Teaching Thought #70

Teacherscribe's Teaching Thought #70

The five digital tools I can’t teach without.

Tool #4 Wakelet

This spot used to be taken by Storify, but that ceased to be last May, so I spent several months trying to find alternative to Storify.  Wakelet is the best option that I found. And, best of all, Wakelet let me automatically export all my Storifies to it.

Can’t beat that.

What I love so much about this site is that it lets me stockpile web pages, social media posts, pictures, and video

How I use it –

First, I like to stockpile around specific themes or ideas.  So I have Wakelets devoted to such topics as satire (for use in my English 12 class), professional development (for my UND class), voice in writing (for my composition courses), and must reads (This is just for me when I see a really interesting article but don’t have the time to read it, I put it here and then read it when I have time).

Second, I use it to store information related to the books we read.  This might be articles I’ll use with the class. I may give students a link to the Wakelet page and have them select and article to read or a video to watch.  Examples – “The Lottery.” Fact or Fiction?  The Ghost Map.  Linchpin.  The Element.  To Kill a Mockingbird.

Third, I use it as a way to illustrate my thinking and research around papers that I write with my students.  Examples – “Daddy.  The Greatest Word Ever.” Resources for my definition essay.  Here I store resources for my exploratory paper on the infamous “iron maiden” torture device.  Another exploratory essay – why are The Matrix and The Lego Movie the exact same movie?  My analysis of and resources for our paper on Inception.  

Finally, this is a great tool for saving past work, student work or feedback.  Here I store ideas from previous Teaching Thoughts.   Here are some past things I’ve created for and used in classes.  Here is what it’s like to spend a day in a digital classroom.

There is no end to what you can do with Wakelet.  It’s an amazing tool.