Class of 2017 and a National Board Certified Teacher in English as a New Language. She has a passion for creating blended learning lessons to engage early learners and support second language acquisition. Katie has been a featured presenter or workshop leader at National early learning, technology, and ESL conferences.
Bio Traci Piltz
Traci is an award-winning educator, with nearly 20 years of experience teaching young learners. She holds an M.Ed. degree in early childhood reading & literacy, and has spent the past 6 years of her career as a technology integration specialist.
Recording of webinar
PAST: CREATING MATH STORIES WITH ELEMENTARY STUDENTS
Sharing points
Get inspired on how to engage your students in creating math stories:
- Utilize the math image collection to create math stories
- Create math storybook templates
- Utilize adult writing and feedback features to provide support and feedback on student books
Bio
Traci Piltz is an award-winning educator, with nearly 20 years of experience teaching young learners. She holds an M.Ed. degree in early childhood reading and literacy, and has spent the past 6 years of her career as a technology integration specialist.
Presentation from webinar
Click on image to open presentation
PAST: DEVELOPING ALL LANGUAGE DOMAINS WITH WRITEREADER
Sharing points
- Tips for choosing text that validates and confirms students’ backgrounds and cultures.
- A variety of strategies to make text comprehensible and fun (input).
- Meet students at their writing level but provide strategies to encourage a higher level of writing (output).
- Intentionally showing students the audience they can inspire and teach with their published book using WriteReader.
Bio
Astrid Emily Francis is an English as a Second Language teacher at Concord High School in Concord, North Carolina. She serves students in 9th-12th grade with various English proficiency levels. Previously, Emily was an ESL teacher, at W.M. Irvin Elementary School, Concord, North Carolina. Emily’s experience as an English Language Learner inspired her to become an ESL teacher and affords her a deep understanding of the challenges her students must overcome to find success. Emily earned a BA in Spanish, and a MAT in ESL from UNC-Charlotte. She serves as a professional development facilitator, motivational speaker, and Keynote. Emily is a Team member of Confianza LLC and forms part of the Executive Board of Carolina TESOL.
