Friday, December 27, 2019

International Reading Association (IRA) Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #1 Exploration





Oxford Owl (https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk) is a free on-line resource for primary age students. The site was created by school improvement experts and authors that have experience in the classroom. All the information available is updated regularly to keep abreast with the latest information, research, and resources.

Upon registering with Oxford Owl, you will have access to teaching, learning and assessment resources, including book recommendations, storytelling videos, activity sheets and teaching notes, all for free. The site also boasts professional development videos, an eBook library and class log-in access. The eBook access has an audio feature available for some books and has assessment resources as well which I find pretty exciting. The site also offers access to a selection of resources taken from all of the paid-for subscriptions on Oxford Owl for you to try before subscribing. The resources are sorted into tabs for English, Math, Other Subjects, Assessment, and Dictionaries. For the lower grades the site has access to a video of a person reading stories with so much expression. This is especially ideal for ELL students or students who have a hard time reading.

Oxford Owl provides support for primary school improvement, access to eBooks and free resources as well as subscriptions. All this is available for home and school use. The home use provides parents with helpful tips and activities that parents can utilize to support learning in the home-front.

Oxford Owl is designed for users to instinctively navigate the site with ease. There are a couple of ways to search the site. You can use the home tiles which are located at the top of the home screen. They are labeled accordingly for easy access: Home, School Improvement Pathways, Professional Development and Best Practice, Teaching and Assessment Resources, eBooks, and Subscriptions. Every page you access will have the Home button to take you back to the Home page. The second search option is the “Product and Issue Tiles,” which can be found under “Tools and resources from across Oxford Owl.” This allows you quick access to a specific collection of content on the specific product or topic you are searching for. Also available is the filter access which allows you to filter the product and issue.

As an added convenience you may use your log in to access Oxford Owl on up to five different devices or browsers at the same time. When creating student access, the site allows up to fifty users at any given time. This allows at least two classes to work on an assignment simultaneously.








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