National Poetry Month: Poetry and Technology

Poetry has a very special place in my heart. I started writing poetry in high school and continued throughout college and even into my 20s. Eventually, teaching fulltime, along with other responsibilities, pulled me away from that art form, but I still love to read poetry, and I love hearing it read.

Last year at this time, I posted a blog on Edutopia sharing some poetry resources. This year I will focus more on creating poetry and using technology to illustrate, enhance and share poems. There are a number of technology tools that allow for creating and sharing student work. I have made sure to choose some that are free and do not require a tablet or mobile device to download an app, though many of these tools do have apps.

Evernote

One of my favorite aspects of Evernote is the multitude of ways that you can create notes. Create a Notebook for National Poetry Month and either share it with your students so that they can add their own poems, or have students approach the computer or tablet to record themselves reading an original poem. This Notebook can be shared with families or made public so that many others can enjoy the poems written in your classroom.

Animoto

Animoto makes movie-making a cinch. Have students type their poem in and upload images that go with it. Add music, and suddenly their poetry has turned into a multimedia experience. This practice will also force each student to reflect on and think deeply about his or her poem's message and meaning.

VoiceThread

With VoiceThread, students can create illustrations for their poems and then record themselves reading the poem. This can be an easy way to create a multimedia class poetry book that can be shared with families and other students in the school.

Kidblog

Students can type their poem into a blog post in Kidblog and even choose an image to accompany their poem. They can then read each other's poems and leave comments. These poems can also be shared with other classes and other schools. It could be a great blogging project to do with another school for the month of April.

How are you planning to celebrate National Poetry Month in your classroom? If you have any technology suggestions or results that you'd like to share, please let us tell us about them in the comments space below.