My English 9 Team and I went through this process recently when we switched from the Romeo and Juliet text to an interactive application. The program is called Shakespeare in Bits (easily Google-able), and it's amazing. Old-timey Shakespearean language becomes tappable into "normal" English. little bubbles for theme, character, and interesting background information are tappable at key moments. There is a character map page, along with background information on all characters. And, most notably, the app includes a performance of R&J that is read aloud and an animation, too. I can't say enough great things about this app in regard to it engaging students in R&J and enhancing their experience of it. Anyway, when we made the switch on an iPad, it was easy. But then when our school adopted laptops instead of iPads, we had to make sure the application would be compatible, which it was. Something we talked a decent amount about was how to use the app most effectively in the classroom. We wanted reading the play to be a shared experience, so what we opted to do in the day-to-day use of the app was this:
- All students would take out laptops, find the appropriate act/scene, and mute their computers.
- The teacher would pull up the app to the same spot as well and project their screen to the class.
- The teacher would tell students how much they would read before stopping to discuss. The teacher would count down "one, two three, go!" and students and teacher would all hit "play" at the same time.