Description:
What is Actively Learn?
Actively Learn is a web-based tool that enables teachers to enhance students' reading and critical thinking skills by adding comments, questions, discussion prompts, and student polls. The product was created to help build students' reading and writing skills across curriculum and to allow teachers to better understand where and why students struggle with reading.
How can Actively Learn be used?
- Reading Tool: Actively Learn can be used to improve students' reading skills by bringing students' attention
to particular vocabulary words, main ideas of the reading, . It also allows both the teacher and student
to annotate text in meaningful ways.
- Critical Thinking and Collaborative Tool: At a more advanced level, Actively Learn can be used for
text-analysis skills, encouraging critical thinking, using teacher created prompts that generate collaborative
discussions and higher-order reasoning.
For ideas on how Actively Learn can be used in your classroom, re-enter Actively Learn using the instructions on the home page. Within Actively Learn, there are three examples of Actively Learn annotated texts and example of how actively learn can be used to create a quiz.
- Rabbi Weiss provides an example of how he uses Actively Learn in his classes.
- A brief, 2 question quiz, is available for you to take, thus illustrating another function of Actively Learn: formative
and summative assessments
- Eleven (Cisneros, 2002) is an example of a pre-annotated middle school text offered for free by Actively Learn
- Inflammatory Response and Leukocytes is a free text offered by Actively Learn that demonstrates how videos
and question prompts can be used to enhance a science text.
On what devices is Actively Learn accessible?
Actively Learn is accessible by laptop and tablet, though the interface is easier to navigate on a laptop and iPad.
How much does Actively Learn cost?
Actively Learn provides a free version that allows access to a limited free library, and up to three uploads a month from google docs, internet articles, or pdf files.
Several paid versions are available. These versions allow for unlimited uploading. Additionally, a vast library of
e-texts are available for purchase and rental. See pricing for more details.
Where do I sign up?
1) Go to Actively Learn at http://www.activelylearn.com/
2) Click on Sign In, located in top right hand corner
3) Either log in through your gmail account or create a username and password.
4) Once you log in, Actively Learn provides an informative tutorial.
Actively Learn Resources:
- The Actively Learn website provides a brief overview of some of the tools they offer.
- The Actviely Learn website also offers extremely useful video tutorials of their features.
- The Actively Learn Blog provides insights into how to use Actively Learn to help struggling readers,
improve reading comprehension, enhance critical thinking skills, and improve teacher questioning.
- Here is a brief video demonstrating the use of Actively Learn, and inserting media.
- Check out the Teaching Resource page for active reading prompts to consider when annotating a document in Actively Learn.