Interactive book – Page 4 – iLearn Technology

Mixbook: Yearbook/Storybook/Calendar/Card creator

June 7, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4227 views

What it is: Mixbook saved us this year in a BIG way. Being our first year as a school, we didn’t want to use a big yearbook publishing company to create our first yearbook. We wanted to be able to get as much of the year in as possible (most yearbook companies have mid-year deadlines), we were only having 60 made (small potatoes for big yearbook companies), and we wanted to be able to print one-offs if we needed to. We started creating in Shutterfly, it was a familiar program, most of our helpers had used it for personal books so the learning curve was small. And then the world came crashing down. It was the day before the deadline to get our order in so that it would make it before the school year ended. Two of us logged in at the same time and apparently properly confused the system and lost the whole thing. All 30 pages of it. After throwing a pity party, trying to get in touch with Shutterfly (unsuccessfully), and declaring that there would be no yearbook, I did what anyone would do- I took my pity party to Twitter.

I never did hear from Shutterfly. You know who did come to the rescue? Mixbook. They saw my pity party tweet, apologized for our bad fortune, offered their assistance and let us know that they would be happy to help in any way they could. I was familiar with Mixbook but hadn’t used it before. I hopped onto the Mixbook site and immediately liked what I saw:

The interface is incredibly easy to use.
It allows collaborative working and tells you when someone else is editing the book so you don’t override each other.
It has great templates.
It has great customization options.
The customer service is unmatched. Honestly, any time we had a question/comment/problem they helped within minutes. During business hours they have a dynamite online chat support system. When it wasn’t normal business hours their Twitter genius would get back to me. Emails were answered within hours.
Finished books can be viewed and shared for free online.
They were incredibly helpful in keeping the price of each book reasonable for us. They extended coupon codes, gave us bulk purchase discounts, and rushed our order so that it would get to us with plenty of time to spare.

The books are GORGEOUS. They look better than they do on screen (this hasn’t been my experience with other book companies).

Mixbook is a free online scrapbook/calendar/card creator. With Mixbook, you aren’t limited to pre made templates, everything is fully customizable. The online design software is extremely easy to use and works the way you would expect it to (no unwelcome surprises). Mixbook is integrated with many popular photo sites including Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, etc. You can also easily batch upload from your computer.

How to integrate Mixbook into the classroom: As we experienced, Mixbook is a fantastic place to make school or classroom yearbooks. Despite the short timeline, we enjoyed creating our yearbooks and are glad to have our first year commemorated so beautifully. At the bottom of each page, we created a running timeline of everything that happened in our first year as a school.

Because it is so easy to customize each page, students could use Mixbook to create “published” portfolios or writing. Take pictures of student work throughout the year, keep a folder for each student. At the end of the year, students can create a Mixbook of their work. They can include the pictures of their work and add text boxes where they reflect on their learning or explain the project. For original writing, students can create digital or hand drawn illustrations that get scanned and uploaded to the Mixbook pages. Students can type the story directly in Mixbook. The finished book can be shared for free online, parents will have the option to purchase the book if they would like to.

A photo calendar would be a great way to commemorate a school year and would make an awesome end of the year gift to your students. Each month can include projects and snapshots of what you did throughout the year.

Create specialized cards and thank you stationary for your classroom. Any time you need it, it will be ready to go and more special for your students.

Group projects are easy to create with Mixbook. The collaboration ability is wonderful! You could use Mixbook with colleagues to create custom learning guides that you can get printed.

Tips: As an educator, you get an extra discount for any order of 10 items or more. OUTSTANDING!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Mixbook in your classroom!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week Goodies from Learning a-z

May 7, 2012Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment5754 views

What it is: It’s teacher appreciation week! One thing that I quickly learned in starting a school, teachers ARE the school. I always appreciate companies that recognize and honor this. Learning a-z is holding an Open House during teacher appreciation weeks which gives you free access to all 6 of their sites for the whole week. It also happens to be their 10 year anniversary, to celebrate they are giving away 10 free licenses each day of this week. Learning A-Z is an excellent resource that I have used for ages. Sites include: Reading A-Z which is a great collection of printable and projectable books and resources for 27 different levels; Raz-Kids which is a student-centered site where kids can practice reading online; Vocabulary a-z where you will find 12,000+ pre-made vocabulary words where you can build custom lists for students; Science a-z which delivers science curriculum resources across more than 60 units and includes three reading levels for each; Writing a-z which contains everything you need to teach writing in your classroom; and Reading-Tutors which provides more that 400 reading resource packets to use for one-on-one tutoring.

Be sure to take advantage of these great resources that are being offered FREE to you this week (May 7-11).

How to integrate Learning A-Z Open House into the classroom: The materials and resources at Learning A-Z are wonderful. I like the way they are available at the touch of a button so that you can instantly customize resources and lessons for students on the fly. Learning A-Z is like an instant boost to your classroom library. Students have additional resources that they can access both at school and at home. When I was a new teacher, Learning A-Z was a lifeline! I didn’t have a great classroom library built up yet and I didn’t have the money to go out and build it up immediately. Learning A-Z helped me give students exactly what they needed, when they needed it. My second grade students loved the printed books, they would often color them, take them home and read them over and over again. It gave them a sense of ownership over their reading.

Learning A-Z resources are great book-buddies for home. One year, I podcasted all of these (I wish I had saved them so I could share!) and sent my students home with the book and an iPod nano so they could read along at home. This was wonderful for the kids that didn’t have someone reliable at home to read with.

I also used the Learning A-Z resources as part of my literacy and science tub work. You can learn more about tub work here.

The resources can be used for individual students or for a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Be sure to set up your classroom computers with these resources for your students this week!

Tips: Learning A-Z isn’t always a free resource, but they always offer some free material for you to access. You may find after this week that you would like a subscription. Be sure to register for the license give away…great end of the year present!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Learning A-Z in your classroom!

An Awesome Book by Dallas Clayton: Free online

April 12, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments7178 views

What it is: Dallas Clayton created An Awesome Book for his son. The book is about the idea of dreaming BIG and never giving up. He decided to self publish and worked hard to spread the love of reading the world over. Since then, Clayton has offered his book free online (lucky us!) and started a foundation to give away one book for every copy of An Awesome Book he sells.

How to integrate An Awesome Book into the classroom: An Awesome Book is an awesome book about dreaming big dreams. It is a great book that encourages kids to believe in themselves and in those fantastic dreams that they have. An Awesome Book is wonderful for reading as a whole class on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. You could also set up An Awesome Book on classroom computers for students to read through independently. Fantastic!

When students are finished reading, ask them to create their own awesome books with their big dreams.

Tips: To learn more about An Awesome Book and it’s creator, Dallas Clayton, check out the Very Awesome World Website.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using An Awesome Book your classroom!

Draw a Stickman has a new episode!

March 16, 2012Kelly Tenkely2 Comments4375 views

What it is: Draw a Stickman is a fun little site that I wrote about last year here. They have a brand new episode of our little stickman friend! For those of you who haven’t seen it (or don’t remember), Draw a Stickman is a delightful place for kids to be creative, read, imagine and draw. Students are given sets of directions that they must complete to help out the hero of the story, a stickman figure that they created. Everything that they draw comes to life and interacts with the rest of what is on the screen. Brilliant! These mini interactive stories that have students reading and following directions, solving mysteries, thinking creatively and solving problems. The new episode is just as charming as the last!

How to integrate Draw a Stickman into the classroom:Draw a Stickman is a fun interactive site that uses student creations to tell a story. Students can complete the interactive on individual computers, iDevices (the site works great!), interactive whiteboards, or classroom computers.

Aside from just fun practice at following instructions, Draw a Stickman would be a great fictional story prompt. Students have the bones of a story and can fill in details, vivid verbs, adjectives, etc. to tell the story. Students can focus on fleshing out their hero, the plot of the story, the details, the setting, etc. Students can come up with a moral of a story that they add in the customized ending. This link can be sent as a tweet, facebook link, or in an email to accompany the story they have created. These stories would be fun to share as a class…how many different stories did students come up with using the same base?

On an interactive whiteboard, students can go through the story together, labeling the different parts of the story (beginning, problem, climax, resolution, ending). This interactive can help students identify parts in a story including setting, characters and plot.

Tips: After you have gone through Draw a Stickman, you can personalize the message at the end and share. Add any two lines of text that you wish. This could be a fun way to reveal messages to your students!

Draw a Stickman is also in the App store on iTunes!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ClassConnect in your classroom!

Grammaropolis: Personified Parts of Speech

March 5, 2012Kelly Tenkely4 Comments6098 views

What it is: Grammaropolis is a site I have long been a fan of. I’ve written about it in the past in these posts. Grammaropolis recently got a significant upgrade with TONS of new, great features. The site now includes character descriptions for nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections. In addition to the great descriptions, each character includes a song, videos, book, games and, soon, quizzes. Not all of this content is free, but there is enough free content to be useful in every classroom no matter the budget. All of the content associated with the Noun character is free. Every other character includes the character description and book for free. The music, videos, quizzes and games are “extras” that are available by subscription. You can get your classroom a Grammaropolis passport to access all of the content including the ability to follow and track your students progress within Grammaropolis.

How to integrate Grammaropolis into the classroom: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Grammaropolis approach to the parts of speech is completely brilliant! I love the way Grammaropolis gives the different parts of speech a “face” and an attitude. For those of us who learn through story, Grammaropolis gives us a unique connection to the parts of speech. The books and videos are fabulous. They are extremely well done, and take the characters a step further by dropping them into a story.

The characters interact true to their characteristics. For example, in the “Noun Places” video, Noun sits looking through a photo album of places. As he flips the pages, he names the places. “Antarctica,” he says. Adjective, who is sitting next to Noun, exclaims, “beautiful!” Verb agrees, “very.” The videos and books are so well thought out and really demonstrate to students how the parts of speech are used. So smart!

Grammaropolis can be used as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Learn about, and explore, the different parts of speech as a class. Choose a new part of speech character each week and encourage students to spot the part of speech character in their own writing with a colored pencil or marker that matches the character color. Books can be read as a class on the big screen. Each book begins with the cast of characters with a short description of each part of speech. As you read together, discuss the way that the part of speech characteristics are revealed by their interactions with other characters. The same can be done with the videos!

Students can play the games on classroom computers as a center, or on individual computers in a lab or 1:1 setting. After your students familiarize themselves with the parts of speech characters, they can write their own creative stories featuring the characters. This is great for older students! Students will have to remember that the characters have to act in ways that are true to their nature.

Tips: There are a few different options for a Grammaropolis subscription, the options are very reasonably priced. Grammaropolis also has a brand new store that has some fun grammar shwag. If you have an iDevice, check out the Grammaropolis app!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Grammaropolis in your classroom!

We Give Books: Read digital picture books online for free

January 9, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments7742 views

What it is: We Give Books is a fantastic initiative from Pearson. Here, you will find award winning digital picture books for students through age ten. There is a mix of fiction and non-fiction, a variety of authors, and a balance of read-aloud books and independent readers. New books are added every month along with special, seasonal books. Now any student with internet access also has access to high-quality picture books! Even better? The more books you read, the more books that are made available for everyone. Choose a book to read, choose a literacy partner campaign to support through your reading, and the more that you read, the more books that are shared with those that need them. Way cool! The site reminds me of Lookybook (which is sadly no more). I’m happy to *finally* see another option!

How to integrate We Give Books into the classroom: We Give Books instantly increases your classroom library and puts high-quality books within reach for children everywhere. We Give Books makes an excellent companion to the interactive whiteboard or projector-connected classroom computer for a class read along. Pull up a story and read the book chorally, ask students to take turns reading, or simply follow along. Everyone can see the pictures and words! This is a great resource for practicing reading strategies together as a class.

We Give Books makes a wonderful reading station on classroom computers. Students can access wonderful stories any time through We Give Books. For those students that struggle with indpendent reading (or are emergent readers) there is a read-along option on some of the stories. Students can follow along with the reading building fluency, flow and vocabulary.

If you are a primary or elementary teacher, this is a must-add link to your classroom website or blog. Be sure to share the site with families so that students can access the same wonderful library of books from home. Students (and teachers) can create their own library where they keep the books they have read (or enjoy reading). To add a book to a library, you must be a member of We Give Books- no problem, it is quick and free to become a member!

Tips: Students can use the word cloud on the right side of the We Give Books page to find books about their favorite subjects. Thank you to @Shannonmmiller for pinning We Give Books on Pinterest, it is a great find!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using We Give Books in your classroom!

Codecademy: Learn how to code

January 5, 2012February 12, 2012Kelly Tenkely3 Comments9527 views

What it is: Codecademy makes learning to code a snap. It is an interactive, fun way to learn coding one step at a time. The site will prepare students to program websites, games and apps. Learn independently or with friends, keeping track of their progress and comparing it with yours. Students can track and share their progress to see how much they have learned and to stay motivated. The platform could not be simpler to use and after just a few lessons…I’m starting to really understand and get the hang of programming. I think that is pretty impressive considering that I have never had a lesson before now (not entirely true, a few years ago I went through the learn C in 24 hours course…I could follow along but didn’t really understand what I was doing.)!

How to integrate Codecademy into the classroom: With the popularity of apps, I have students who are just itching to learn how to program. It is great to see boys and girls of all ages excited about learning how to code. Codecademy is something that you can use to learn right along with your students. You don’t have to be the expert because Codecademy guides everyone step-by-step through lessons and lets everyone move at a pace that is comfortable to them. If your students can read, they can learn to code with Codecademy. Today, a fourth grader at Anastasis started going through Codecademy lessons and quickly surpassed me. His excitement was evident as he figured out variables in lines of code, how to set off an alert or command. What I love about using Codecademy as a class or school is that students can work together, encourage and challenge each other. When students hit certain lessons, they unlock new badges to display.

Codeacademy’s obvious use is to learn how to code. For students who are passionate about gaming, websites, and programming this is a great sandbox to learn in. Students get immediate feedback about the code they are writing. Start a class club where students learn how to code together. Use some time each week to learn to code with students, you could set the goal of learning to code together over the course of the year.

Codecademy is great for students who are reluctant to read but love technology. This reading is for a purpose and students love it! With Codecademy, getting an online education has never been so much fun!

Tips: Codecademy has created a new site called Code Year. Make your New Year’s resolution to learn to code and sign up for Code Year. Each week, you will get a new interactive lesson delivered to you via email. By the end of the year you (or your students) will be lean, mean coding machines! So cool! I’m taking the challenge with several interested students and am looking forward to learning something new this year!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Code Year in your classroom!

ABC Mouse: math, reading, geography, and science curriculum (interactives/games/books)

October 27, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4340 views

What it is: ABC Mouse is a complete online curriculum for pre-k and kindergarten students that provides a step-by-step learning path. There are six academic levels that include curriculum that includes over 350 interactive lessons and more than 2000 learning activities. As a student completes one activity successfully, they are guided to the next. The interactive lessons include online picture books, puzzles, games, songs, art, activities and printable activities that relate to different topics and disciplines. Each lesson offers different ways to learn to meet the needs of a variety of students. The reading curriculum in ABC Mouse helps students recognize letters and sounds of the alphabet and sight words. There are hundreds of books build in including fables, fairy tales and non-fiction. In addition to sight words, students can learn phonics, sound recognition and rhyming words/word families. The math curriculum teaches students numbers, shapes, patterns and measurement. Students will play games and activities that help them to recognize and count numbers 1-100, identify and draw shapes, and the meaning of addition and subtraction. ABC Mouse’s World Around Us is an introduction to science, social studies and health curriculum. In the World Around Us, students will learn about the body and health, sports, plants and animals, weather and seasons, and earth/moon/sun/stars.

The lesson builder, lets you choose the content and activities for students to interact with based on their needs and interests. Progress tracking makes it easy to see the number of learning activities that have been completed. There are a lot of fun goodies tucked away including a virtual zoo, farm, aquarium and the ability to record a book in your own voice.

This is a comprehensive, well put together site that is FREE to public schools in the United States and Canada. It is a wonderful addition to the kindergarten classroom!

How to integrate ABC Mouse into the classroom: ABC Mouse is a fun website. Activities in ABC Mouse are fantastic for center use in a one-two computer classroom (or more). The activities and games are short enough for a center activity that students can cycle through.

For kindergarten students in a computer lab, this is a great site to get their feet wet with the technology at the beginning of the year. I often started my students on fun academic sites like Starfall.com where students could practice clicking, navigating, dragging/dropping, etc. These type of sites build students computer confidence, improve their fine motor skills and provide them with content area learning at the same time. I wish this site had existed when I was teaching kindergarten computer!

If you don’t have access to computers for the students but have an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, students can take turns interacting with the ABC mouse activities. The books make great class read along stories on the big screen!

ABC Mouse is a fun way to introduce new concepts/skills, as a place for students to practice concepts/skills, or for review.

Tips: If you aren’t at a public school, sign up for the sample content…the private school dollar amount is reasonable!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using ABC Mouse in your classroom!

Moglue: Create interactive ebooks and release as apps!

October 26, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments12647 views

What it is: Moglue is an interactive ebook builder that helps students create and share their stories on mobile devices as an app. This download desktop platform makes it a snap for students to create interactive ebooks and release them as apps for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch), Android tablets and Android phones. Students only need to build the content once and Moglue makes it compatible with each user interface seamlessly. No programming is required, this is a great creation platform for all classrooms! Using a simple drag and drop interface, students can make their stories come to life. Every child is enabled to be an artist now.

How to integrate Moglue into the classroom: I think tools that make content creation simple are absolute genius. As much as I would love for every student (and myself) to know how to program, it takes quite a bit of know-how before students can make their stories and ideas come to life. The intuitive interface of tools like Moglue let students focus on breathing life into their creations and not on the technology tools used to build them. Tools like Moglue are wonderful for the classroom where students are often short on time and resources (someone to teach them programming). Because the interface is so easy to use, students can focus on telling a story, releasing their inner artist, and letting their creativity shine.

Students (or classes) can use Moglue to:

Tell a fractured fairy tale
Create a choose your own adventure story
Demonstrate science concepts in an interactive “glossary”
Create a class dictionary of math, science, economics or geography words
Write creatively
Create an interactive “textbook”
Create an illustrated dictionary for a second language
Create an interactive “travel-the-world” geography book

This is a neat way for students to publish their work and share with others!

Tips: The Moglue builder can be downloaded on Mac or Windows computers and has a great tutorial to get your students started!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Moglue in your classroom!

Draw a Stickman

October 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments7692 views

What it is: Draw a Stickman is a delightful site that I learned about from @amandacdykes on her blog Upside Down Education. On Draw a Stickman, students are prompted to draw a stick figure, the figure they draw springs to life and is faced with several challenges, students must follow directions and draw several props for their stick figure to interact with. This is a mini interactive story that has students reading and following directions, solving mysteries, thinking creatively and solving problems. Students will love the hero of the story (the character they created) and the villain (a dragon).

How to integrate the Draw a Stickman site into the classroom: Draw a Stickman is a fun interactive site that uses student creations to tell a story. Students can complete the interactive on individual computers, iDevices (the site works great!), interactive whiteboards, or classroom computers.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Draw a Stickman in your classroom!