Jean Reidy

Dear teachers,

HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY!

I hope your tulips are blooming, your temperatures are warming and your school year is winding down well!

I’ve been busy wrapping up my final school visits for the year and my last few bookstore stops for my picture book, PUP 681 (Macmillian/Holt/Godwin, 2/19). Then I fire up for a big summer with the release of another picture book, TRUMAN (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster) – a first day of school story! – in July. Phew! It’s going to be fun!

And speaking of books …

My good friend, Boni Hamilton, is seeking contributors for her latest book. Her bio and specific request is embedded below. Please contact Boni directly if you’re interested. And feel free to mention my name.

With admiration,

Jean

Who’s Boni Hamilton?

Boni Hamilton combines her love for children, teaching, writing, and technology into books for teachers about improving instruction through the use of digital tools in the classroom. During two doctoral programs, Boni has focused on effective instruction in the K-12 environments. Boni’s expertise in working with culturally and linguistically diverse students comes from five years of working on a multidisciplinary team of university professors to design online learning modules for math and science teachers of multilingual students. Boni’s role ranged from finding resources and designing modules to working directly with classroom teachers as they struggled to adapt their instructional practices to better serve their multilingual students. The end result is a book to help K-12 classroom teachers effectively blend good instruction for multilingual students with thoughtful use of digital tools to increase the academic accomplishments of students who are linguistically and culturally diverse. Boni earned her Ed.D. degree from the University of Northern Colorado and Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado Denver.

Boni’s request:

For my current book on using technology with students who are learning English as an additional language (ELL, EL, ESL, ESOL, etc.), I am looking for individuals with the following profiles to contribute to my book. There is no pay for contributions other than bragging rights and a copy of the final book. Contributions are about 500-1,000 words and focus on how a teacher or student used a digital tool, website, or device to enhance learning while supporting language development.

Types of individuals and contributions:

1. Classroom teachers in classrooms with diverse learners, including language learners. These contributions would be about the use of a technology device/tool or the implementation of a technology-based project that enhanced multilingual students’ ability to comprehend content, improve in language skills, or share their culture(s) with others. Examples are writing books in dual languages, using a translation dictionary, creating collaborative multimedia projects that included speaking, cross-cultural exchanges with students in other places, use of pictures to enhance comprehension, or using an online simulation for hands-on experiences (or a myriad of other ideas). Teachers could also write about using digital resources to enhance their instruction for multilinguals as in developing graphic organizers, alternative assessments, using videos, flipped classroom experiences, use of an online platform that includes audio feedback, etc.
2. Multilingual students who can write about their backgrounds and the digital tools they find helpful. The goal is to demonstrate the wide array of students who sit in classrooms and the importance of understanding their backgrounds in order to provide rich instruction. Also, this is where students can point out what was memorably helpful in their school experiences. Student contributions would consist of a
   • brief background (home country, home language, previous schooling before entering US schools, reason for being in US schools, when they entered US schools and their language level at the time of entry, parental schooling/employment [optional], and goals for adulthood [optional]),
   • first-year memories of being in American schools, and
   • digital tools that have been helpful in either gaining language skills or understanding the academic concepts in classrooms.
3. Specialist teachers who can highlight some aspect of working with multilingual students in regular classrooms. What digital tools can be good resources and how should they be implemented? Ideally, the focus would be one or two tools. For instance, a specialist recently told me about having students audio-record their thinking in Seesaw (https://web.seesaw.me/) and developing speaking portfolios. I’d love also at least one specialist/classroom teacher team to write about collaboration.

Anyone who is interested or who knows of a good person for me to contact can get in touch with me at bonihamilton@gmail.com.