Week 7: If Shakespeare Could Tweet
Today I'm talking about a "One Best Thing" iBook called If Shakespeare Could Tweet: Transforming Literature with iOS. This book was written by Lawrence Reiff, a language arts teacher at Roslyn High School in Roslyn, New York. Lawrence has a lot of background knowledge on Shakespeare. In fact, he completed a training program through the Folger Shakespeare Library's "Teaching Shakespeare Institute" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator and has worked to train other teachers on using iPads and technology in the classroom.
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Lawrence is not oblivious to student's attitudes towards Shakespeare. "This is irrelevant." or "Why do we need to read books that are 400 years old?". Some students even question if Shakespeare is even written in English. Lawrence works to get students to interact with Shakespeare's words through iPads or an iPod Touch. He suggests an app called Shakespeare in Bits, which breaks down each Old English line to make it more understandable for students. This app can get costly because there is a separate app for each of Shakespeare's plays. A single play app will cost you $14.99 or you can get the complete set of apps for $49.99. He also suggests iAnnotate, an app that allows you to write next to the text. This allows students to add actions that might be going on during a line or add notes on a line that is difficult to understand. The app does cost $4.99 but you might be able to convince your principal to buy it for the school!
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