One Best Thing iBook Reflection: One Best Thing
If Shakespeare Could Tweet: Transforming Literature with iOS
by Lawrence Reiff
Lawrence Reiff (@mrreif) is an English/Language Arts teacher in Roslyn, NY who is both an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher. He worked with Apple to write an iBook for the One Best Thing series, demonstrating how to best use Apple technologies to transform teaching. His iBook is called “If Shakespeare Could Tweet: Transforming Literature with iOS” and it recieved a 5 star rating.
This iBook is brief, but jam-packed with tips, how-to’s, and explanations of why Mr. Reiff does or believes what he does. The wonderful part about iBooks is that they are not limited to only text and pictures, but can add videos, links, and other interactive pieces into the actual text of the iBook. Mr. Reiff did an excellent job of using those add-ons in a way that transformed the reading experience, doing as he advised for Shakespeare and getting the reader to understand what the author is saying.
I personally loved all the apps he introduced in his iBook. Finding good applications can be difficult, but he discussed ways to use simple apps like Notability as well as introducing new apps I had not heard of, like ComicLife to create comic strips with real photos, and iAnnotate for looking closely at Shakespeare’s words. He describes all the different ways that he uses these apps when his class is working on Shakespeare. For most of them he also provides an example that his students have created using that technology. For the most part, the apps he discussed were free and easy to use.
One thing that Mr. Reiff wants his students to focus on, when discussing Shakespeare, is the bare bones of what he is saying. Through annotating and text-replacement apps and using twitter, Mr. Reiff likes to force his students to eliminate any superfluous words to understand the actual meaning of what Shakespeare is saying. He uses twitter, especially hashtags, to help students grasp the concepts of main idea and themes. Twitter is something that is so easy to use in a classroom because most students already have access to it and understand how to work it, so they can therefore use it confidently to understand Shakespeare.
Another great thing Mr. Reiff discussed was eliminating down time where you are messing with the technology. He gave the example of when you are showing a film adaptation of Shakespeare, which in some cases involves twiddling your thumbs while waiting for the video to load, or encountering other media issues like trouble with volume, display, etc. This downtime causes students to lose focus and classroom management goes out the window. To solve this, Mr. Reiff suggests incorporating use of the mirroring feature on an iPad, which lets you seamlessly switch between two different things, as well as having items preloaded on an iPad instead of using time-consuming disks or tapes. Another great thing about the iPad is the split-screen feature, allowing students to look at the text and take notes side-by-side. I really like his suggestion of having students follow along with the film by annotating their text or commenting on the film as they go, because movies are the easiest way for students to disengage and ignore everything, totally disabling any learning that could have occurred.
Students learn best by doing, and Mr. Reiff encourages performance to truly understand Shakespeare. Getting students to produce their own scene, whether that uses iMovie or PuppetPals, gets them to understand the basics of acting and stage directions as well as form a deeper understanding of their characters through which facial expressions, vocal emphasis, and movements that the student decides to match with the words. Shakespeare was written to be performed and students just sitting around round-robin reading the text is not going to help them move past the archaic language to the humor, wit, and intelligence that is Shakespeare. Mr. Reiff has a well of ideas on how to get students to interact with “that dead guy” Shakespeare by using somehitng they already love—technology—to help them move past rote learning to a deeper understanding. It just means that the teachers have to be willing to explore the app store, be flexible in how they assign work or assessment, and be confident in their knowledge of the technology.
by Lawrence Reiff
Lawrence Reiff (@mrreif) is an English/Language Arts teacher in Roslyn, NY who is both an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher. He worked with Apple to write an iBook for the One Best Thing series, demonstrating how to best use Apple technologies to transform teaching. His iBook is called “If Shakespeare Could Tweet: Transforming Literature with iOS” and it recieved a 5 star rating.
This iBook is brief, but jam-packed with tips, how-to’s, and explanations of why Mr. Reiff does or believes what he does. The wonderful part about iBooks is that they are not limited to only text and pictures, but can add videos, links, and other interactive pieces into the actual text of the iBook. Mr. Reiff did an excellent job of using those add-ons in a way that transformed the reading experience, doing as he advised for Shakespeare and getting the reader to understand what the author is saying.
I personally loved all the apps he introduced in his iBook. Finding good applications can be difficult, but he discussed ways to use simple apps like Notability as well as introducing new apps I had not heard of, like ComicLife to create comic strips with real photos, and iAnnotate for looking closely at Shakespeare’s words. He describes all the different ways that he uses these apps when his class is working on Shakespeare. For most of them he also provides an example that his students have created using that technology. For the most part, the apps he discussed were free and easy to use.
One thing that Mr. Reiff wants his students to focus on, when discussing Shakespeare, is the bare bones of what he is saying. Through annotating and text-replacement apps and using twitter, Mr. Reiff likes to force his students to eliminate any superfluous words to understand the actual meaning of what Shakespeare is saying. He uses twitter, especially hashtags, to help students grasp the concepts of main idea and themes. Twitter is something that is so easy to use in a classroom because most students already have access to it and understand how to work it, so they can therefore use it confidently to understand Shakespeare.
Another great thing Mr. Reiff discussed was eliminating down time where you are messing with the technology. He gave the example of when you are showing a film adaptation of Shakespeare, which in some cases involves twiddling your thumbs while waiting for the video to load, or encountering other media issues like trouble with volume, display, etc. This downtime causes students to lose focus and classroom management goes out the window. To solve this, Mr. Reiff suggests incorporating use of the mirroring feature on an iPad, which lets you seamlessly switch between two different things, as well as having items preloaded on an iPad instead of using time-consuming disks or tapes. Another great thing about the iPad is the split-screen feature, allowing students to look at the text and take notes side-by-side. I really like his suggestion of having students follow along with the film by annotating their text or commenting on the film as they go, because movies are the easiest way for students to disengage and ignore everything, totally disabling any learning that could have occurred.
Students learn best by doing, and Mr. Reiff encourages performance to truly understand Shakespeare. Getting students to produce their own scene, whether that uses iMovie or PuppetPals, gets them to understand the basics of acting and stage directions as well as form a deeper understanding of their characters through which facial expressions, vocal emphasis, and movements that the student decides to match with the words. Shakespeare was written to be performed and students just sitting around round-robin reading the text is not going to help them move past the archaic language to the humor, wit, and intelligence that is Shakespeare. Mr. Reiff has a well of ideas on how to get students to interact with “that dead guy” Shakespeare by using somehitng they already love—technology—to help them move past rote learning to a deeper understanding. It just means that the teachers have to be willing to explore the app store, be flexible in how they assign work or assessment, and be confident in their knowledge of the technology.