Enhancing Literacy with Online Social Interaction

I did a lot of work this year with integrated social interaction and technology with literacy.  We  know that our students today are intrigued by technology and even more so, socializing through technology.  I decided to try to incorporate the two in order to increase my students' interest in self-selected reading.  My students really took to it and did a great job with their discussions!

I  created five online discussion groups on Edmodo (I posted about edmodo and some of the ways that I use it in my classroom several months ago).  These discussion groups were heterogeneous in order to expose lower students to higher vocabulary and literature.  Heterogeneous grouping can be very beneficial with literature discussion.  I posted a discussion topic each week.  These topics were general so that they could be applied to any book. In my district, we had a weekly reading skill that we focused on; therefore, my discussion questions for their self-selected reading books (on their level) were skills based.  Each student was required to respond to the discussion topic at least once and respond to at least two of their peers' posts.  

This tied in with our curriculum, integrated writing, and improved interest since it involved technology and socializing!  Check out some of my students' posts and responses:

Online literature discussion is a great way to get students excited about reading and integrate writing and technology.  There are other websites that you can use for something like this.  I suggest Edmodo because it is user friendly, manageable, and safe for students. My students absolutely loved this, and I am definitely going to continue it next year!

-h