Actively Learn-Tech Tool For Comprehension

    During the school closures, I used the application Actively Learn as one of the platforms that I used to drive instruction. The nice thing about "Actively Learn" is that it does provide curricula units for you to draw upon to adapt to fit your needs. The site without the data tools is always free,  so I have used this site occasionally before school closures to build digital playlists or to push out activities on the Google Classroom for an unexpected substitute day.  During the school closures, Actively Learn provided access to the full program so you could see student data and progress. The questions are not all multiple choice in nature as there are short answer writing questions for the students to complete within the lesson which is another plus. The news articles provided are current and are from relevant publications like Vox and The Atlantic. There are also novels that you can buy through the site. Although a little pricey, you may consider buying a novel for your students to read online as in a distanced learning environment as it is hard to provide access to hard copies of novels. The plus is that if you do buy novels through the site is that you can push out the novel's content in manageable chunks. Unlike the free novels and plays that the site gives you,  if you buy the novels that they sell know that these novels do not come with curricular materials. That is a plus in that your material and questions may be better suited for the students that you know and love, but for licenses upwards of six dollars per student, you may expect some teacher resources. Overall, it is a great site to support reading comprehension and can be a great supplement to your curricula as it is a platform that you can easily draw upon to push out content through your Google Classroom or if you are creating a digital playlist. 

Tutorial: Actively Learn

 

 Go to Actively Learn.com and click sign-in on the top right-hand corner of your screen. 

Log in by clicking the classroom assignment organization platform that you are using and click sign in at the bottom. 

Click on your school account. 

You are now on the main screen of the Actively Learn platform.  You can now explore all the features and content that this site. To add classes from your assignment platform, such as Google Classroom, click the three horizontal lines at the top left-hand side of your screen.  

 Click the plus button to add a class. You can now upload your Google Classroom classes with one click. 

Explore curricular units by the grade level that you teach. Look at one grade below and above what you teach too. 

Select a curricular unit theme that you would like your students to work with. Click expand next to the name of the theme.

Click on a text highlighted in blue ink.

Explore the teacher resources at the right.

Notice the questions aligned with the depth of knowledge (DOK) level and ELA Common Core State Standards. 

Click ASSIGN to upload the text on to your assignment platform to one or more of your classes. 

Click GRADE to view your students' responses to short answer questions. With the paid version, you can see how long the student spent engaging with the text and outcome data for both the student and the class. 

Notice the different genres on the main screen. View text selections by genre.

Notice text selection by theme.

Step 14-

Notice that you can select current event articles for your students to read that are from actual news outlets.

Find free stories and plays with resources.

When you are in the screen "your workspace" you can see all of the texts that you have assigned.