iLearn Technology

What it is: Murally is a tool I learned about from my friends over at House of Genius.  Murally’s tagline is: “Google Docs for visual people.”  Being highly visual, that description immediately resonates with me!  Murally reminds me a little bit of Wallwisher (now Padlet), it is a way for learners to come together to think, imagine and discuss their ideas.  With Murally, students can create murals and include any content they want in them.  Learners can drag and drop images, video, etc. from any website (or from their computer) onto their mural.   Learners can create presentations from within a mural they have already created.  The best part: this all happens with the ability to collaborate with others.  Murally makes it easy for students to collect, think, imagine, show and discuss learning.  Murals can be made public (shared live with a link) or private (only friends granted permission can access the mural).

*** email address, Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus account required for login.  You know what that means: 13 or older!

How to integrate Murally into the classroom: Murally is brilliant in the way that it enables learners to work and dream together.  My FAVORITE feature: you can drag and drop content from ANYWHERE!!! It works like the spring-loaded folders in Apple’s iOS.  LOVE this feature.  Honestly, this ability to clip content is a game changer.  It makes creating a mural incredibly easy.  Stinking brilliant!  

Murally is the tool that I wish existed when I was doing research projects in school.  Students can conduct and collect their research solo or invite friends to contribute to their research mural.  Students can add text, drag and drop links, pictures, video and other content.  After they have gone through the hunting/gathering phase of research, Murally makes it easy for students to go through and mindmap it all into some sort of order.  This tool is going to make me a better writer.  Visually being able to organize research and thoughts is HUGE.

Being inquiry based, I love the idea of beginning a mural for students with the driving inquiry alone on the board.  The learners job: be curious together.  Ask questions, explore, research, collect evidences collaboratively.  Capture all of that learning in one place.

Murally could be used for any mind-mapping appropriate project.  This is mind-mapping in the future.  Truly amazing!  The collaborative nature of Murally is fantastic.

Students could begin a Murally with a novel as the base.  As they read, they can include quotes, related thoughts, pictures, video clips, discussion, and related research.  I’m always amazed by the connections that our students make to other learning, a commercial they have seen, or a song.  Murally is a great way to visually collect all of this to share with others.

Murally would be an outstanding way to hypothesize about what will happen in a science experiment.  Students can then add in any research, class notes, discussion, etc.  After students have conducted the experiment they can include observations, photos, and final conclusions.

Use Murally with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard for class notes.  As class discussions unfold, notes can be taken for the whole class and shared later.  Students can add to these later with additional learning, thoughts, and plans.

Because Murally can be used to show learning, consider creating map boards where students link what they know of Geography with the cultures, habitats, religions, politics of that area.

Murally would make the COOLEST “textbook” alternative.  Student created, mashup of all different tools, collaborative, discussion included, and organized in the way that makes sense to the learner.

This is one of those tools that has my mind spinning.  The possibilities overlap all subject areas and are endless.

Tips: The collaborative feature of Murally is so well thought out, see history and message collaborators quickly and easily.  Wonderful!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using  Murally in your classroom.

Widbook – Write, read and share! from Widbook on Vimeo.

What it is:  Widbook is a new publishing platform for ebooks.  What makes this publishing platform so neat is the social aspect, it allows authors to collaborate and make suggestions.  Each user also gets their own bookshelf where they can subscribe to other author’s work.

When students start a new ebook, they can choose who can see the book when it is published, choose whether they will accept collaboration for the book, and choose if they want to accept comments for the book.  Actually writing the book is fabulously simple.  All of the onscreen tools are easy to use and intuitive as to their function.  The book can have a table of contents, multiple chapters, and pictures and video embedded right into the book.  When students are finished, they simply save the book and publish it.  The finished book gets a unique url that can be shared.

How to integrate Widbook into the classroom:  Widbook is a fantastic, simple tool for secondary students to use to create ebooks. Students can create individual published works that can be commented on by other students and the teacher.  Students can receive relevant-real time feedback not only from their teacher, but also from other students.  Students not only get practice writing their own works, they also get practice evaluating writing of their peers.

Students can use Widbook to write final drafts of any piece of writing be it an essay or creative writing assignment.  The ability to add video and images easily is wonderful.

Widbook would also be a great place for students to collaboratively create books about their learning.  Each student can add a chapter, or groups of students can create chapters together.  Instead of assigning students a textbook to read for the semester, include them in the creation of a collaborative textbook.  Provide students with a table of contents and put them to work creating a chapter for each topic/unit throughout the year.  At the end of the year, each student will have a book of their learning that they helped to create.  Much more useful than a textbook that one of the Big Six wrote that gets opened only before tests!

Are you having trouble finding a book that matches your classroom learning needs?  Create an ebook that perfectly meets your students right where they are.  Include videos and images relevant to learning.

***For younger students be sure to check out BoomWriter!

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

What it is: National Geographic Kids is a constant source of excellent activities but their new Animal Jam virtual world is above and beyond my favorite.  My students love virtual worlds, they enjoy being immersed in a story, sent on a mission, and interacting with each other to complete adventures and learn.  Animal Jam lets them do all of these things while providing a virtual world where they can discover real-world plant and animal information and follow a rich storyline that has National Geographic’s multi-media content built in.  Cool huh?!  Animal Jam does something else, it excites students to learn more about the real world around them, so when they aren’t playing in the virtual world, they will be excited to learn more about the world they live in.  The virtual world is an easy one for students to pick up on and learn, it is perfect for young students and caters to their specific levels of play and developmental stages.  Animal Jams will be one of those environments that is as appealing to fourth grade students as it is to first grade students.  The online environment is safe and monitored so you can feel comfortable introducing it in your classroom.  Each portion of the sign up process is narrated so it is easy for even young students to sign up.  The site requires a parent’s email address to sign up, the email is required but does not have to be verified before play can begin.  In a classroom setting, a teacher or classroom email address could be used for sign-up. The email address allows an adult to monitor and adjust settings in a child’s game.

How to integrate National Geographic Kids Animal Jam into the classroom: After students sign up, they are entered into the magical world of Jamma where they are introduced to the world.  Each portion of the game is narrated making it accessible to early readers, struggling readers, and English language learners.  As students explore the world of Jamma, they will find embedded learning about different kinds of plants and animals along with incredible National Geographic images.  Animal Jam is a nice environment to let your young students practice what they are learning about online safety and netiquette.  As students explore Jamma, they will learn about links, navigation with mouse and arrow keys, and learn fun facts in the process.

Every primary curriculum that I have seen carves out time for students to learn about plants and animals.  Animal Jam is a fun place for them to discover this learning within the virtual world.  Send your students on expeditions and adventures to find these learning opportunities.  As they play in Animal Jam, students can keep an observation journal where they record the plants and animals they are discovering like a scientist would.  Ask your students how many of the plants and animals they can find in real life around their homes.    If you are learning about ecosystems and environments, ask students to count and name the different ecosystems they can spot in Animal Jam.  This site is ideal for the computer lab setting, make sure to at least begin the game in the computer lab where each student has a computer.  After the kids are signed up and familiar with the world, it could become a center activity for your classroom computers throughout the year.

Tips: Right now Animal Jam is in Beta.  The world is free to join and play in but premium accounts are also available to students.

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

What it is: Kerpoof is a website that I use often with my students, I like it so much I have written about it a few times before here and here.  Kerpoof has just added a brand new Make a StoryBook tool.  Kerpoof’s Make a Storybook is an excellent addition to the already great lineup of Kerpoof tools.  Here students can create their own picture and story books.  They can use Kerpoof’s backgrounds, props, and characters or draw their own illustrations.  Students can write their story in both text boxes and speech bubbles.  The interface is extremely user friendly, kids will pick it up in no time!  The sidebar has thumbnails of each page that students have created, making it easy to see their progress.  Students can save their finished Story Books on their Kerpoof account to share with other students, download the finished Story Book to their computers, or print out their completed stories.  

How to integrate Kerpoof’s Make a StoryBook into the classroom: Kerpoof’s Make a StoryBook is a fantastic place for students to “publish” their written work.  Students can practice writing fairy tales, poetry, collaborative stories, fables, math based stories, illustrated science journals and non-fiction books.  Kerpoof offers the freedom of creativity, students are only limited by their own imaginations.  Set up your classroom computers as a publishing center where students can create a finished, published piece of work.  Create collaborative class stories using Make a StoryBook on an interactive whiteboard or projector.  Print out finished stories and add them to your classroom library for other students to “check out” and read.

Tips: In addition to the new Make a StoryBook, Kerpoof has added another fun activity called Spell a picture.  Students can choose a background for their picture and use the letters below to practice spelling words.  As they spell, pictures pop up that begin with those letters.  As they continue spelling, Kerpoof narrows the pictures down to the one that a student has spelled.  For example, when students select “c” pictures of a cow, cat, corn, car, cab, and cap pop up on the scene.  As they continue selecting letters, the pictures get more specific and Kerpoof points to the suggested pictures of what has been spelled.

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

What it is: LEGO Education is looking for 10,000 contestants for its 2010 LEGO Smart Creativity Contest.  You can sign your classroom up to participate from now to July 2010, challenging your students to be LEGO Smart.  When you sign up, you will receive a free LEGO Smart kit to use for the contest.  Beginning in August 2010, your students will be challenged with a variety of activities that will encourage them to think creatively.

How to integrate LEGO Smart Creativity Contest into the classroom: Take a look at the activities from last year, there are math, geography, science, collaboration, and social studies projects.  The activities are all a lot of fun.  The contest is a fantastic way to get your students thinking outside the box, in new and creative ways, while working together to accomplish tasks.  Your students will be working collaboratively, solving problems, and creating solutions.  Students will be demonstrating their understanding of technology, math, engineering, science and math.  I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t enjoy LEGOs.

Tips: For most of us, the contest won’t start until the next school year, sign up today and have some awesome activities ready for next year.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using LEGO Smart Creativity Contest in your classroom.