Wednesday, June 11, 2014

The Best Children's and YA Authors for Teachers to Follow on Twitter, Facebook and Beyond

Melanie Holtsman on Flickr http://bit.ly/1hxukOr

I was on The We Are Teachers Blog, and found a link worth sharing to help others find authors to connect with online.

 "The Best Children's and YA Authors for Teachers to Follow on Twitter, Facebook and Beyond"

Among the authors featured in the list are the following:

  • Patricia Polacco
  • R.l. Stine
  • Eric Carle
  • Mo Willems' Pigeon
  • Lemony Snicket

Author Kate Messener has on her site a list of authors who Skype for free. Her list breaks down the authors by intended school-age audience. Check her post: "Authors Who Skype with Classes and Book Clubs for Free."

Have you tried connecting with authors virtually to bring them into your classroom? Did you realize many authors like to tweet, and a good number will reply? A class twitter account is one way to explore working with an author through the Twitterverse.





Survey about Some of Your Favorites

This is the survey I created while doing a screencast tutorial on:

  • How to use Google Forms to create a survey
  • How to embed the survey in a Blogger post. 


Please take a few minutes to complete this survey. Responses are submitted privately to my Google Drive, as you will see when you listen to the YouTube tutorial.




Here is the tutorial. Turn up the volume on YouTube, and set the volume on your device accordingly to follow along.


Sometimes, it is more convenient to use a survey in a blog post to collect information than to rely on posted comments. The survey allows for collecting the responses in a spreadsheet for review and analysis. Also, use of a survey in a blog post enables respondents to reply without their replies being public on the blog.