Education with Ms. Reilly
Articles and Resources
Supporting articles, resources, and references to improve integration of the recommended applications: Kami, CommonLit, Quill, and Blooket.
Supporting Resources: Kami
This article describes the case study of Diigo, another annotation tool similar to Kami. In general, students responded positively to the social annotation features because they facilitated collaboration through digital communication.
This article evaluates the use of online annotations to improve foreign language learning through the study of Chinese language learners. The researchers found that adding annotations to texts to identify unknown vocabulary and adding summary notes facilitated improved reading comprehension.
Supporting Resources: CommonLit
In a report on student improvements in reading comprehension sponsored by CommonLit, researchers found that users made significant reading gains according to the benchmark assessments. This shows that CommonLit is a useful, evidence-based tool, but this information should be taken with a grain of salt since the study was published by CommonLit, which benefits financially from additional subscription sales.
In this video, CommonLit provides a short overview of the texts and tools available to teachers and students. It is a great introduction to the program to help teachers looking to begin using CommonLit to improve reading instruction.
Supporting Resources: Quill
Quill’s activities and lessons use many of the strategies and approaches for writing instruction that are supported by the research from the Writing Next report, including sentence combining, prewriting, word processing, and the study of model writing.
This article is an early study on the effectiveness of sentence combining, which is one of the main instructional approaches used in Quill. Teachers may choose to teach sentence combining offline and in conjunction with Quill’s activities to support the development of grade-level writing skills.
Supporting Resources: Blooket
In this recent study, researchers found improved learning outcomes for students who learned new material via traditional methods and practiced material through digital games. Teachers can use Blooket to reap the engagement and learning benefits of gamified practice.
This video provides a comprehensive quick-start guide for teachers seeking to integrate Blooket in their classroom. It is a useful resource for teachers who are unfamiliar with gamified instructional sites.
References
Amzalag, M., Kadusi, D., & Peretz, S. (2024). Enhancing academic achievement and engagement through digital game-based learning: An empirical study on middle school students. Journal of Educational Computing Research. https://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswss&AN=001190148500001&site=eds-live&scope=site
Blooket. (2023, September 20). How to get started with Blooket – Teacher edition [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61OXLotV540
CommonLit Inc. (2022, January 11). Everything you need to know about CommonLit’s Digital Program in 8 minutes [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSQEfg_6mu4
CommonLit. (2024). Report on school year 22-23: Students using CommonLit saw significant reading gains. CommonLit. https://cdn.commonlit.org/website_assets/135/1706019649/CommonLit_Technical_Report_On_SY22-23.pdf?ref=commonlit.org https://cdn.commonlit.org/website_assets/135/1706019649/CommonLit_Technical_Report_On_SY22-23.pdf?ref=commonlit.org
Gao, F. (2013). A case study of using a social annotation tool to support collaboratively learning. The Internet and Higher Education 17, 76-83. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.11.002
Graham, S. & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools. Carnegie Corporation of New York. https://www.carnegie.org/publications/writing-next-effective-strategies-to-improve-writing-of-adolescents-in-middle-and-high-schools/
O’Hare, F. (1973). Sentence combining: Improving student writing without formal grammar instruction. NCTE Committee on Research Report Series No. 15. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED073483
Tseng, S. Hui-Chen, Y., & Yang, S. (2015). Promoting different reading comprehension levels through online annotations. Computer Assisted Language Learning 28(1), 41-57. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1080/09588221.2014.927366