Alysa Cummings' Poetry Web Site Honored

Before joining the Woodbury Public Schools in the summer of 2005 as Supervisor of Curriculum & Instruction, Alysa Cummings created a website called Instant Poetry Forms that invites young writers to point, click and fill in words on interactive forms that appear on their computer screens.

With a click of the mouse, the child's words can become part of an original poem. During the 2005-06 school year, Instant Poetry Forms became a hit with second and third grade students in West End Elementary School when they visited their computer lab for creative writing time.

Ms. Cummings' award winning website has recently been highlighted as one of only five instructionally effective online resources in a book entitled IT's Elementary written by technology teacher Boni Hamilton; it will be published by ISTE in October 2006.

Check out Instant Poetry Forms at

Instant Poetry Forms

All of our elementary teachers were instructed on how to use this site during a staff development session last week when our new laptop computer labs were introduced. More information on the new laptops is planned for a post on this blog next week. Stay tuned!