The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 holds U.S. schools accountable for the yearly assessment of all students as they progress toward meeting state educational goals. Students with disabilities continue to be a focal point for improving student achievement at the school and district levels. Creating teacher‐made electronic books is an effective method of using technology to support students with disabilities. In the elementary classroom, assistive technologies such as electronic books can capture student responses and enhance student retellings of engaging children's literature. This article provides a brief overview of the use of electronic books to improve students' retellings, and specific instructions for creating electronic books that support struggling readers.

No abstract

Being literate empowers individuals to be active citizens and enhances individuals self-esteem, self-confidence, and independence. In today’s society, literacy requires much more than alphabetic knowledge. Curriculum documents provide content knowledge for teachers to refer to as they assess and plan for the learning needs of their students. However, they also have embedded within them particular views on what is to be taught and how to teach writing. In this paper, we analyse how the teaching and learning of writing is represented in the official (intended) English curriculum standards of the USA, the state of Virginia, and Australia, in New South Wales. Using content analysis, we analysed the standards for the approach/es explicitly or implicitly embedded in the writing standards. We found that a skills-based approach was the dominant discourse in both US and Australian intended curricula. A process approach was present much more in the Virginia standards than NSW, while a genre approach was more prominent in NSW curricula than Virginia. The creative and critical approaches were less present in both countries. We acknowledge that the enacted curriculum may differ to that of the intended official curriculum as teachers bring their own interpretations to the official curriculum documents.

No abstract

The use of ePortfolios to document and assess preservice teacher learning continues to be a prevalent method for encouraging student reflection. This chapter outlines the definition and prevailing uses of ePortfolios and describes the variety of ways that ePortfolios are implemented in teacher education programs. The authors describe the issues that faculty and preservice teachers face when implementing ePortfolios, particularly when writing for different audiences, such as accreditation agencies and to meet program requirements. The importance of technology knowledge and skills for successful creation of ePortfolios is outlined. Through the presentation of two cases, this chapter focuses on the development of ePortfolio implementation projects. The chapter concludes with suggestions for faculty to support preservice teachers as they implement ePortfolios in their teacher education programs.