Digital literacy is more than knowing about how and when to use the tools. It is the ability to process information by locating, understanding, analyzing, evaluating, creating, and sharing it using digital technology. In the past, we used to do it with printed materials, but now technology provides access to a much wider range of learning resources available at all times and allows us to communicate information in a variety of media beyond word and text; so, looking up information in the library in traditional ways is obviously not enough. To be literate today requires navigating a connected world offering students endless information with which they can interact in many different ways. Our students are familiar with technology but they use it for social purposes. They know how to copy and paste but they don’t know how to process information with the help of technology. They should master the critical skills to conduct research effectively and come up with creative projects instead of copy-pasted ones. For more information, you can read this post http://aysinalp.edublogs.org/2015/08/05/how-to-integrate-the-new-literacies-into-our-curriculum-part-3-information-literacy/ on my blog. This 21st century research guide contains information on research skills, links to web research guides, alternative search engines other than Google, Web 2.0 tools to conduct research and to present effectively, information on evaluating the quality of content and websites, academic integrity guidelines with emphasis on plagiarism, copyright, summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and citing appropriately, tips on preparing and giving effective presentations. You can use this guide to teach your students A-Z 21st century research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.

I guarantee you that your students will love doing these activities during the first week of the school year and you will become the most popular teacher at the school. All you have to do is to design a Welcome Back to School cover page for the first activity with two cartoons. The questions on page 1 and 2 are about the cartoons that you are going to choose, so please read them before you choose the cartoons. If you follow this link http://tinyurl.com/z3vk5rb or this one http://tinyurl.com/hagfo3u, you will find several cartoons to choose from. This fun activity will also help your students to understand media messages, learn how to analyze cartoons, and to think critically. Both activities require students to reflect on the meaning of education and learning and how they learn best. The journal entry they are going to write, the cartoon and the video they are going to make will not only enhance their creative skills but will give you lots hints about their expectations from you as their teacher. Have a great school year!

This is a great reflection activity for the students preparing for exams. I have designed it for my students who are taking the IGCSE English exam but it can easily be adapted to any other exam such as SAT, IELTS, TOEFL your students are preparing for. It gives the students an opportunity to revise the key concepts they have learned throughout the year and to consider the rules, study tips, do’s and dont’s of the exam while they are working in groups to prepare a learning guide for the students who are going to take this exam prep course and the exam next year. My students told me that it helped them a lot to internalize all the rules and the expectations of the exam and get a good grade. This activity also helps to polish up students’ critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, multimedia and oral presentation skills. Since the students have been asked to prepare a digital learning guide, they are required to use tech tools effectively and creatively. The pack includes three rubrics for multimedia presentation, oral presentation, group work; self and peer evaluation forms; a list of different presentation tools with links; tips and links for public speaking, oral presentations, and group presentations. The most exciting part of this project for the students was the presentation as I took them to the classes of the students who are going to take this course and exam next year to present. If you have time and if you can arrange that, please do so as it becomes a real life experience and makes the project much more meaningful for the students. If not, you can publish the presentations on your class blog, the school website or share it in Google docs. Apart from the time allotted for the presentation, the students spent 8 (40-minute) lessons to finalize the project: • 2 lessons for brainstorming and outlining. • 3 lessons for preparing the guide • 2 lessons for bringing the pieces together and finalizing the presentation • 1 lesson on rehearsing for the presentation

This 19-page lesson is a great opportunity for the 21st century learners to learn about and practice the art of asking questions based on a digital story. Students first answer the questions after watching episode 1. They then learn about asking read on the lines/between the lines/beyond the lines questions, watch episode 2, and ask different types of questions about it. In part III, they learn about higher order thinking questions, analyze the chart on questioning for quality thinking, watch episode 3, and ask lower and higher order thinking questions about it. In the final section, they conduct research on one of the 3 countries used as the setting of the episodes they have watched. They learn about the tools they can use to research, to evaluate and narrow down the information they have found, and to cite sources. They also learn what a big question is and come up with a driving question to conduct their research. Finally, they learn how to share their findings with their peers by preparing a visual presentation and a speech. If you have a class blog or a school website, you can share their presentations with the entire world, which will be much more motivating for your students. The pack also includes a 21st Century style KWHLQ chart adapted from Silvia Tolisano’s KWHLAQ chart http://langwitches.org/blog/2015/06/12/an-update-to-the-upgraded-kwl-for-the-21st-century/, a research guide for the students, detailed information on public speaking and presentation skills, self and peer evaluation sheets, and an oral presentation rubric. The entire unit is suitable for ESL learners as well. If for any reason you are disappointed or not satisfied with this product,please contact me at aysin.alp1@gmail.com so I have a chance to make it right. Your suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for visiting my shop

The activities in this pack have been designed to improve students’ confidence in writing, to enhance collaboration, critical and creative thinking skills, and to encourage independent thinking skills. Your students will have great fun while completing the activities in this pack. As a warm-up activity, students will be directed to a website where they will watch five short videos on different superheroes and do the gap-filling task about each video. They will then: • Complete a diagram, • Make a word cloud, • Write their own definition of a superhero, • Create their own superhero by using an avatar and write a descriptive paragraph about it, • Fill in a Venn diagram and write a compare-contrast paragraph, • Write a journal/blog entry based on a quote, • Work collaboratively to create a step-by-step “How to...” guide. The pack includes a PowerPoint, a rubric, self and peer assessment forms on writing a compare-contrast paragraph. It also includes a video for the students to watch before they start doing their final project. This project requires group work so that the students can improve collaboration skills. The pack includes a brief guide on how to collaborate effectively and why collaboration is an effective skill. There is also a teamwork rubric that evaluates each student’s performance as an effective team member. Since each group will prepare their projects in different formats, there is not a rubric for the guidebook. Instead, the students have been given links that will help them prepare their own rubric after they choose their medium for presentation and plan the project. If you think it is too hard for your students, you can prepare a rubric with them together in class to help them get involved in the learning process instead of giving them one prepared by you. Each activity in this pack is connected with the next one and they all prepare the students to complete the last activity, which is a collaborative project. This project requires the students to use tech in the classroom as they are asked to prepare a digital guidebook. Several links for the tools are available in the pack and the students are asked to choose the best medium to deliver their message in order to improve their digital fluency skills. One device per group will be enough to complete this project. If your students don’t have or aren’t allowed to use devices in the classroom, they can do the project with pen and paper. The warm-up activity, preparing a word cloud and creating an avatar for their superheroes also require the use of tech in the classroom and the students have been given the links for these activities, too. If your students don’t have or aren’t allowed to use devices in the classroom, they can do these with pen and paper as well or alternatively, you can assign them to do these tasks at home and bring them to school the next day.

Improve your students'/child's grammar skills with this fun and engaging bundle. This bundle is ideal for all ESL and ELL students and for the students who are preparing for KET and FCE exams. It includes 8 detailed worksheets on Gerunds and Infinitives, Reported Speech, Passive Voice and Conditionals with: *detailed explanations of the rules * gap-fill and sentence transformation exercises * sentence completions * reading response activities *creative writing activities based on videos. This is intended for use by one teacher. It is not to be redistributed to an entire school or district. It may not be redistributed or sold online. Enjoy! Thanks for taking the time to stop by my store! @aysinalp1 Follow 21st Century Literacies Shop

Improve your students'/child's grammar skills with this fun and engaging bundle. This bundle is ideal for all ESL and ELL students and for the students who are preparing for PET and FCE exams. It includes 8 detailed worksheets on Gerunds and Infinitives, Reported Speech, Passive Voice and Conditionals with: *detailed explanations of the rules * gap-fill and sentence transformation exercises * sentence completions * reading response activities *creative writing activities based on videos. This is intended for use by one teacher. It is not to be redistributed to an entire school or district. It may not be redistributed or sold online. Enjoy! Thanks for taking the time to stop by my store! @aysinalp1 Follow 21st Century Literacies Shop

This differentiated choice board will give your students the opportunity to learn about digital citizenship as well as practicing the 4 C’s (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication) . My students had great fun while doing this activity. You may do it in a different way but I allowed them to choose the task they want to work on and their partners to promote student voice and choice in the classroom. The activities in the first row (horizontal) are for groups of three, in the middle row for students who want to work individually, and the ones in the final row are for the students who want to work in pairs. You can assign the tasks in the middle row for a pair of low achievers in order to enhance collaboration as they are relatively easier and shorter. Please read the instructions to use this document which also includes the Google Drive link for the PDF document. Using the Drive link will give you the opportunity to share this document with your students digitally and edit it. On the second page, there are discussion, vocabulary, and reflection tasks for the students to complete. I hope you and your students will enjoy it:)

The amount of information available on the Internet is astonishing, and it keeps growing. Therefore, students should learn this critical skill to determine whether the information they have found is relevant and reliable. In this unit based on evaluating websites students: * Read a text on website evaluation * Do a vocabulary activity on prefixes and suffixes * Answer the questions about the text * Visit a website and do the activities there to learn more about website evaluation * Choose a website among the ones given in the list and evaluate it by answering the questions in a graphic organizer * Prepare a 5–8 - minute oral presentation on it by using the information in the organizer and following the oral presentation guidelines * Evaluate their own oral presentation and their peers' by filling in the self and peer assessment forms * Prepare a leaflet on website evaluation for younger students. The lesson also includes two rubrics - one for the oral presentation and the other for the leaflet. This unit can be used with English Language Learners as well.

This 21st century research guide contains information on the Super3 and Big6 research skills, links to safe search sites and to videos on plagiarism, copyright, paraphrasing, citation for beginners, , Web 2.0 tools to conduct research effectively, graphic organizers, rubrics, checklists and a song on Super3. There is 1 ppt for Super3 and another one on the Big 6. Once your students master Super3 research skills, they can move on to the Big6 research process. You can use this guide to teach your students age-appropriate research skills. You can also post this guide on your school website or classroom blog.

Great print and teach vocabulary and writing practice for students based on the awesome video, The Present, which ran on over 180 short film festivals and won more than 50 awards. The activities include writing a summary, a tweet, a journal entry, a film review with a rubric, creating a word cloud, color-coding parts of speech, and filling in a vocabulary journal. The pack also includes some questions to enhance critical thinking skills and links that will help students write their film review. Suitable for ELL and ESL students as well.

The activities in this pack have been designed to improve students’ confidence in writing, to enhance collaboration, critical and creative thinking skills, and to encourage independent thinking skills. Your students will have great fun while completing the activities in this pack. As a warm-up activity, students will be directed to a website where they will watch five short videos on different superheroes and do the gap-filling task about each video. They will then: • Complete a diagram, • Make a word cloud, • Write their own definition of a superhero, • Create their own superhero by using an avatar and write a descriptive paragraph about it, • Fill in a Venn diagram and write a compare-contrast paragraph, • Write a journal/blog entry based on a quote, • Work collaboratively to create a step-by-step “How to...” guide. The pack includes a PowerPoint, a rubric, self and peer assessment forms on writing a compare-contrast paragraph. It also includes a video for the students to watch before they start doing their final project. It requires group work so that the students can improve collaboration skills. There is a brief guide on how to collaborate effectively and why collaboration is an effective skill. There is also a teamwork rubric that evaluates each student’s performance as an effective team member. Since each group will prepare their projects in different formats, there is not a rubric for the guidebook. Instead, the students have been given links that will help them prepare their own rubric after they choose their medium for presentation and plan the project. If you think it is too hard for your students, you can prepare a rubric with them together in class to help them get involved in the learning process instead of giving them one prepared by you. Each activity in this pack is connected with the next one and they all prepare the students to complete the last activity, which is a collaborative project. This project requires the students to use tech in the classroom as they are asked to prepare a digital guidebook. Several links for the tools are available in the pack and the students are asked to choose the best medium to deliver their message in order to improve their digital fluency skills. One device per group will be enough to complete this project. If your students don’t have or aren’t allowed to use devices in the classroom, they can do the project with pen and paper. The warm-up activity, preparing a word cloud and creating an avatar for their superheroes also require the use of tech in the classroom and the students have been given the links for these activities, too. If your students don’t have or aren’t allowed to use devices in the classroom, they can do these with pen and paper as well or alternatively, you can assign them to do these tasks at home and bring them to school the next day.

This is a fun beginning of the year activity to get to know your students and help them to readjust to the school system by doing a relaxing, fun activity. It is suitable for both virtual and face-to face learning. Including music in the activity will spice up your lesson while allowing your students to be creative. It will also allow them to reflect on their lives and share the turning points in their lives with the whole class and with you, which will help to you build positive relationships with them and build a positive classroom community. I posted the Power Point version here, and you can find the links for Google Slides versions in the Teachers Guide. Enjoy:) Please visit my shop at https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/aysinalp58 to see more resources.

There are two resources in this pack for the first week/s of school suitable for both virtual and face-to-face learning. I posted the Power Point versions here, and you can find the links for Google Slides versions in the Teacher’s Guide. Both activities will allow you to get to know your students better and build positive relationships with them. Since each student is going to complete them individually, they are naturally differentiated. Enjoy:)

There are two resources in this pack for the first week/s of school suitable for both virtual and face-to-face learning. I posted the Power Point versions here, and you can find the links for Google Slides versions in the Teacher’s Guide. Both activities will allow you to get to know your students better and build positive relationships with them. Since each student is going to complete them individually, they are naturally differentiated. Enjoy:)

This is a fun beginning of the year activity to get to know your students and help them to readjust to the school system by doing a relaxing, fun activity. It is suitable for both virtual and face-to face learning. Including music in the activity will spice up your lesson while allowing your students to be creative. It will also allow them to reflect on their lives and share the turning points in their lives with the whole class and with you, which will help to you build positive relationships with them and build a positive classroom community. I posted the Power Point version here, and you can find the links for Google Slides versions in the Teachers Guide. Enjoy:) Please visit my shop at https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/aysinalp58 to see more resources.

This 33-page cross-curricular pack is ideal for the teachers who want to prepare their students for the requirements and the challenges of the century that we live in. The activities cover all the 21st Century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, effective communication, and problem-solving skills. After the warm-up activities, students watch an ecological rock opera on extinction and answer questions about it. They then • write a journal entry on how the lyrics relate to the problem in the story and how they give a powerful message, • write the lyrics of a new song for the rock opera, design a comic strip to convey the message of their song, • create a video about an animal facing extinction or an animation on environmental issues, • write a letter to one of the world leaders about environmental issues, • prepare a 10-minute Ted talk style speech on environmental problems and their solutions for them using the information they have learned, • conduct a school-wide project on an environmental issue of their own choice. All the activities are guided and students are given several resources to choose from to make a video or animation, to write the lyrics, to design a comic strip, to give an effective speech, and to prepare an effective presentation. Most of the activities require group work so that the students can improve collaboration skills. The pack includes a brief guide on how to collaborate effectively and why collaboration is an effective skill. There is also a teamwork rubric that evaluates each student’s performance as an effective team member. There is a rubric for each activity, self and peer evaluation forms, a reflection activity, and a learning journal for the students to fill in.