web tools – Page 12 – iLearn Technology

Capzles Interactive Timeline Tutorial

February 3, 2011Kelly Tenkely15 Comments6271 views

Capzles is a site that I have written about and recommended many times (you can read one of my original posts about it below). I am currently working with a school that has zero technology. When I say zero, I mean they don’t even have over head projectors. This is a NO tech school. They recently enlisted my help in taking their eighth graders from no tech into a one-to-one environment. Each of the students will be receiving a laptop to use during instruction. The challenge: the computers aren’t all the same age, make, or model. No problem, we will use web 2.0 tools! The benefit of going from zero to fully immersed: no bad technology habits to break, we are staring from a clean slate!

Last week I met with the eighth grade teacher to talk about what learning is currently happening in the classroom and took a look at the scope and sequence of learning for the next semester. I asked a LOT of questions and together we mapped out a plan for integrating technology that would support and enhance the learning that was already happening. We decided to begin by adding technology into art, composer study, history, astronomy, poetry, and literature. I thought about having the students create blogs or wikis to chart and reflect on learning, but in the end decided that Capzles was the best tool for this job. Capzles lets students organize learning in the form of an interactive timeline. Students can upload a variety of documents to the timeline including images, videos, documents, and slide shows. They can also blog directly to the timeline (complete with comments!). The blog feature also provides a way for students to embed other web 2.0 creations. For the learning that these students will be doing, the visual timeline makes the most sense. Students can create multiple timelines or compile all of their learning into one timeline. If students create these timelines based on actual historical dates, they will begin to see the overlap in history, astronomical discoveries, composers, and artists of the time. This leads to a more complete understanding of how the world that they know has been shaped.

Students can also create a timeline based on their learning, each day adding learning to a virtual “journal” of events.

I have created weblists of the links these students will be using as a part of their learning over the next semester:

To Kill a Mockingbird

The tutorial above is a brief introduction to using Capzles, you will have to forgive the drowned rat look…that is what happens when you shovel snow in a blizzard 🙂

Original post from July 22, 2008:

What it is: Capzles is another interactive timeline maker. I really love all the little extras that Capzleshas! With Capzles teachers and students can add photos, videos, audio, and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles also provides options when sharing your Capzle, it can be private with a specific list of who can view the Capzle or made public for the world to see.

How to integrate Capzles into the classroom: Obviously Capzles is a great way for students to create timelines about any subject. The web 2.0 collaborative aspect of Capzles makes it very appealing to students. I think Capzles could also be very valuable in the primary classroom. Students probably won’t be creating their own timelines in Capzles at this age, parent helpers paired with students to create simple timelines would be appropriate. Because Capzles has the capability of adding audio, photos, and text, it would be the perfect place to record students reading throughout the year. As you assess student reading through reading records, record the students using a program such as Gabcast, Gcast,Audacity, or Garageband. Take a digital picture of the student reading. Throughout the year, you can make a Capzle for each student. This is an excellent motivator for students, especially your struggling readers. Students can see their growth throughout the year in pictures, and hear their reading progress made throughout the year. You can share the Capzle with parents (they will go crazy for this keepsake!) and with the students future teacher. How much would you love getting a timeline of your students from the previous year? You would have a jump-start on their struggles and strengths in reading as you quickly flip through their timelines. Cool huh?!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Capzles in your classroom.

Study Blue

February 3, 2011February 2, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2980 views

What it is: Study Blue is a very handy study tool for high-school and college students that works the way they do. Students can use it to store notes and create flashcards. Study materials are then accessible anywhere that students have an internet connection and even from their phone. Best of all, it is free to sign up and get started! Study Blue helps students study more efficiently by keeping track of what students have already mastered, and what they still need work on. This makes studying focused and productive. Students can easily create flashcards based on their notes and use those flashcards to study online or from their phone. Study Blue is logically organized (by class) making keeping track of study materials easy. Students can invite classmates to add to the notes or study materials from within Study Blue. Students can even upload notes they have taken outside of Study Blue. As students are creating flashcards and notes, they can enter text, audio recordings, and images. Even better, Study Blue has a library of special characters that can be inserted into notes and flashcards-perfect for math and language studying.

How to integrate Study Blue into the classroom: What makes Study Blue so brilliant, is the way that it works for students. The features within Study Blue are robust enough to stay up with students needs, but simple enough that it will get used often. Study Blue is a must-recommend to students. I love the way that Study Blue pays attention to what has already been mastered, and works with students to strengthen study habits. The ability to share within Study Blue means that students can work together to share resources, collaborate, and tackle their studying. It may be worth creating a teacher account to share lecture notes with students via Study Blue. Study Blue is a great way to help your students stay organized, and make the most of their study time in a way that makes sense for them. It is flexible enough to work for any student!

Tips: Students will need an email address to sign up for an account on Study Blue. Study Blue is a free service to use, they also have an upgrade version that lets students compare notes with others, print notes, combine flash card decks, etc.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Study Blue in your classroom

Study Boost: Study with IM or SMS

January 26, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments14849 views

What it is: Study Boost is a really useful application for studying. Study Boost makes studying easy and convenient by delivering study content using instant messaging, text messaging, and more. Study Boost helps students study using their mobile device or a social site using instant messaging. The web-based application gives users the ability to post, share, and study material with friends. Students can then take pop quizzes using web-based study cards. Students can set up timing specifications for pop quizzes to prompt them with a question every hour or numerous questions throughout the day. Notes can be uploaded to create a batch of study questions. Students can create a group to share or discuss questions with and even modify and improve batches created by other students to best fit your study needs. Best of all- it is free.

How to integrate Study Boost into the classroom: Study Boost is one of those tools that would have made my school life more manageable. Students will appreciate this study platform that helps them learn material on their own terms. The delivery and quizzing of content can be customized to fit a students needs and schedule. Let your students create study batches as a class. Students can work together to create study guides that they can access through IM and SMS. Invite students to create and share batches with classmates.

Tips: Study Boost requires an email address for sign-up.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Study Boost in your classroom.

Announcing: Voki Education!

January 26, 2011Kelly Tenkely11 Comments3042 views

What it is: Voki is a free web tool that let’s students create personalized speaking avatars that can be used in a variety of online formats (blogs, email, direct link, social network profiles, etc.). Now, Voki has released an exclusive education edition of their service. Voki Education has some additional features that make it even more useful for the classroom. Sharing is now easier than ever. Students and teachers can embed their finished Voki in webpages, email, and social network profiling, they can also share using a “Voki link” which will allow students to share a simple URL to a Voki page. Students no longer need access to a website or blog to share their Voki scene! Voki also provides custom links for educational partners like SymbalooEdu, very handy. A new lesson plan database provides teachers with a searchable database of lesson plans that utilize Voki for learning. Teachers are encouraged to share their Voki enhanced lesson plans. In the new Teacher’s Corner, teachers and “expert” users can discuss anything related to Voki. There is even a Newbies corner with a series of discussions in Q&A format. Voki is now ad-free, this makes it an even sweeter deal for the classroom!

How to integrate Voki Education into the classroom: Voki lets students create custom characters that they can personalize and make speak. These speaking avatars can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom, now that Voki Education includes the ability to “Voki Link” it is easier than ever for students to create and share. Students can make their characters speak by recording a voice via phone, text to speech, record by microphone, or upload a sound clip. Students can use Voki to create characters modeled after historical or literary characters. Students can bring those characters to life-a virtual wax museum of sorts! Those finished Voki’s can be embedded in a class website or blog, or shared by a Voki Link. In math, students can create Voki’s that speak a riddle or word problem. The Voki’s can be shared with other students in the class with a challenge to solve the problem. At the beginning of the school year, students can create Voki’s to introduce themselves to you (the teacher) and classmates. Are your students learning how to speak a second language? Voki’s are a fun way for your students to practice that second language. They can record by classroom phone or built-in microphone. Throughout the year students can add characters to their new language and hear the progress they have made. Voki’s make a great accompaniment for the beginning reader. Students can create a virtual character and record themselves reading. They can play back their Voki to listen to their fluency, pronunciation, and annunciation. Once again, these recordings can be collected throughout the year as a way for students to track and hear their progress. Students can use Voki characters to summarize any learning (how about a summary of the State of the Union Address?). Have a science fair coming up that needs a little tech infusion? Have students create a virtual scientist that describes their experiment or the science behind it.

In my last post, I talked about how I integrated technology in my 2 computer classroom with a tub system. Voki’s would be an outstanding way to record instructions for students that can be played back. Because they can be saved with a Voki Link, the speaking character can be open along side other activities. It will be like having a virtual teacher there next to them! Voki recordings are perfect for transitional instructions. These can be put up on a projector-connected computer or an interactive whiteboard to be played back for students.

Tips: When students publish a Voki they can choose to login or register to save it, or click “No Thanks” to go directly to the published Voki with embed codes and links.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Voki Education in your classroom.

Phile: Create a crowdsource guide around any passion

January 21, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2088 views

What it is: Phile is a fantastic new way for communities to “create a useful, lasting body of knowledge just by talking about the stuff you love.” Phile makes it easy for groups of people work together on building collections and discussions based on shared passions. Phile turns knowledge, opinions, and discussion into useful websites. Turn any passion into a community of collaborators by creating one place for them to gather. Phile lets you structure your site to gather the information that matters to your community of learners. Phile does an outstanding job of keeping your site organized as people add to it. Phile is truly as site all about conversation and sharing information. Phile automatically keeps all information organized and easy to find. A group creator creates and customizes the “stack” (site) design. Group members add and edit pages in the stack. Members can share resources, discuss in forums, on stack pages, etc. Recent activity is populated on the home page including new pages, reviews, comments, etc. Phile is currently a free service, the plan is to keep a portion of the service free with ad support and a paid service that has additional functionality. For now, Phile is in beta and completely free. Phile is fairly easy to navigate and has an intuitive interface. There are helpful hints and tips on ever page directing you in the use of Phile (great for those of us who are too busy to endlessly play!). I created a Phile for edreform, feel free to join me in collecting resources, article, videos, etc. relevant to the education reform discussion!

How to integrate Phile into the classroom: Phile is a great way for teachers to collaborate and share information. Phile could be used for starting a variety of groups that would help organize information in one, easy to access, place. Phile could be used to start a Children’s Literature group where members submit children’s books along with reviews, ratings and comments (any book-a-day people want to jump in and create that?).

Older students could join the group and add their own reviews, ratings, and comments on the books they are reading. This could become a place where teachers could quickly find literature that has been reviewed by other teachers, students, and parents.

Phile would make an excellent directory for ed conferences (and virtual conferences) held around the world. Because many of these conferences happen year after year, it would be a great place for new teachers to learn what is available to them and for veteran teachers to continue conversations and learn which conferences are rated as the most worthwhile and why.

Phile would be a great place for teachers world-wide to share, collaborate, and rate lesson plans, websites, videos, etc. in their area of specialty.

Phile is ideal for sharing iDevice apps for education, with the built in rating system and excellent organization it would make sharing and finding educational apps a breeze!

How about creating Phile’s for the discussions that happen in our education chats on Twitter every week? The Phile could contain information and links about the chat, important ideas and information that was shared during the chat, and give us a place to expand the conversation beyond the 140 characters when it was over. I’m imagining this for #edchat, it would be wonderful to have a place to send those who are new to #edchat to get a feel for the topics that we cover.

The possibilities with Phile are really endless, it is a fantastic platform that is like a mashup of a Ning and a wiki. The interface is really well designed, it makes information so easy to find and sort through.

As I said above, I created a Phile for edreform to be a collection of resources, articles, links, and discussion. Feel free to join and help me add to it. A Phile is only as good as its community!

Tips: Phile does require an email address for sign-up, it may not be appropriate for use with elementary students unless you are accessing it as a class.

Please leave a comment and share ideas for how you might use Phile in education. Anyone want to start a Children’s Literature Phile? I think it could be great! Let me know if you are interested and I will be happy to pass your name onto the developer of Phile.

Quicklyst: Note taking web app created by student

January 18, 2011January 18, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments7149 views

What it is: Senior in high school Shantanu Bala emailed me yesterday with a link to a new web application he built called Quicklyst. Quicklyst is a web application for note taking. Shantanu created Quicklyst to make taking and studying notes easier. Quicklyst makes it easy to take notes, deliver notes to a Kindle device, look up topics in Wikipedia, and define words within notes automatically using the Merriam Webster Dictionary. It is free and easy to use from any web connected computer. Students can quickly organize their notes into study guides and even create a study queue for important notes. Notes can be searched by topic or subject. Quicklysts can be delivered to a Kindle, printed, or downloaded as text files. There is no need to register to create a Quicklyst, to save a Quicklyst, students will need to create a username (could be email address but doesn’t have to be) and password. While students take notes, they can instantly include definitions and search information in their notes. Type a question mark followed by the word you want searched and Quicklyst will automatically add information from Wikipedia and DuckDuckGo. Type a colon followed by the word you want defined and Quicklyst will automatically insert the definition into the notes. Students can click on the + sign next to their notes to add the notes to their Study Queue. The study queue is a place for students to save notes that they want to reference and study later.

How to integrate Quicklyst into the classroom: Quicklyst is a great addition to any student (or teacher) tool box. It makes note taking a breeze, quickly importing definitions and search information into the notes. In a one to one setting (where every student has access to a computer) Quicklyst could be used by students to take notes during discussion, lecture, or any type of whole class learning activity. In the one or two computer classroom, Quicklyst could be assigned as a student job in your classroom. During the class, the student assigned can take notes that can later be downloaded and sent to students, or printed as a study guide. The class job should be rotated so that each student has an opportunity to be class recorder.

Quicklyst is also excellent for teachers taking notes in staff meetings, professional development, or conferences. It is such a simple tool to use and has just the right amount of extras (instant definitions) to make it really useful!

Use Quicklyst with younger students to create KWL (know, want to know, learn) type notes with students. Using a projector-connected computer, interactive whiteboard, or classroom computer, students can begin the chart and fill it in as they learn more. The simple built in search and definition make it ideal for this type of use.

Tips: Quicklyst is a fantastic example of student innovation, it once again begs the question are we providing opportunities for this kind of creativity in schools? Shantanu created Quicklyst in his free time for fun, amazing! I asked Shantuanu where the idea for Quicklyst came about and how he learned how to program, here is his response: Mainly, notes were something I always had a problem with. I’d either lose them or forget them, or just use a textbook since my notes weren’t very good. Although my school doesn’t have laptops for every student, schools are slowly getting more and more computers for use directly in the classroom. I realized it might be interesting to create something that stores a person’s notes online and allows a person to search his or her notes easily. That solved my first problem of losing and forgetting my notes. But there was one thing I found missing when looking through some of my notes: structure. I’d try to continue my notes chronologically, but sometimes there’s a gap when a teacher stops teaching one subject and jumps to something else that’s more urgent. Other times, I’d miss a lesson, and I’d forget to copy someone else’s notes. On a computer, this process is much easier, and copying/moving things around can happen in a couple seconds. I also realized that notes feel very disconnected — there’s a wealth of information available online, and there’s only so much a teacher can fit into a class period that’s less than an hour. Providing that information to a student while they take their notes in class seems like the right direction. It encourages active learning by allowing a student to ask a lot of questions and find answers themselves.

Part of the reason I am really excited about the amount of information available online (and the quality of the information) is because I was able to teach myself how to code in the 6th grade. I just followed some tutorials online, and whenever I was confused I just asked a question on a forum and I’d get an answer pretty quickly. There are a ton of people who write excellent materials and answer questions completely in their free time. It’s really amazing. Once I got into high school, I found out that I could get credit by taking some community college courses in programming, so I took Java and C++ classes. But my favorite programming language is really the one I learned first — Python.

Thank you Shantanu for creating such a useful application and sharing it with all of us!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Quicklyst in your classroom.

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

January 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5179 views

What it is: Tag Galaxy is a neat little tool that helps students to explore relationships between words and ideas as well as view pictures related to that word. Type in a word to search and immediately you are transferred to a galaxy with the original word at the center and the associated ideas orbiting around it. When you click on the word in the center, a globe populates with pictures from Flickr that are tagged with that word. Click on one of the orbiting words and tags related to that word start to orbit. Tag Galaxy is a very neat way to view information!

How to integrate Tag Galaxy into the classroom: Tag Galaxy is a brilliant way to visually explore word relationships. Students can use it to type in spelling or vocabulary words and discuss the relationship the related tags have to the original word. Students can click on the original idea to get a visual understanding of the word in the form of a picture globe. The connection with Flickr helps students to visualize words, ideas, and concepts by providing a variety of pictures that match the tag. Tag Galaxy would make for a fun story starter. Students can type in a word tag to get them started, view related words, and then click on the globe of pictures to spark creative writing ideas. Tag Galaxy can be set up on classroom computers as a creative writing centers, or used for whole class inspiration with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

Check out science, math, art, or geography vocabulary on Tag Galaxy, the resulting collection of images will help your students attach meaning to those tricky science concepts like my photosynthesis example above.

As a side note, Tag Galaxy also offers a pretty good visual aid for learning about orbit 🙂

Tips: ***Very important*** Whenever you are using tools that pull from other sites to populate, it is important to test out the words prior to using with students. You never know how people will tag an image and the image might not be appropriate for all age groups. When using Tag Galaxy with elementary students, have them suggest words that you test before using with the class. In my classroom, whenever students wanted to do an image search, I had them fill out an “image wish list” first. On the wish list students write down words they would like to search. I would do a quick test of the words and sign off on them. This worked well as there were a lot of similar requests (i.e. animals!) 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Tag Galaxy in your classroom.

Corkboard: Classroom Collaboration

December 30, 2010Kelly Tenkely19 Comments5553 views

What it is: Corkboard is a neat little collaboration tool that I learned about on Twitter yesterday thanks to @Grade1. Corkboard reminds me a lot of Wallwisher (which has been a little unreliable lately). Best of all, it is literally a one step set up process. Just type in the web address: http://corboard.me and it automatically creates a unique url for your corkboard. Click to add a sticky note on the corkboard. Give students or other teachers the unique url so that they can add a sticky note. Easy! Sticky notes can be as big or small as you like. Click and hold down on a sticky note to move it around the corkboard.

How to integrate Corkboard into the classroom: Corkboard provides an easy to use platform for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas. Students can use Corkboard to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, and collaborating on group projects. Ask students to add their thoughts to any conversation on history, literature, science, phonics, or vocabulary corkboard. Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Students can share a board to discuss a book they are reading together, predictions for a class science experiment, and to share what they are learning in any subject or lecture. You could create a new corkboard each week where you post homework, resources, to-do items, etc. for your students. Students can add sticky notes to the board about what they are learning throughout the week. These Corkboards can be added to a Weblist.me so that there is a record of the whole year.

Tips: Looking for other alternatives to Wallwisher? Check out: Edistorm or Stixy. Each has a little different features!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Corkboard in your classroom.

Organize yourself for 2011 with the Action Method

December 28, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments2538 views

What it is: You know what I love about a new year? The blank slate. The empty calendar begging to be written on. The chance to take a step back and evaluate how you are working. I am an organizer at heart. I love having everything in its place. I love label makers, file folders, planners, calendars, and software that makes my life easier. For Christmas my little brother (always have to have the little in there to remind him of his place in life 🙂 ) gifted me with the book “Making Ideas Happen” by Scott Belsky. I am about a third of the way through it and already loving it. What my brother knows about me (I think it runs in our gene pool) is that I am a creative person. I am never at a loss for ideas. They flow constantly. The problem: I think every single idea is genius. I want every single idea to come to fruition because surely no one has every come up with something so brilliant before. Even for an organizational nut like me, this is an impossible task. And if I’m totally honest, my organizational skills leave much to be desired when it comes to putting my ideas in their place. Ideas are wonderful things, they make the world go round…but they are only useful as far as they are enacted. When the flow of ideas is constant, many truly brilliant ideas get pushed aside while another round of ideas rolls in. This post isn’t really about the book. While it is a good book, it isn’t really inspirational. It is life changing in what you do with the principles it reveals. Blesky details his Action Method in the book. I immediately loved this method because it works the way I think. It puts everything in its place and gives you a place to organize actionable items (things you can actually work towards completion right now), reference items (all those bits of notes and websites, and pdfs, and pictures I have EVERYWHERE…seriously my husband says I have a problem), and backburners- those ideas that aren’t really actionable yet but could be some day. This keeps those brilliant ideas at the forefront and getting taken care of while the flow of ideas has a place (backburner) so that nothing is lost. Sweet! My next question was: where can I “do” the action method so that I can and will keep up with it? Problem solved, introducing the Action Method online. You can put all of those principles to use in one beautiful interface. Even better…you can access it on your mobile device too. We all know that is a must in this day and age! The online Action Method has a free version which lets you do just about everything…for some extra shiny bits you can sign up for the pro plan. The mobile version is a free download. (There is even a paper version for those of you who like to go old school…normally I am in this organizational camp but like I said, the website is right up my alley.) What is better than starting off the new year organized and with money in the bank?

Here is the Action Method as described on the website:

ACTION STEPS are tasks that need to be completed. Each Action Step should start with a verb: “Call Y,” “Follow up with X,” “Buy a gift for Z.”

REFERENCES are notes, links, files, sketches – any information related to a project that gives context to your Action Steps.

BACKBURNERS are the brilliant ideas that you want to come back to later, but are not yet actionable.

DISCUSSIONS enable you to manage ongoing conversations across all of your projects with anyone that works with you. All relevant communications (shared documents, solutions to problems, feedback, decisions) are in one place.

EVENTS are the key occasions/meetings/milestones/etc toward which you (and your team) are working. Events can be used to coordinate deadlines for Action Steps, aiding project management.

Pretty cool right?! I really like how the Action Method lets you track discussions and delegate tasks easily. Very handy! Need more convincing? Companies like Apple use the Action Method…you know something is working for them! I don’t know about you, but the thought of having everything organized in one place is giving me some major warm fuzzies right now!

How to integrate the Action Method into your curriculum: The Action Method website and app can be used to organize your school life. I constantly have ideas for new lesson plans, projects, websites, etc. that I want to use with students. These can be easily organized with the Action Method. Create a new Project for each unit or educational focus. Action items can be the individual lessons and resources that you are going to complete for that unit. Add any resources you need in the references section. Saw a cool idea on Twitter that you want to use in your classroom but aren’t sure how it will work just yet? Add it to your backburner so you can go back and review it later. The Action Method could very well be the only planner you need! Create discussions with teammates and colleagues (or Twitter colleagues) directly in the program. Delegate tasks to others on your team or even parent volunteers.

The Action Method could be used to help middle school or high school students better organize their lives and learning. It would be especially useful for students who help chart their own learning plans. The site does require an email address (with confirmation) to sign up.

Tips: You can learn more about the Action Method in the book Making Ideas Happen.

Happy organizing!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Action Method in Your classroom.

LiveBinders: Chemistry!

December 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2766 views

What it is: LiveBinders is one of my favorite ways to quickly gather and share information with others. Whenever someone asks me for a collection of resources, I immediately start gathering them in a LiveBinder. I have written about LiveBinders in the past, you can read those posts here and here for ideas of how to use LiveBinders in your classroom. A few days ago a friend asked if I had any good Chemistry websites I could recommend. I had a few but thought I would call on my Twitter network for their favorites. This Chemistry LiveBinder is the result. Thank you PLN for all of your help and recommendations, as usual they were spot on!

How to integrate LiveBinders: Chemistry into your curriculum: If you teach Chemistry (or have a friend who teaches Chemistry) this binder is a great one to pursue! I separated resources into videos, periodic table, games, simulations, and websites.

Don’t teach chemistry but are interested in using LiveBinders? Here are some ideas for using LiveBinders in your classroom:

Live Binders can be used as online digital portfolios for students. Any Word or PDF documents that they create can be added to a binder along with any web content that they create. The binders are easy to keep track of and share. Each tab can represent a year in school and each subtab can represent a subject within the school year. The Live Binder can easily be used from year to year creating a digital portfolio. Live Binders can be placed on desktops so that students don’t have to type in long URL’s to access a website. Everything can be organized and easily updated in a Live Binder for students to access the web through. This is a great time saver for the computer lab or classroom computers. Create your own ‘textbooks’ for students to access as a Live Binder. You can easily add content to it and students can access the materials from any Internet connected computer. Create an assignment Live Binder with all worksheets and classroom materials. Students can access any classroom materials from home, no more lost papers! Students can create Live Binders to keep themselves organized as they complete research projects. Students could turn in a final project as a Live Binder that includes all of their web research, notes, and final written work. Live Binders would be a great way to go paperless at your school. Create a binder with important school information, meeting notes, calendars, etc. for school staff to access.

Tips: Educators are making some really fantastic LiveBinder collections, if you are looking for a specific subject or topic, search LiveBinders, someone may have already created the perfect go to guide!

Yep, that is my smiling face you see in the banner at the top of LiveBinders, I am going to be joining LiveBinders and Dean Mantz on January 12 on learncenteral.org for a live podcast. I hope you will join us too!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using LiveBinders: Chemistry in your classroom!