Pairing Immersive Reader with Wakelet - Empowering Learners & Innovating

Last week I observed instruction that was facilitated through the use of a Hyperdoc. (It was a great lesson by Ms. Tellez!) The objective of the lesson was identifying the setting and the impact a setting plays in a text.  Having content organized in a Hyperdoc allowed for the students to move at their own pace and it offered different modalities for students to interact with content. Learn more about Hypderdoc's in Jennifer Gonzalez's post on Cult of Pedagogy here.

As students moved through the Hyperdoc and interacted, completed and created content, I noticed that they tended to spend the least amount of time with resources that were text rich and that did not have any media embedded in them.  It made me think about using a tool to help students read the text and allow them to listen to it.  I remembered that I had a chrome extension installed called Read Aloud that will read a web page with one click to a student. You can learn more about installing the extension in a screencast created by JP Prezzavento here. 

Then I was in a Wakelet Collection and discovered the Immersive Reader App icon. That little icon opens the door to so much for students.  (I am a huge fan of Wakelet and wrote a blog post about why you should be using it as a tool here.) The digital content that you save and organize in Wakelet now can be read to students through the Immersive Reader App. Immersive Reader, might be the most useful technology that Microsoft has developed for education. 

Immersive Reader will:​

• Read the text in a new window with text formatted so it's easy to read.
• The user can pick between a male or a female voice.
• The user can slow down or speed up the rate at which the text is read.
• When the app is reading the screen darkens slightly and the word that is being read is highlighted.
• The app will translate the text into over 60 different languages.. 

The translation piece is huge! Watch below to see how easy it is to use.

 An Algebra 1 teacher approached me to help her with a new student that she had just received that only spoke Turkish.  Watch how I used Wakelet to show her how to meet the needs of her new student. 

Taking content and organizing it within Wakelet and then linking into a Hyperdoc or LMS gives a structure to the resources that improves the use of instructional time.  Give it a try and see how it's a game changer.  Through combining these tools, students can learn and interact with content in ways that they couldn't in our classrooms a decade ago!

Give it a try and let me know if you find other ways Wakelet and Immersive Reader can support and facilitate student learning.

*Post Update Mike Tholfsen shared this additional post All  About Immersive Reader!