And away we go!

I know what you're thinking:

ZOMG! There is a ReadWriteThink blog?!?! How could this be? I had no idea! I would have been following this from the beginning!!! How did I MISS this?


Whoah now! Hold up. No need to worry. Your internet skills have not disappeared on you.

This blog is new. Kind of.

I ported it over from where it lived before.There, it was my blog, and I used it to feature both IRA and ReadWriteThink.org stuff. Now, it is our blog--and by our, I mean mine and the other editors of ReadWriteThink.org should they decide to use it--and it will focus much more on ReadWriteThink and less about what's going on in IRA.

But IRA and NCTE will get their mentions. After all, we are a part of both organizations, and we end up hearing about or helping projects in both organizations. That's just the way it rolls.

I, Wes Ford, Associate Editor for ReadWriteThink.org at the International Reading Association, will likely remain your host for most of the time; however, I will try to get some of the other editors to jump on and blog a little bit.

I guess I should properly introduce my coworkers:

On NCTE's side:
Lisa Fink, Project Manager
Christy Simon, Publications Developer

On IRA's side:
Bridget Hilferty, Project Manager
Becky Fetterolf, Senior Editor
Wes Ford, Associate Editor

I'm not my own coworker, I suppose, but it felt odd not to include myself in the list of ReadWriteThink editors.

Anyway, that's all I really have time for today. I need to get back to the RWT Super Secret Project of the Summer!

I'll give you a hint: RWT is going mobile. We're designing a couple apps for tablets that not only can teachers use in the classroom, but that will be fun enough for students to want to use them outside of the classroom.

That's the goal, anyway. Fingers crossed!

Next time, I'll talk a little bit about the dreaded Summer Slide and what RWT is doing for parents to keep kids from academic slip students sometimes experience over summer break. Or maybe I'll have Becky tell you about that--I don't know!

Wes, RWT Editor

PowerPoints and YouTubes

I'm sure I'll discuss the Super Secret Stuff we've been working on so fiercely next week. So this week's update will be a little lighter.

First, Power Point. Abby Coers and I have been working on a ReadWriteThink power point template for our presentations. Perhaps this is not an impressive task to be working on, but neither is it an easy one! Our current template has been in use for years, and we felt it didn't show case the coolness and the techy-ness of the site. We wanted something that grabbed viewers. Something that popped out and just look awesome.

We're got a few designs in the works, now. I think we are narrowing down the options to two, and then we'll build them out and show them to the team. I'm really excited, and Abby has done and excellent job crafting these and working with the colors.

I am admittedly color stupid. It's like being color blind but without the excuse of something being wrong with you.

I also really like tie-dye. I'm even wearing a tie-dye shirt as I type this. A very bright and colorful one.

I'll share some of our designs in the next few weeks--I'm excited how this project is turning out.

Abby and I have also been working on the ReadWriteThink YouTube page! We have a bunch of videos on the RWT.org site, but we've never moved any to YouTube where they can more easily be shared on FaceBook or through other social sites. It's a slow-going process only because it is low priority, and we need to steal some moments for the uploading.

Actually it is the writing of the descriptions and filling in of the RWT Channel that is the most time-consuming part, and neither of us have had many spare moments to get to that.

It's not bare. It's just not as fully fleshed out as we want it. But it's good to have March goals.

IRA Convention is coming up fast, and we still have a lot to do with that.

Oh man! I was suppose to talk about the QR codes this time. URG! OK, well, I guess I'll need to be really on top of this blog in the next couple weeks, cause a lot of coolness is coming down the pipeline and I want to share all the news with you.

Oh, and a big shout out to the whole RWT crew (authors, reviewers, contributers, editors, visitors alike), we just had our Best Month EVER! Yup, in Feb--shortest month of the year--RWT had over 2 MILLIONS views. First time we've ever broken 2 million in a month, and we are so excited!

Thanks to everyone who has helped us achieve this. We look forward to more great months to come.

Talk to you soon,

Wes

The Scoop From IRA

September is right around the corner: Back-to-School Time.

There's a lot going on at IRA this time of year, too.

We have the September issues of The Reading Teacher and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy coming out after the summer hiatus. The Reading Teacher just went through a complete redesign and has a new academic editorial team, Diane Barone and Marla Mallette. I haven't seen the proofs (hmmmm...maybe I'll go snooping through the publication servers and see if the pdfs are up...), but what I have seen looks pretty neat.

The new Reading Today is getting launched in September. The team has been crazy-busy with that endeavor, and it looks great! I'm excited to get my hands on the final copy. The website should be going live September 6th at www.reading.org/readingtoday. How's that for a little insider scoop? If you click that link before Sept 6th, you will see a Reading Today site, but it isn't the new Reading Today site, so make sure to check back.

On the ReadWriteThink end, we do try to set up some Back-to-School events or lessons or something, but being a website, we're always updating and uploading and improving the site. Summer's not too different then the rest of the year.

Back-to-School time is also IRA Convention time.

Now for the conventions group here at IRA, it is always convention time. It's a lot of work planning out an event that big, getting presenters in order, figuring out keynote speakers, arranging all the events, planning the travel and housing arrangements, working with exhibitors and the convention center. WHEW! I get tired just thinking about it.

But right around this time every year is when convention stuff starts to materialize in other places around IRA. For instance, the new convention website just launched. Very exciting! And if you want a walk-through for the site, we have you covered in the first episode of Convention Insider--where you can get all the inside scoops to IRA's 57th annual convention in Chicago (April 29 - May 2). Convention Insider will be a monthly video episode to give you all the inside information about Convention 2012.

ReadWriteThink has it's own convention projects as well. Not only do we have meetings with out advisory board and our NCTE partners, we try to meet up with some of our contributors and host our own sessions at convention. At the 2011 convention in Orlando, we had two sessions: Globetrotting With Blogs and STEM Poetry. I've heard a lot of good feedback about our sessions so far. If you were there, feel free to drop a comment right here and let us know what you thought.

If you missed out on either session, either because you didn't make it to Orlando or just didn't make it to our session, that's  just fine. We are putting them up online for you! STEM Poetry is up as of right now, and the Globetrotting With Blogs will be up this week, I think.

You will also be able to read more about Globetrotting With Blogs in the new Reading Today when it comes out next week. Our presenters, Laurie Henry and Lisa Zawilinski, have an article in the upcoming issue.

I think that will do it for this bit of blogging. A look into what's new and what's coming up in the new few weeks from IRA.

This is Wes Ford, your IRA (and Convention) Insider--I'll see you next time!

Comic Books and Graphic Novels: Gateway Books

I don't mean to steal thunder from Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, so I won't. You'll get the big scoop on graphic novels in the class from them in an up-coming IRA member's only article. Keep your eyes out for it--it's a good one!

Their article got me thinking. First about how my love of comic books persisted throughout my youth. I still read graphic novels, though I indulge less in the monthly superhero stories and go for a big stories, the more complex tales geared to more mature readers. Watchman is an amazing comic for that. As is The Sandman. Neil Gaimen is one of my all time favorite authors; whether it be his novels or his graphic novels, the stories he weaves inspire and amaze me.

I am an avid reader and still an avid reader of graphic novels.

But that isn't what the article really got me thinking about. It took me back much farther than that.

When I was young lad back in first and second grade (and a big apology to all my grade school teachers--I must have been a terror in class back then, but please realize all your efforts paid off!), I had trouble reading. In fact, I had to get tutored a couple times a week to catch me back up to grade level in between second and third grade (and a big thank you to my tutor, and especially to my parents who took the time make sure I caught up).

It's hard to think of myself that way now, someone who didn't read much. I don't recall not enjoying reading, but then I don't recall much from back then.

Anyway, what this article reminded me of was me sitting in my local library (which was a tiny thing, but Mom took my brother and I there often), sitting on the floor next to a spinning rack of soft-covered books. Comic books. Mainly Peanuts--I would sit there and read one cover to cover and then go for the next one. Over and over. Probably read the entire collection a few times a month.

Mom mentioned recently how, at the time, she thought I was just looking at the pictures. She was surprised when I would start describing what was happening with Snoopy and poor ol' Charlie Brown. She said something about how at the time some of my teachers said they weren't level-appropriate, but Mom figured if they kept me reading it was worth it. And they did. And it was.

Yeah, I did need to get tutored to catch me up, but I got hooked on reading before then, and I think already having that foundation of enjoyment in reading helped. It kept me going. It gave me a reason to want to read better because I already knew reading could be fun. I just had a hard time doing it.

After the tutoring, I got into the Three Investigators series and my love of reading really took off from there, but that's a story for another time.

That was my little trip down memory lane, remembering how that rack of Peanuts comic books start me on the path to being a life-long reader--and an editor at the International Reading Association and ReadWriteThink.org. They were my gateway books into the literary world. I hope all young readers out there find that gateway into the world of reading.

Let me end with a huge thank you to Charles M. Schulz, creator of the Peanuts, as well as everyone else out there who managed to get kids reading--authors, illustrators, teachers, and tutors. You're doing the world a huge favor, and your efforts are worthy of praise. Thank you.

Do you remember your gateway book? Perhaps that one series when you were young that grabbed and hooked you as a reader?

Wes

Character Trading Cards on the redesign block

I was sure I had posted a blog entry at the end of Jan. Like REALLY sure. And yet I don't see it. So I can only assume I didn't...or the Internet ate it.

I'm pretty sure the Internet gets hungry from time to time. Usually it snacks on emails, I think, but sometimes it gets blog posts, too.

And when it is really hungry, whole webpages.

Anyway, I'm posting now, and I'm going to just run with what I had planned rather than worry about what I previously said.

I'm working on the redesign for Character Trading Cards. This one gets a lot of usage, and we really want kids to be able to save their work and keep their cards. Of course, once we start brainstorming, we don't stop with just the save functionality. The project has bloomed!

First, we wanted different graphic options. The current design is really neat and looks great if you print it in color...and only sort of cool if you print in black and white. And of course both methods use a ton of ink! So we wanted a colored design, a black and white design, and a minimalist/economy design. I'd love to have even more options, but there are timeline and budget considerations.

We want to make a Create-Your-Own Card option for teachers to design cards with their own questions, similar to the new Create-Your-Own Cube.

But wait! There's more!

We thought about these cards, and there are a lot more options out there than just characters. The questions are geared towards fictitious characters from stories...but what if I wanted to make a Mom card? Or a Dad card? Or a card for my teacher? (Cause if there is anyone who should be featured on these cards like a hero, it is parents and teachers!) So let's see if we can make a card for Fictional and Real people!

But then it hit me. My 7th and 8th grade English came back in a rush of spectacular knowledge--and for those who know Mrs. Gibbons (Corpus Christi school, Elsmere, DE), you know what that means.

You see, many kids were taught that a noun is a person, place, or thing. I was told that freshman year of high school, and my friend Dave and I looked at each other, laughed, and said "No. A noun is an essential part of speech whose function it is to state person, place, thing, idea, event, or emotion" (I think it was emotion...that last one always got me in English class.)

And verbs aren't action words. "Verbs are essential parts of speech whose function it is to state action, being, or state of being in reference to it's subject. There are three kinds: transitive, intransitive complete, and intransitive link." We would then have to go on to define three, give a sample sentence of each, and diagram the sentence. And that was 1 question on a test, worth 10 points, and woe be you should you miss something in the definition.

Why, yes, I do believe Mrs. Gibbons is part of the reason I became an editor. Why do you ask?

Anyway, back to trading cards. Why limit the cards to people? Why simply have a Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley card when you can also make a Hogwarts card (place), a Quidditch card (event), a Wand card (thing), a Friendship card (idea), and a Love cad (emotion)? Wouldn't that be awesome? To have students make a collection of cards from a single book about setting and plot and themes rather than just characters?

We're working on ways to allow students to save these cards as collections, too, rather just individually, so that students could make a Harry Potter collection with all of their Harry Potter cards. Or maybe a collection for every book, which would show how the characters changed through the series.

Or to give it a real-world bend, students taking a field trip to Washington, D.C. can make cards about some of the monuments they see as well as cards about the historical figures and events those monuments honor.

So that is my current project. Beefing up the old Character Trading Cards interactive and making it simply a Trading Card interactive.

The change in direction on the questions has been the major hold-up. I have design ideas in mind for the new interface, but I need to rewrite all the questions on the card...and that is going to take some time and pondering.

Though I hope when I write my next blog (in two weeks at most!) I will be reporting to you that I have already done it.

Drat! I spent all my time talking about trading cards and didn't mention my other news.

Ah well. I'll just leave this here, and talk about it next time (hopefully next week).



Wes

First one of the New Year

Hey! Keeping to the one post every two weeks!

OK, I am going to start off with throwing out a link to the new Cube Creator. This is the landing page to the new Cube Creator. I'll be working next week to be redirecting old links to this new interactive. I hope this doesn't mess with any current teachers/classes working with the Bio or Mystery Cubes. Shouldn't since the new Cube Creator does everything the one olds did...and is just flat out better I think. Let me know if you disagree and why. We're really excited about this one, and I hope our users like it.

Now I'm going to give you a little hint at what RWT is planning this year. We have some interactives on the list to get redesigned and have the new Work Saver added. Oh, and we made a search filter for Saveable Interactives so I don't need to list them anymore. Shape Poems and Story Map are next on the list. I'm pushing for Trader Character Cards.

Something Becky and I are working on is a scavenger hunt for the IRA Convention. I'll reveal more as we plan the idea out--we need to get the plan rolling in the next few weeks so that we have time to do it. Right now, it looks like there will be a couple spots you need to hit to pick up the clues, and the clues will give you sentence which you then send to us. And we'll have a prize of something. It will be fun!

We are working on plans for a summer campaign, suggested activities that teachers can give to parents for their kids to do over summer. There will be a few different strands to pick from, like writing strand, which will have tips and recommendations for parents, and these strands will be linked to a couple of our interactives so that kids can have some fun while keeping up with their learning over summer. We're really excited about having a summer initiative. Becky's heading this project--she's looking forward to creating something she can use with her own kids at home, like the Alphabet Book.

Last plug for this blog: Doug Fisher is out featured interview for this month on the Convention Insider. I've had the pleasure of working with Doug on a book he published a couple years back with Nancy Frey and Diane Lapp, In a Reading State of Mind. I also work with Nancy and Doug on their monthly members-only article Engaging the Adolescent Learner.

We have a lot more planned for the year--it is going to be a crazy-busy, but very exciting year for us, and I hope for you, too.

Alright, I'm at the office far too late on a Friday (I had all the lights turned out on me!). I'm out!

Have a great weekend!

Wes

I'm out for the year

Last blog of the year. Whew--new year resolution: be better at blogging. I'll seriously try for once a week and really hope for once every other week!

December is a crazy time for us in RWT because we have year-end goals and stats we need to meet., and somehow we are always well above our goals until about Oct, and suddenly we have a lot of catching up and finishing up to do through Nov. I think we fall behind during that time because we start envisioning our work plan for next year and get a little wrapped too up in new projects.

What falls behind, you ask? Well, Lesson Plans for one. We added a load in the first few quarters, but new ones trickled down in Q3, so we had to rush to get the latest ones up in December. We have some going live tonight.

Our latest interactive, too. I had hoped to have K-W-L Creator up and out in Nov at the latest, but alas, it went live just this week! This one was my interactive, design through to posting, so I hope you like it and enjoy it and find it useful. Interesting learning process, and I look forward to putting what I learned to good use next year as we look for new interactives and--dare I say it?--mobile apps!

And some projects, well, we just don't get them out in time! We are so very close to have the new Cube Collection read to post, but we had a few hiccups and glitches and design slow-downs, and we won't make it. Though I am confident enough that I will share it with you, and if you want to take it for a test drive, feel free! And give us some feedback.

So here it is Cube Collection Beta!

As you can see, it is an update on our old Bio-Cube and Mystery Cube with the addition of the Story Cube and the Create-Your-Own Cube, a much-asked-for upgrade now made possible with the Work Saver. This was a fun revision to work on, and I'm excited to see it go live and be used. I think teachers and students are going to love it, and that is the most important part.

So that is a little look at some of the projects I did this year. I would be remiss if I didn't highlight the interactive efforts of my team members: Becky got the stellar Resume Generator out a few months ago, and soon after that, Bridget's Puzzle Me Words game got released.

As a whole, I don't even know how many lessons, strategy guides, printouts, and videos were added--a lot, I know that much!

What's coming for next year? All kinds of fun stuff. We're gearing up for IRA Convention in April/May...but I won't tell you what we have in store yet. Two sessions, I'll tell you that. RWT is sponsoring two sessions and the convention, but we have a plan for something even more fun. But I'll hold off on spilling the beans.

Yeah, I think I'll wait for January to fill you in on what RWT is looking to do in 2012. But needless to say, it's going to be awesome!

Have a Merry Chirstmas, a Happy Holiday, and a Great Winter Break, and I'll be back and blogging (I hope with more regularity!) in 2012.

Wes