With this literacy grant, the Westlake High School Library will purchase 6 Kindle ebook readers, and a $150 Amazon gift card for 15 ebooks. Kindles will help students improve their ability to analyze and interpret text by practicing active reading comprehension strategies while developing proficiency with technology tools. A team of two teachers, Janet Matthews, ELA Curriculum Leader and Mary Knopp, Library Media Specialist, will (1) collaboratively create multiple Kindle lesson plans to share in our district which teach basic Kindle use and advanced use of digital reading strategies, and (2) design and implement training for other faculty members to maximize Kindle use by students.
How will the project be incorporated into the curriculum and / or school structure?
The Library Media Specialist will order Kindles, protective covers, and a $150 gift card to purchase ebooks from Amazon.com
The Library Media Specialist will process and catalog the ebook readers
The teacher team will use standard collection development tools to select a well-differentiated variety of ebook titles to purchase and download. Each ebook title purchased may be downloaded onto 6 Kindle ereaders. In addition, free ebooks including many classic ELA required reading titles will be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
The readers will be housed, maintained, and circulated from the library
The library will maintain equipment loan permission forms (with parental consent).
The teacher team will create several Kindle lesson plans with differentiated and extensions activities which will incorporate reading comprehension strategies and can be customized by faculty to meet their content needs. Additionally, the Library Media Specialist will share the Kindle lesson plans school-wide by uploading them to the Library's website.
The teacher team will train other faculty members to use Kindles and will begin circulating the ereaders to faculty in the spring in order to develop 'buy-in.'
Co-teaching with the Library Media Specialist, the English Teacher will pilot the Kindle lesson plans and invite other faculty members to observe.
The Library Media Specialist and English Teacher will provide training for other faculty who would like to participate in the project.
The Kindles will also be available for faculty who have received training for use with students in their classrooms.
Describe the specific goals of your request and the objectives you expect to achieve:
The goal of this literacy grant is to improve students' ability to analyze and interpret text by using Kindle ebook readers to practice important reading comprehension strategies like highlighting text, writing margin notes, and learning vocabulary words--strategies to improve higher level thinking like inference, cause and effect, and making connections to 'big ideas.' These reading strategies can be difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn using traditional paper books which students are not able to mark up resulting in little practice of these skills. Kindle ebook readers with built-in dictionaries and QWERTY keyboards allow students to digitally write in the margins, highlight text, enlarge font size to improve readability, and instantly and easily look up definitions without interrupting reading. In addition, Kindles have the potential to improve reading fluency with their text-to-speech capability. This project will focus on student analysis and interpretation of literary texts elements by developing proficiency with the tools of technology (NCTE Definition for 21st Century Literacies). The national public policy paper, A Kindle in Every Backpack: A Proposal for eTextbooks in American Schools (http://www.dlc.org/documents/DLC_Freedman_Kindle_0709.pdf) recognizes the importance of creating a Kindle hardware base in public schools to improve educational success and enable 21st century learning. Teachers at Westlake High School are routinely seeking ways not only to integrate technology, but also to improve students’ independent access to required text, improving reading comprehension and assignment accountability. The action steps for the literacy goal include developing tier two services. Other than simply reading, the Kindle’s features would allow students to do the following:
Listen to a text and follow along (pages turn automatically, they can choose male or female voice and the reading speed)
Customize font size to improve readability
Automatically save their spot in the text
Add margin notes as well as edit, delete or export their notes
Highlight and bookmark key passages
Look up unknown words instantly using the built-in dictionary
The action steps for the technology goal include professional development on the use and integration of technology. The teacher team will provide training to interested faculty and staff.
Who will benefit from this project?
All students and teachers at Westlake High School across the curriculum will benefit from this project.
ADD MORE HERE
Budget Narrative
With funds from the grant, we will purchase 6 Kindles and protective leather covers. The $150 Amazon gift card will be used exclusively for the purchase of ebooks for this project. Each ebook generally costs $9.99 and can be legally downloaded onto a maximum of six Kindles. The $150 gift card will allow us to create an ebook classroom 'library' of a wide variety of 15 titles. There will be no recurring or additional charges to the Westlake High School PTA. However, library funds could be used to purchase ebooks that incur a fee in the future. BREAKDOWN OF COSTS || Description
Westlake High School PTA
Grant Application
Applicant Name(s) and Job Title:
Title of Project and Amount Requested:
Title: Books ‘n’ Bytes / Amount Requested: $1,193.94
Purpose of Grant:
With this literacy grant, the Westlake High School Library will purchase 6 Kindle ebook readers, and a $150 Amazon gift card for 15 ebooks. Kindles will help students improve their ability to analyze and interpret text by practicing active reading comprehension strategies while developing proficiency with technology tools. A team of two teachers, Janet Matthews, ELA Curriculum Leader and Mary Knopp, Library Media Specialist, will
(1) collaboratively create multiple Kindle lesson plans to share in our district which teach basic Kindle use and advanced use of digital reading strategies, and
(2) design and implement training for other faculty members to maximize Kindle use by students.
How will the project be incorporated into the curriculum and / or school structure?
- The Library Media Specialist will order Kindles, protective covers, and a $150 gift card to purchase ebooks from Amazon.com
- The Library Media Specialist will process and catalog the ebook readers
- The teacher team will use standard collection development tools to select a well-differentiated variety of ebook titles to purchase and download. Each ebook title purchased may be downloaded onto 6 Kindle ereaders. In addition, free ebooks including many classic ELA required reading titles will be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
- The readers will be housed, maintained, and circulated from the library
- The library will maintain equipment loan permission forms (with parental consent).
- The teacher team will create several Kindle lesson plans with differentiated and extensions activities which will incorporate reading comprehension strategies and can be customized by faculty to meet their content needs. Additionally, the Library Media Specialist will share the Kindle lesson plans school-wide by uploading them to the Library's website.
- The teacher team will train other faculty members to use Kindles and will begin circulating the ereaders to faculty in the spring in order to develop 'buy-in.'
- Co-teaching with the Library Media Specialist, the English Teacher will pilot the Kindle lesson plans and invite other faculty members to observe.
- The Library Media Specialist and English Teacher will provide training for other faculty who would like to participate in the project.
- The Kindles will also be available for faculty who have received training for use with students in their classrooms.
Describe the specific goals of your request and the objectives you expect to achieve:The goal of this literacy grant is to improve students' ability to analyze and interpret text by using Kindle ebook readers to practice important reading comprehension strategies like highlighting text, writing margin notes, and learning vocabulary words--strategies to improve higher level thinking like inference, cause and effect, and making connections to 'big ideas.' These reading strategies can be difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn using traditional paper books which students are not able to mark up resulting in little practice of these skills. Kindle ebook readers with built-in dictionaries and QWERTY keyboards allow students to digitally write in the margins, highlight text, enlarge font size to improve readability, and instantly and easily look up definitions without interrupting reading. In addition, Kindles have the potential to improve reading fluency with their text-to-speech capability. This project will focus on student analysis and interpretation of literary texts elements by developing proficiency with the tools of technology (NCTE Definition for 21st Century Literacies). The national public policy paper, A Kindle in Every Backpack: A Proposal for eTextbooks in American Schools (http://www.dlc.org/documents/DLC_Freedman_Kindle_0709.pdf) recognizes the importance of creating a Kindle hardware base in public schools to improve educational success and enable 21st century learning.
Teachers at Westlake High School are routinely seeking ways not only to integrate technology, but also to improve students’ independent access to required text, improving reading comprehension and assignment accountability. The action steps for the literacy goal include developing tier two services. Other than simply reading, the Kindle’s features would allow students to do the following:
- Listen to a text and follow along (pages turn automatically, they can choose male or female voice and the reading speed)
- Customize font size to improve readability
- Automatically save their spot in the text
- Add margin notes as well as edit, delete or export their notes
- Highlight and bookmark key passages
- Look up unknown words instantly using the built-in dictionary
The action steps for the technology goal include professional development on the use and integration of technology. The teacher team will provide training to interested faculty and staff.Who will benefit from this project?
All students and teachers at Westlake High School across the curriculum will benefit from this project.
ADD MORE HERE
Budget Narrative
With funds from the grant, we will purchase 6 Kindles and protective leather covers. The $150 Amazon gift card will be used exclusively for the purchase of ebooks for this project. Each ebook generally costs $9.99 and can be legally downloaded onto a maximum of six Kindles. The $150 gift card will allow us to create an ebook classroom 'library' of a wide variety of 15 titles.
There will be no recurring or additional charges to the Westlake High School PTA. However, library funds could be used to purchase ebooks that incur a fee in the future.
BREAKDOWN OF COSTS
|| Description