Dive Brief:

• Bublish and Edmodo have joined forces to create Author Connect, an app that allows classrooms to schedule virtual visits with authors. 
• The app, which will be available next school year, aims to "reinvigorate the way literature is experienced in classrooms around the world."
• Teachers use the app, created by Bublish, to schedule the virtual meetings, and once the date is scheduled, students meet up with the author on Edmodo to discuss thoughts and ideas about the books they've read. 

Dive Insight:

What an interesting use of technology. Bringing real experts into a classroom setting is always awesome, but the opportunity to get an author of the novel you're reading as a class is another level of cool. Imagine how exciting it would be for students to get background on what the author was going through or thinking when they wrote their book. This is also a great opportunity for schools to teach their students about asking good questions — an essential skill for critical thinking. By asking higher level questions, students deepen their knowledge and create connections to the text.

A good technique for districts wanting to introduce rigorous questioning into their schools is the 1-2-3 question process (also known as the Cinderella method). A Level One question is a recall question, a question that merely requires the student to gather information. Think of it as a question where the student could actually point to the answer in the text. Or if we go with the Cinderella theme, it would be a question like "What were Cinderella's slippers made of?" or "How did Cinderella get to the ball?" Next up would be a Level Two question, which deals with analysis or inferences, requiring students to process information by making inferences and reading between the lines. (i.e., "Why does Cinderella's stepmother care whether or not she goes to the ball?" or "Why at midnight did everything turn back to the way it was except for the glass slipper?" Finally, Level Three, or synthesis questions, require students to create larger discussions based on themes in the book. An example of this question type may be "What does it mean to live happily ever after?" or "Does good always overcome evil?"