In a workshop I am co-leading with teachers around understanding the Common Core and how it relates to our teaching practice, we moved into discussing how to best find and use informational texts the other day. What we wanted was for the teachers themselves to do research around companion informational texts that would make sense for them (such as informational articles that would complement the reading of a novel or short story), but we also wanted to share those out so that they would all benefit from each other’s inquiry work. And, another of our goals is embedded use of technology in the workshop series.
The result is that we created a Google Doc, and introduced most of them to Google Docs and online word processing/sharing, and using a table, they went in and added links and annotations about the articles or resources they found. I then took that compiled, collaborative list and used Jog the Web to created this collection that runs the gamut from connecting science to the Spiderman movies to Ellis Island and the immigration experience to the Danish resistance in World War II.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin