Last Post for the Year

Today is my last day in the office for the year, and I'm getting out early!

It's a busy day, and I have a few announcements to make because we had a bunch of projects wrap up recently.

I mentioned in the last post that I'd have something fun and cool to show off. Turns out I have a couple.  First is a quick video about our Trading Card app:

I hope that works, embedded in there like that. Seems like it should.

Second, Printing Press is now live and looks awesome! That was a big project for Lisa and Christy, and they  really knocked it out of the park. Maybe next post I'll make part of the post in the printing press and paste it up here. I should have done that with this post. Alas, my creativity comes to me too late!

I've talked about one of the projects for next year being a potential mobile-friendly version of ReadWriteThink. We made a survey about what our users want to see on such a site, and we've just pushed it live. Please take a moment to answer the questions and help us make the best possible site we can for our tablet, smart phone, and mobile device users. Which can include the students, if we see that that is the trend among the responders.

That's it for me for 2012! Catch you in the new year. Have a safe and happy holiday session.

Wes

Not a Millionaire

Despite a weekend Vegas and $550 million dollar lottery, I am not a millionaire. Ah well, maybe next time.

So what am I going to talk about this week?

I'm at a loss, actually. I've had a catch-up week, coming back from a trip to Vegas (productive and fun!) and then a major US holiday last week. I spent the beginning of November prepping for the NCTE convention and the Doug Buehl webinar (which went extremely well--we have the archive up for free is you missed it). I came back and am kind of in a holding pattern. I'm waiting for Venn Diagram and the Android version of Trading Cards to be available for testing. I've been doing a lot of small, uninteresting-to-write-about job maintenance projects: follow-up on emails, researching traffic projections, designing banners for the homepage.


That last one is a new thing for me--my coworker Becky usually handles that for the IRA side, along with Christy on the NCTE side. But alas, Becky is no longer in the office having given birth to her third child this past weekend.

The last few weeks have been kind of boring for me, I guess! So let's look ahead: What does December have in store for the RWT team?

The already mentioned testing of apps is a big one. We have a 2013 work plan to draft out (which will give me more to talk about as we figure out what we are looking to do in 2013). The survey for the mobile site should be out next month as well.

One of my goals in December is to get out in to our social media platter and figure out how we can be more interactive with users. Fix up the areas that we aren't really representing ourselves. We have a Pinterest account, for instance, and I've not really familiarized myself with using Pinterest.

I know one area we will be adding something in the next couple weeks is YouTube. But I'll save that post for next time, when I have something to show you rather than just talk about. The showing is important for this one.

Wes

Halloween, Hurricanes, and Las Vegas!

The Delaware-based side of ReadWriteThink faired the recent Sandy storm well. We look around at the destruction that just missed us to the north, and our thought go out to those who were hit hard my the hurricane.

Halloween has now come and gone, and with it, my sugar rush.

And that moves us closer to NCTE's convention in Las Vegas next week! Whoa! I've never been to Las Vegas before, so this is really exciting for me. I not only get to represent IRA, meet with the NCTE team, and have a fabulous and productive dinner with the RWT Advisory Board, but I get to see Vegas! AWESOME!

OK, business. What have we been up to here?

Word Mover (which I have mentioned before) is now out on iTunes! It's free and it's fun, so download it, create some poems, and share them with us.

This week had us preparing a webinar presented by Doug Buehl, one of IRA's authors (DevelopingReaders in the Academic Disciplines and ClassroomStrategies for Interactive Learning). More information about the webinar can be found here.

I've had several chance to meet Doug over the years I've worked at IRA. He's a great speak, very interesting, and I think pretty funny. He's got a great whit. He's also very knowledgeable.

We're still very focused on what the next big thing for ReadWriteThink will be. We are pondering a mobile-friendly version of the site, but we need some feedback. Is it even a good idea? If so, what areas should be mobile friendly? How do we best present information in the mobile format?

We'll have a survey coming out to better help us decide how users will use the information. I hope to have some more info after the group meeting and advisory board dinner in Vegas.

Hmmm? What was that? How did the 5k race go?

Thanks for asking! It went horribly! It was my worst 5k time ever--I'm blaming the 15lbs of gear I had on as part of my costume.

Wes

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

Guess what the topic of this post is about?

"Gee, maybe how you can't even keep up with an every-other-week posting schedule?"

....... No.

"Really, Wes? Really?"

...... Sorry.

It's about mobile technology!

First, I'm going to wow you with a couple links to a couple blog posts that are all kinds of awesome. A huge Thank You to Julie Ramsay who featured the Trading Card app as part of her post in her blog over the weekend. And even bigger THANK YOU (yes, I actually made it bigger) to her students, who used the Trading Card app in class and then posted about it in their class blog! They included their samples, which was really awesome, being able to see students using something I worked on.

Second, the Android version is nearly in our hands for testing. I'm going to guess that is still a couple weeks at least before it is downloadable.

Third, Word Mover went through beta with flying colors and is well on its way to being out there. I did a poem or two for testing. I suppose I can share one of the masterpieces.

The assignment was to right a poem about a book. I picked my favorite, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Does it make sense even if you've read the book Neverwhere? Maybe. But it was a fun exercise, using the limited words to try to write about the book!

Fourth, RedWriteThink is investigating making a mobile site, an abbreviated, mobile-optimized version to make browsing on a phone or tablet much easier, faster, and cheaper on your data plan. This idea is only just being to be floated around the ground, and we have a lot of research to do about what sort of content to put on it, how will it look, and even is this something teachers want?

Which is why I'm writing about it here--is this something you might want? Do you browse for lessons and classroom ideas on a mobile device? Would you if it was made easier and faster? Or is this something that will likely remain a desktop job for a while longer and making new apps and interactives would be a better use of our time?

We want to know what you want! How else would we know what to get you?*

Fifth, I have another 5k run coming up this weekend. I did one earlier in the month, and am looking to beat my previous time (and this time I'm running with friends; the hope is to beat all of them, too!). It's also a costume run. Fun fun! I'll update next time with pictures from that.

Wes

*This argument never flies with my wife when it is gift-giving time. She insists that I should be able to figure something out on my own. Apparently the surprise is part of the fun. I'd rather know I was getting something I wanted than be surprised by something I didn't.

Hello, October

First, I need to say PUMPKIN!

It's my favorite flavor. I particularly love pumpkin-flavored coffee or coffee creamer. I drink much more coffee this time of year not because of the temperature, but the flavor. Love it!

And now to ReadWriteThink-related topics.

The Android version of the Trading Card app is still in the works--I received a couple emails about that previously, and if I told you that it would be out by the end of September, I apologize. I think we will be closer to mid-October. Sorry. At least we have pumpkin-flavored coffee to hold us over, right?

Word Mover has moved to beta testing, so that is crushing right along. I'll share another Wes original with you after I do my test run.

I will down at the Diamond State Reading Association (DSRA) meeting tomorrow in Dover, DE. They are one of IRA's affiliate councils. This gives a chance to interact face-to-face with teachers and talk about ReadWriteThink.

And speaking of face-to-face, last week...no, two weeks ago...the editors of RWT had one of our face-to-face meetings between the NCTE team and the IRA team. I always love our in-person team meetings. I feel like it fosters a better work environment and improves communication. It's always fun, and I do enjoy getting to see Lisa and Christy and to catch up.

We went over site traffic (up 16% overall!) and where RWT is getting hit, what the trends show as areas to improve. We've come up with some interesting ideas for future fixes. We plan on revamping some older lessons, and we'll of course keep fixing the old interactives (Venn Diagram is already in the works).

The Professional Development side received a lot of traffic this year, which we like to see. We're now discussing how best to improve this section: what's work? What isn't? What's there that shouldn't be? What are teachers looking for when they go to that page?

If you've gone to the Profession Development section of ReadWriteThink, what did you think? Did you find what you were looking for? If you have any thoughts on what RWT can and should be providing, let us know!

More big things to come as we design the work plan for 2013. I'll keep listing out the cool things as they come up. It's an exciting time of year.

Because pumpkin flavor is back in season!

Wes

We Have an App!

I shall keep this one short and sweet. Or perhaps it is sweet because it is short?

I'm thinking of the Muppet's Christmas Carol when Fozzywigg makes his Christmas speech and Statler and Waldorf (as Jacob and Robert Marley) heckle him "That's it?" "It was dumb!" "It was pointless!" "It was obvious!" "It was...short...." "We LOVED it!"

<crickets>

No? Just me? Okaaaaay, moving on.

We have an app! We aren't officially marketing it yet, and we've only had one successful download from the iTunes store as far as I know. So here it is, another Wes-is-posting-something-without-clearing-it-first exclusive: the Trading Card App in iTunes!

Hope you like it!

Even more, I hope you can download and install it....

And for all the Android OS users out there, we have the Android version in the works, and we hope to be testing it soon, and have it released at the end of the month. We might need some beta testers for that...any volunteers?

Wes

Showing Off the Apps

Every other week at least? Really, Wes? Really? (My coworkers will get that joke....)

Yeah, it seems that the blog I had planned to write last week should have been written and posted last week to keep up with my goal of posting AT LEAST every other week.

Alas, alack!

I'll make up for it this week with pretty pictures and cool announcements.

Announcement 1: Trading Cards: The App is going live for iPads! The exact date is not known, but I am submitting the interactive to iTunes today for review. We're guessing it should be up and out there for download in a couple weeks <fingers crossed>.

And now for a pretty picture:

Sample of the Trading Card App printout

This is a final print out of a Fictional Person card from our interactive. I made this during testing, so it is a bit quick and dirty, but I thought it was pretty cool, so I decided to use it here.

The App allows used to add in their own pictures to the top area--I grabbed this one online. I believe it was one of the promotional posters for the movie Sucker Punch.

Note that me mentioning this movie here in how way reflects ReadWriteThink's view of the movie nor the views of any of the other editors or our parent organizations. I thought the movie was AMAZING! I was expecting a shallow, action-packed thrill-ride and found something that blew my mind. Haunted me for days! I'm not going in to any of my theories here in this post, but I did enjoy the movie so much that I made a couple cards based on the it, hence the Rocket card you see.

The App also allows for users to pick from a variety of styles for the card. I liked this one for Rocket because it is less stylized--which leans more focus on to action-packed image!--and does have a little softness and femininity in the way the purple fades, but is still a bold and vibrant color.

OK, that is image and announcement 1. Onto number 2.

RWT's second app, spear-headed by the NCTE team, was released to us last week for our first round of testing and it wicked cool! It is based on our Word Movie interactive but goes well beyond that in functionality and shear awesome. Similar to the interactive, you have a passage from a famous work from which you can select words to make into found poetry.

Unlike the interactive, it looks sleek, makes the words from the passage look like magnetic poetry strips, and has text from a few famous works preloaded, and has a large word bank that can be used instead of famous works. Users can also add their own words in case they have a particular list they need/want to use.

I have absolutely and totally NO permission from the NCTE team to post this picture, so I hope they won't get mad at me for doing so, but the initial testing  went so well and the app looks great; I wanted to show it off.

I call this poem Play on Words. Get it?

I didn't do much of a poem; some of my other works were longer. You can see the word bank is on the bottom, pops up and down into the work space. There are different background options as well. The words can be resized (I made them large since I was only using 2), rotated, and colored. The fonts can also be switched. Lots of options.

Again, this is alpha build stuff here, so things might change before it is finished and released.

For next time, maybe I'll see if Lisa or Christy want to chat about the latest interactive they have been working on, a redesign of the Print Press.We were testing that recently, too, and I'm excited to have that one released on the site. Very useful, very full-featured, and it looks great! I think the final release is scheduled for early September--but if I can get either of them to take a turn at posting here, they can probably give an actual date.

That's it for now. I'm out!

Wes

Venn Diagram Away!

I expected the Venn diagram app/interactive specs to be easy. I expected a quick write up, a few pages, and fairly simplistic functionality.

I was wrong.

Part of my wrongness was an unexpected functionality Becky and I came up with in a meeting--one which we don't even know is possible, but will be pretty cool if it is. I go in to details in case it isn't possible--cause then it's just a huge let down! I'll let you know what the designers say.

The first round of beta testing for the Card Creator app has come and gone. Many thanks to our testers for all their hard work. The feedback was helpful and informative. We're waiting on all the changes from that round of testing to come back in--and then we'll send it out for another round to make sure the changes work.

And then...we'll be done!

I think the most dramatic change to the app is the switch of one of the cards. Upon tester feedback, we removed the Abstract Concept card and added in a Vocabulary Word card. While it is still available I should write up a card for Disappointment and use that change as an example.

Don't get me wrong--I agree with the change. Abstract Concept was a difficult card from the beginning. It is tough to write guiding questions to help a student fill in a card about a concept. It's so...conceptual!

But I liked the idea behind it. Not only getting students to think about concepts such as honor or love or fear, but to guide them to create these cards by helping them deeply analyze the concept. I also really liked the idea of a collection that might comprise Katniss (fictional person), Peta (fictional person), Bow (object), District 12 (fictional place), The Reaping (event), and Courage (Abstract concept)--the idea of having a card to reflect the important aspects of a character was appealing to me.

Alas, it is not to be.

The Vocab Card works so much better. The questions were tough, but the end result is much smoother, and we think more useful. I came up with a couple fun group activities for students even as we brainstormed the questions. No doubt teachers will come up with many more. And eventually we'll have a lesson or two that use the Vocab Card.

I think it was a good decision. I just will miss the Abstract Concept card.

I did spend a lot of time working on the questions for it.

Wes

Back from Vacation

I was out last week, and the week before that was massively shortened by the US holiday right in the middle--the International Reading Association offices are closed on Fridays through Summer, so with Wednesday off for the 4th of July, we also got Thursday the 5th off.

It's been a while since I've been in the office!

I've been digging out from the email barrage, much relieved to see it isn't that bad, and I'll be sorting through the work load.

So basically, what I'm saying here is, I'll be back with a more substantial update later this week, but I wanted to get something down here, just so I wasn't missed too much.

Wes

After Trading Cards: What's Next for Wes?

Summer, you move too fast! Already 18 days into June? When did that happen?

Probably in the last two weeks....

During which we finally wrapped up Trading Card Creator! This new interactive was pushed live last week, and we even included a sample card collection to show teachers how this might be used in class. (Click Save As and save the .rwt file down to your computer, then start the Trading Card interactive, click the Open tab at the top right, and open that .rwt file: instant Wes-created Shakespeare collection!)

This post will be the last time I'm going to mention Trading Card. For a few weeks, anyway.

Why for a few weeks? Because we're only mostly done with it. Not only is the online interactive version getting a Create Your Own Card feature (just like the Create Your Own Cube in the Cube Creator), which is not yet implemented, but we are still working on the tablet app version of the Trading Cards, and that's going in to beta testing in the next few weeks.

Exciting--and mystifying. App development is not easy work, and I am very thankful to have a great team to work with throughout the process.

So now what? What's next after Trading Cards (beyond more Trading Cards, that is)?

I've been looking at some of our interactive traffic to see which interactives are used, but I also looked at which interactives are just...old and "dingy" and in need of repair. After all, just because there is little traffic  to an interactive does not mean that interactive is bad or  not useful--it just might not be useful in that form. It might not be appealing or intuitive or catchy.

So right now, I have my eye on Venn Diagram. I have always felt this was a great interactive--a useful one!--that suffers in delivery (there are separate interactives for the 2- and 3-circle diagrams, for instance) and design. We can make this better. It's a great tool for literature. For math. For science. For every subject.

And I think we can update it quickly, easily, and as both an interactive and an app. So that's one thing on Wes's plate currently (and there are many more, but most of those projects aren't as interesting so I don't talk about them here).

But that's already in the works; that's Wes's after Trading Cards. What is Wes's after Venn Diagrams?

Maybe you should tell me.

We have 59 student interactives on ReadWriteThink.org. Fourteen of them are updated or completely new in the past couple years. Printing Press, Comic Creator, Word Mover, and the Venn Diagram are already in some way in the works (if you want to give feedback as we start planning the new Comic Creator, we are open to it).

So what I want to know is, what interactive do you use? Is it fine as is, or should we be looking to update it? Does the work saver functionality make sense for that interactive?s What do you or your students/kids really like about that interactive? What can be improved?

The better feedback we get, the more we can do to improve ReadWriteThink.org's offerings and to get you the tools and resources you want!

Wes

It's been crazy around here!

It's been Trading Cards, Trading Cards, Trading cards all the time around here! This last week has been a flood of writing and rewriting the guiding questions for the trading card interactive. I've taken several stabs to start us off, and the team has been very good at trimming the questions down. I tend to be verbose--it's my curse. As an editor, I'm pretty good at trimming stuff down to concise phrasing (though, admittedly, not as good as Becky!), but as a writer I am very long-winded.

"We know, Wes. We've seen it on your blog."

Ah, yes. First hand experience. Well...let us continue on then, knowing what we are all in store for.

The Trading Card interactive is in its final stage of revision, and the then the last step--once all the functionality is properly placed--is to fill in the test. We're getting close. My hope is to have the questions finished by the end of the week, and the interactive live by the beginning of next week. I'm behind schedule, but we'll be close.

I do have a preview, though, of the final card:

From this snippet of the final (beta) product (and yes, there are some errors there: Wes is not actually a fictional person, despite how much he might sound like one from time to time), you can see one of the cool new features: the ability to add images!

That is a picture of me grilling on my  patio. I think this was taken in response to "How does the steak look?" I was able to upload this picture into the card and save it there. A much-asked-for feature now included!

This is only one of the many new features introduced in the new card creator. The card type is Fictional Person. As you might guess, this means there is a Real Person card as well. There is also a Real Place card and a Fictional Place card. Also, Object, Event, and Abstract Concept.

We've added a way to group up to 8 cards as a collection and save them all as a single set. For example, I could make the Wes card (Real Person), a Grill card (Object), a Patio card (Real Place), a Hunger card (Abstract Concept), and a BBQ card (Event), and save them all as a Memorial Day Weekend collection. In place of writing an essay "What I did for Memorial Day," I could make a collection of cards and turn that in instead!

I think it's a really great improvement over the old interactive. We hope teachers and parents find some interesting and creative uses for the cards--and if so, let us know!

Wes

Wes's Highlights From IRA Convention

I only got to see two sessions at the Convention this year, but they were both awesome! I'm a little bias in my opinion, though, being that both sessions where the ReadWriteThink sessions and I'm a ReadWriteThink editor. But hey, there it is!

I spent a good chunk of the rest of my time at IRA's Bookstore. If you were there, I was the one happily scampering about saying, "Can I help anyone find anything? Answer any questions for you? Make up completely false facts about Chicago?" Towards the end, that last one became, "Recite some poetry?"

Yes, that options was picked a couple times.

Yes, I did actually recite poetry for attendees.

I also got to visit with some of IRA's authors! Jan Miller Burkins and Valerie Ellery both had book signing sessions in the Bookstore this year while I was there.


Jan is the author of IRA's Prevented Misguided Reading, Coaching for Balance, and Practical Literacy Coaching, and she's one of ReadWriteThink's authors too, having done a few strategy guides for our site.


Valerie is the author of IRA's Creating Strategic Readers, which I had the pleasure of copyediting back when I was a Production Editor in the books department at IRA.

In case it wasn't completely obvious, I'm the one who appears both pics.

I also got a chance to chat with Doug Buehl (Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines, Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning), Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp (Text Complexity, In a Reading State of Mind--which I also worked on), but no one conveniently walked by with a camera to snap a shot with me with them.

I do enjoy being able to catch up with authors at convention--wonderful people full of energy and a true passion to educate. Always striving to do more to help teachers help their students.

Wes

Getting back to work

And now we are back! What a busy-fun week that was. I had hoped to get a couple blogs posted from convention, but I didn't have time during the day and didn't have a computer with me at night. I could have done it from my phone, I suppose, but I don't care for writing anything long that way.

Maybe next year I'll have some sort of tablet device with me.

I thought the IRA Convention was a smashing success. I got to talk a bit to Kenny and Riley from Page Turner Adventures -- always fun to see them. Didn't get a chance to get in any shoots with them this year, though. Drats! Another missed opportunity to saturate the the 'net with more of me!

[Collective sign of relief heard from all other RWT Editors--and every other coworker around me]

Our two sessions were packed this year, standing room only. That was pretty cool. Big thanks to our presenters for making the sessions a success. The sessions were taped, and the links will be shared online soon, so if you missed it, you'll be able to catch them.

And now that I'm thinking back to it, I should have taken some pictures of people scanning out QR code! I heard from a few attendees that they had a lot of fun looking for the RWT QR codes we had scattered around the convention. We're still tallying entries, and should be alerting winners soon.

A lot of things were left in the works while we were gone, and now that we're back, they are ready for review and further processing. The redesign of the old Character Trading Card interactive, for one. I've already been playing with the new card creator this morning, and I am thoroughly liking it! I hope to share that link out with you later this week, once we've had an internal review. I'm excited about this one!

There's always more to talk about, but that would put me in to more long-winded than usual, so I'll stop now. More convention and post-convention updates later this week or possibly next week.

'Cause it is going to be a busy week!

Wes

Are we there yet?

No. We certainly are not there yet. But we will be there Friday!

By we, I mean the IRA team of ReadWriteThink.org, and by there I mean Chicago. Lisa and Christy, on the NCTE side, arrive Sunday morning. They are driving in from elsewhere in Illinois; I don't envy them the day they will have that Sunday--the five of us are in meetings all day after their few-hour drive! I do, however, envy them the time savings.

ReadWriteThink.org is presenting two sessions this year at the IRA Convention.

Engaging Learners With “Games” in the Elementary Classroom
Presented by Katrina Allen, Karen Pelekis, and Emily Manning
Monday, 3:00-4:00 pm, W180, Convention Center

Incorporating Tools Across the Curriculum
Presented by (our very own!) Lisa Storm Fink
Monday, 3:00-4:00 pm, W176B, Convention Center

The team will be at both of these, so if you have a pressing desire to meet us, you can do so then and there, and we'd love to chat with you! Also, one of the clues to the scavenger hunt is going to be at the sessions; another good reason to swing by.

Becky and I are both doing back-up duty at the IRA Bookstore in the exhibit hall, and Christy and Lisa work at the NCTE Booth in the exhibit hall. I'm not sure about the locations, though. Maybe I'll tweet those out on the RWT tweet feed when I know them.

In other news, an article about our Bright Ideas for Summer recently published in IRA's Reading Today Online. Lot of good information about the program in there. We're really excited about it, and we hope to get a bunch of parents working with their kids over summer on these projects.

I still have a lot to get done before I can leave for Chicago, and not a lot of time left to do it since I leave Friday. I better get back to work!

Hope to see you in Chicago!

Wes

Poems and QRs

 

In honor of national poetry month, I shall recite (um, link to) a few of my favorite poems:

The Jabberwocky by Carrol Lewis
Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning

And since I can't find a link to the specific section of Fox in Sock, I shall simply list one of the my favorite lines from the Dr. Sues book:

"When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...

...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle."

I have tried to keep this line memorized, but I often screw it up in the quoting. It's tough.

And now I shall ramble about what I am currently working on.

Have I talked about QR Codes yet?

Hmmm, seems like I mentioned them two months ago and never mentioned it again. Bad, Wes! Bad!

QR Codes are funky looking little blocks of black pixels that can be scanned with most smart phones and tablet devices if you have the right software/app. If you look up QR Reader or something similar in iTunes or Google Play or what have you, you'll likely find several for free. You scan the code with the app and then are magically whisked away to a website.

Go on, give it a try, I'll wait.

Yeah, right from your monitor--it should work!

Pretty neat, right?

Anyway, at IRA's Convention in Chicago this year (this month!), ReadWriteThink is hosting a little scavenger hunt. We've got 5 different QR Codes printed on posters scattered around the Convention Center. While some of the QR Codes are repeated, they are color coded as well; each of the different colors will reveal a code word that completes a sentence.

Find all the words, complete the phrase, and send it to us for a chance to win!

"What if I don't have a smart phone?"

Excellent question! Each of the posters also lists the URL of the clue word--just copy that down and go that that webpage, you will see the clue.

Being the generous guy that I am, I'll even give you a heads up as to where you can find all the clues--you just need to get there and scan the code (or write down the URL).

The Green clue is at the International Reading Association's Bookstore in the exhibit hall.

The Red clue is located at the two ReadWriteThink.org sessions.

The Blue clue is located at the the National Council of Teachers of English's booth in the exibit hall.

The Grey clue is located at the entrance to the exhibit halls.

The White clue is located in your IRA Convention program.

Other than the white, none of those colors are even remotely close to the correct shade, but you get the idea.

If you are going to be at IRA's Convention this year, keep your eyes open and your phone at the ready.

And all of the RWT editors will be there too, at our sessions or our organization's booth/bookstore. Stop by and chat! We love to hear from our users.

Wes

To the West Coast!

I know I said I last time that this time would be the Summer Slide time, possibly with Becky as host, but no. I was wrong. Today is just a short one.

RWT is heading west. The team is meeting up with our apps developer for a kick-off meeting. That's right, apps developer. As in RWT is coming out with two apps this year for students to be able to use in the classroom.

Expected release date: September 2012.
Expected selling price: Completely free just like all our resources.
Expected results: Pure awesome.

No doubt we'll be talking about this project more through the summer; I'm not going to reveal what we are doing just yet. It's a huge project, but I'm looking forward to it. I think it will be fun!

Anyway, whirlwind trip and meetings and all that good stuff over the next couple days, and after that, the mad dash to IRA Convention. Busy, busy month!

Wes

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