It's Been Two Months?

More than two months, even. Ouch! I need to get back on my blogging horse.

What have I been up to?

Well, first was Winter Break, which was a solid two weeks. And then a January and February filled with missed days due to snow and ice and cold. Not my favorite weather.

In that time, I had two cavities filled, released the Android version of Trading Cards, launched the new Video Library section on ReadWriteThink, and finished Haiku, both the interactive and app versions. I know, crazy. Two cavities? I brush everyday--electric toothbrush and everything!--and use mouth wash. It's the flossing, really. I'm bad at it, and I know it, and I'm trying to do better.

A haiku about my dentist visit!

With the new year underway, I tallied the traffic from 2013, and we found we had a record year: over 20 million visitors to ReadWriteThink.org! Thank you so much! It really helps us push forward, knowing we are reaching so many educators and students.

So what's coming up?

I have one more interactive on the redesign block: Crossword. Specs are in, I've had multiple discussions with the designer, and the coding is underway. It is a massive undertaking, even after all the other app work we've done. We always seem to have some new idea to push the envelope on what our apps can do.

Lisa has a few interactives in redesign: Fact Fragment Frenzy, Hero's Journey, and Word Matrix. I'll keep you post on those as they move in to testing; I think we are more likely to see those before Crossword.

International Reading Association's 2014 annual conference is fast approaching. New Orleans! The Big Easy! I am looking forward to that. Becky, Lisa, Shannon, and I will be there--or at least they will. I assume I will; they usually like to have me around to move heavy boxes at the very least. As we get closer, and our schedules get firmed up, I'll share with you what we will be doing and where you can catch up with us.

I'm sure I'll have more inside information for you soon, and if we're lucky the weather will stop getting in the way of my working. At the very least, I want discuss project-based learning. So many topics. Just need to keep on it.

Have a great day,

Wes

Do You Haiku?

A few weeks back I posted a little teaser about an up-coming product from ReadWriteThink.org:

Poetry trio
Needs a new companion app
Details forthcoming

I'll note that no one took a stab at guessing what the product might be, so no one gets the really cool prize for guessing it correctly.

"But you never said anything about a prize!" you might say.

"I'm whimsical like that," I would reply.

The poetry trio mentioned in my little poem are the current interactives already available on ReadWriteThink--and soon to be available on your iPad or Android tablet:

1. Acrostic
2. Diamante
3. Theme

The new companion app, that would be Haiku.

Maybe I shouldn't be showing off the concept art...but I'm going to show you the current concept art for the load screen! Cause I'm excited about it and that's what this blog is for, revealing cool things like that. Please note that as concept art, the final app design might look nothing like this, and we cannot vouch for the correctness of the characters used in the image--though we are pretty sure they say "haiku." Anyone out there who can officially vouch that for us?

The real difficulty of the project is teaching the haiku writing process. We want to make sure that the app provides solid haiku writing instruction, not to take it out of the teacher's hands but to make sure students have all the scaffolding they need when it comes time to do the writing. A refresher on what the teacher modeled in the classroom couldn't hurt, right?

But how do you teach haiku writing? That sounds rhetorical, but it isn't. I'm asking: If you have ever taught haiku writing, what did you do? What did you teach? How did you frame the lesson? I've been doing research, and I found fun little inconsistencies like the follow:

• Traditional haiku are themed around nature or philosophy...but that's not a requirement.
• Traditional haiku have a juxtaposition statement...but not always.
• American haiku have three lines...but they don't need to.
• American haiku follow a 5-7-5 syllable count for the lines...but not all of them.

From my research, haiku writing is fairly free form--not at all what I was expecting when I first delved into the project.

I don't want to write How to Haiku instructions in the app and find them counter to what teachers are teaching in the classroom. I don't want to create an interactive and app that promote a rigid conformity to a three line, 5-7-5 syllable paradigm if that isn't what teachers are modeling.

Just to note, our Haiku app won't force the writer to use three lines (though it will only have three lines available), nor will it enforce a syllable count--in fact, it won't count syllables at all. We leave such checking and correction up to the user. The app can be used to write free-form poetry. But what should the instruction model?

If you have any information about how haiku writing is currently taught in the classroom or how you'd like to see it presented in this product, let me know.

Or to put it another way:

Seeking opinions
On proper haiku techniques
--Wes doesn't have a clue

Wes

Summer Vacation

I would love to say I haven't written on this blog cause I've been on vacation. That would be two months of vacation! I think I could handle that.

Alas, that's not how that went down.

I usually update the blog Friday afternoons. At IRA, the office is closed Friday--we work Monday to Thursday.  Which means I'm not here on Friday afternoons.

Worse excuse ever, I know, but alas, it is also the Truth.

And rather sad 'cause it means I haven't updated anyone on all the cool stuff I've been working on. And yeah, it is cool stuff. Things or user base is likely interested in.

For instance, I'd previous mentioned our Alphabet Organizer interactive and our Venn Diagram interactive. I never got around to tell you these are now available as mobile apps on Google Play and iTunes store.

I don't know that I even mentioned the changes being made to Timeline. App version releasing soon.

The tomato example. Relevant for RWT Editors: Most of us grow tomatoes! 

Even cooler, we have more apps coming soon. Some of our favorite and most popular interactives are being app-dapted (get it?) right now.

What can you expect? RWT's poetry suite: Acrostic, Diamante, and Theme Poem will all have app versions releasing in September*.

I've got even more apps and interactives in the works. I'll hold off on releasing details of those until next time, which should be in a week or two. Cause this is the last Friday I have offer before non-summer hours kick back in. That will help me keep on my schedule of hope-to-post-once-every-two-weeks.

Though really, with all the neat stuff we are pushing, I might need to post more often

OK, so one little teaser about the project I was working on today:

Poetry trio
Needs a new companion app
Details forthcoming

Wes


*Said with confidence, but not with a solid promise. I'm 100% sure they will, so there is a 95% chance it will happen.

Welcome to 2013

Welcome to 2013! We've been here a while now, but still, welcome.

Here at the RWT collective (since we don't have a specific headquarters), we are trying to sort out the year's projects. We have a lot of cool stuff in the works, but its always a puzzle to figure out what we will work on and what might not make it.

For instance, we recently had a survey about making a mobile version of the site. The survey was pretty informative and, I think, will help us make improvements to the main site--but it wasn't overall convincing that we should do the remote site. At least not yet.

Instead, we're going to try to make more of our interactives mobile friendly. That seems to be the direction we need to go.

That's a change we hadn't anticipated at the beginning of the year.

Other times, things just pop up unexpected. Just today, I got asked if I would like to attend the SoMIRAC Conference in Maryland in April--not just attend, but to do a session. Pretty cool getting the request, but it adds something on to my list of projects, and it's right before the IRA annual convention. Time Crunch!

I'm also on interactive/app duty (whichever direction we decide to go), which means coming up with an idea and writing specs.

Anyone out there have any ideas for me?

Next week, I'm going to go more into what sort of content and lessons we are seeking to add to the site to help bulk up some areas we see need improvement...or I'll get someone else to do it. I keep saying this is a joint blag thing, and then doing all the blogging myself.

Wes

10 Years of ReadWriteThink

In 2012, ReadWriteThink.org celebrated 10 years of supporting educators and providing resources to teachers, parents, and students. And we're proud to say that 2012 was our best year ever, shattering the 18 million visits mark!

ReadWriteThink.org keeps getting bigger and better, and as new theory and technology arise in the world of literacy education, we grow and change and adapt so that we can provide innovative materials and resources to the teachers and students who need them most.

We expanded on the number of student interactives that feature our work saver program, and massively updated and improved upon some of our most popular interactives, the Cube Creator, Trading Card Creator, and Printing Press.

Our largest project in 2012, by far, was the release of our first education apps for iPad tablet devices, our Trading Card and Word Mover mobile apps. These two were our pioneer projects into mobile technology, and by no means our last offerings in this realm.

This past year was a challenge, but a fun one for us at ReadWriteThink.org, and our success and popularity has us excited for opportunities in 2013. We'd like to thank you, our users, for making the site so widely used and so well loved. We couldn't have done it without you, and as always, your comments and feedback are appreciated.

Thanks for a great 2012!

-The RWT Team

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

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

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

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