Category: Interactive book

ARKive

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on ARKive3246 views

 

What it is:  ARKive is an incredible website that I learned about from a tweet on Twitter (forgive me I was in the middle of class and didn’t keep track of who- thank you whoever you are!)  ARKive tag line is “images of life on Earth”, but ARKive is so much more than just a collection of images, it has thousands of videos, images and facts about the world’s species.  This is the digital version of Noah’s Ark!  This is the most impressive animal and life website I have seen!  I truly can’t say enough about this site, students of all ages will enjoy this one (I’m talking k-12 here!)  ARKive has an education section of the site that is a free multi-media educational resources complete with downloadable, ready to use audio/visual modules on a wide range of science, geography, citizenship, and environmental based topics.  ARKive also has some great games for students to play that are directly related to the lessons they learn while on the ARKive site.  Games range from building a habitat to word searches and digital fridge poetry.

How to integrate ARKive into the classroom:    ARKive’s ready made educational resources make it simple to integrate into your science, geography, or general classes.  The resources are ready made PowerPoint presentations (which incidentally also open nicely in Keynote which we use).  The resources bring learning to life with images, videos, facts, and some interactive pieces.  This is what textbooks should be!  ARKive’s ready made resources can be downloaded on classroom computers for use by small learning groups as a center, downloaded to a lab of computers for individual student exploration, or used with a projector and an interactive whiteboard for whole class learning and exploration.  The ARKive site itself is a wonderful place for students to explore and learn more about animal species and life on Earth.  This would be a great place for students to collect information, images, and video to create their own presentations.  The games provided on the ARKive site are fun for students and teach them as they play.  For example, students who are studying habitat can play the Design a Habitat game and gain an additional opportunity to interact with the concepts they are learning.  Older students can dig into the facts provided on ARKive and learn about animal classification and species of the world.  ARKive images could be used in the language arts classroom as a story starter or creative writing prompt.  

 

Tips:  This is truly an incredible site, I encourage you to take a look at it and use it with your class!  (Click on the education link at the bottom of the site for the Resources and Games.) 

 

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

Pinky Dinky Doo

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Pinky Dinky Doo2451 views

What it is:   Pinky Dinky Doo is a site I was destined to review, I saw the show advertising the website while channel surfing one day, and on the very same day, Kevin Jarrett Tweeted about it.  Needless to say, I checked it out and was immediately hooked.  This is a great website for pre-k through first grade students.  The site is based on a PBS show of the same name.  The website has fun activities for kids to take part in including word games, story podcasts, videos, and a place for students to create their own story podcast.  Pinky Dinky Doo loves making up stories and teaches students that every story has a beginning, middle, and end.  The stories are often full of metaphores and similes and often have a great message for kids too.  Every story also has one giant fancy word like “collaborate” or “gracious” teaching students rich vocabulary as well.  I love the way that this site expands student vocabulary!

How to integrate Pinky Dinky Doo into the classroom:  Put your students listening skills to work, listen as a class to a podcast story and discuss parts of a story together afterward.  Every story has a distinct beginning, middle, and end.  Students can draw and visualize the story while they listen to it.  The podcast stories would also make an excellent listening center in the classroom.  Pinky Dinky Doo is a great way to teach students new vocabulary, each story has a ‘fancy word’ that will expand your student vocabulary.  It would be fun to use the ‘fancy word’ from the story as  the classroom word of the day.  See how many times your students can use the ‘fancy word’ correctly during the day.  I love the section where students can create their own story podcasts.  Set up a story station in the one or two computer classroom where partners can create a story and listen to a classmates story.  Students in a computer lab setting could create story podcasts of their own and play the word games independently.  The site is easy enough for students to work independently.  

 

Tips:  Check out the grownups section on Pinky Dinky Doo for some great offline activities.  They even have directions for creating a Fancy Word box of your own and directions for playing the circle story game. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Pinky Dinky Doo in your classroom.

The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults3823 views

What it is:   Digital Vaults reminds me of Museum Box that I wrote about a few weeks ago.  The National Archives has put together an amazing site where students can create digital content with primary resources.  Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them.  Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie.  Students can also create a Pathway Challenge.  In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents and other records.  Others can take part in these Pathways Challenges.  There are also ready made challenges that students can take part in, I just took the Lincoln challenge.  Clues are given and students have to find a record that matches the clue.  Very cool!

How to integrate Digital Vaults into the classroom:  This is a truly incredible way for students to interact with history.    While the site may be too hard for primary elementary students to use on their own, the Lincoln Pathway Challenge could be used with an interactive whiteboard with the teacher guiding the challenge.  Teachers could also create a unique challenge that directly matches your curriculum for students to complete.  The poster, movie, and create your own Pathway Challenge are an engaging way for students to learn about history in a hands on approach.  Give students a direction to go and then give them time to collect resources, and create their digital history vault.  This is not history as I remember it…in fact, I’m sure I would know much, much more about history if I were involved in my learning this way!  This is so much better than learning history from an outdated text book, the Pathway Challenges are like virtual field trips through history.

 

Tips:  I learned about this awesome website from Free Technology for Teachers, a great blog!

 

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

Awesome Stories

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Awesome Stories3602 views

What it is:   Awesome Stories is a neat website that looks to me like it could be the future of text books.  Awesome Stories has great primary source materials separated by categories such as biographies, disasters, trials, flicks, history, inspiration, religion and sports.  Throughout the text there are hyperlinks to additional content.  The links are separated by color so you know that when you see a certain color it will open a primary source  image, video, narration, slide shows, artifact, manuscript, document, etc.  You can become a member of Awesome Stories for free, when you do you will gain access to additional features like an extensive image data base, narrated stories, lesson plans, and a free newsletter from Awesome Stories.  This is essentially an interactive textbook.  I love that the site hits different learning styles in its presentation of information.

How to integrate Awesome Stories into the classroom:    Awesome Stories would be a great supplement to traditional text books.  It makes finding primary source materials easy!  With the audio clips, narration, video, and slide shows linked right within the reading material, students are going to get a much richer understanding of a topic or material being studied.  I love that struggling readers can have all the text narrated to read along with.  Many of the videos, audio, and slide shows would be excellent to share with the whole class using a projector or interactive whiteboard.  

 

Tips:  Sign up for free to see the full scope of Awesome Stories, you will be amazed at the amount of content here!  The lesson plans to use with the site are wonderful!

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

Audible Kids

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Audible Kids4720 views

What it is:  Audible Kids was a really exciting find for me today because I am writing an article for the upcoming issue of iLearn magazine about iPods in education.  Audible Kids is a website that engages kids in storytelling through audiobooks.  Kids can download books, read and post reviews for each book, and share their favorites with others.  Kids can discover books searching by keyword, age group, category, award winners, and more.  Students can listen to samples of the stories before they download them with a handy in-browser play feature.  While Audible Kids is not a totally free site, they do have some excellent audiobooks that are free to download.  Roscoe Orman (of Sesame Street) is one of the cheif storytellers on Audible Kids.  Enhanced Audible Kids audiobooks have pictures with the story, perfect for the iPod Touch or a computer center.  For free downloads click here.  Other books range in price from about $0.99 to $20.00. 

 

How to integrate Audible Kids into the classroom:  Because free products for the classroom excited me the most, I will focus on how you can use the free downloads in your classroom.  Use Audible Kids downloads for an iPod listening center, or classroom computer listening center.  Students can register for free Audible Kids accounts and discuss the stories in an online environment with their own classmates as well as children around the world.  Use the stories as a place for students to discover rich storytelling.  Encourage them to listen for voice, emphasis, tone, rhythm as the story is read to them.  Students who learn to listen for these and are exposed to excellent storytellers, will become more expressive readers themselves.  Students could listen to the audiobooks and use a computer drawing program (or just paper and crayon) to draw their own pictures to go along with the story.  This is a great way for kids to learn visualization reading strategies.  If you want to take it a step further, pictures could be gathered into iPhoto or a slideshow accompanied by the audio.  Students will be the illustrator for the audiobooks!  

 

Tips:  If you are in a Mac environment, download Skitch.  Your sudents can draw their pictures on the computer as they listen and they can easily be uploaded to the Skitch website or into iPhoto, Keynote, or Garage Band to create their own illustrated audiobook.  So neat!  Audible Kids has the option of giving the gift of audiobooks.  If this is something you are serious about making a part of your classroom, consider asking parents to donate audiobooks to your classroom library. 

 

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

The Tale of Despereaux Adventure

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on The Tale of Despereaux Adventure2855 views

What it is:  I learned about this awesome interactive site from Larry Ferlazzo’s blog.  It is just too good to pass up blogging about it!  This interactive story book lets students create their own tale in the Kingdom of Dor.  The students become a part of the story as they create a character version of themselves that takes part in the story adventure.  Students can choose to have interactive games and puzzles included in their story.  The story is a virtual pop-up book, it is read to students and they can read along with subtitles.  Along the way, students have to help solve problems in the story by playing an interactive game. 

 

How to integrate The Tale of Despereaux Adventure into the classroom:  The Tale of Despereaux Adventure is a really impressive site.  This would be a great introduction to the book by Kate DiCamillo.  The site would act as a teaser for the book that would have students eager to read.  Even if you aren’t reading The Tale of Despereaux, this is a fun way to get students interested in reading (most of them won’t even realize that they are reading!)  Set up a Tale of Despereaux center on your classroom computer during reading time for a month.  Each day two new students can visit the center and take part in their own adventure.  This site could also be used with an interactive whiteboard or projector for the students to create a whole class story.  If students choose to read the story with the interactive games, they  will be stopped along the way to complete puzzle and logic games throughout the story.  These type of games are great to get kids thinking creatively and outside of the box.  The story can be viewed in different languages, this would be a fun site for foreign language classes to visit in the language they are studying!

 

Tips:  One thing I don’t love about this site is that it asks students to enter their first and last name to be part of the story.  I teach my students never to put their last name online.  I ask my students to make up a last name when creating their story. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Tale of Despereaux Adventure in your classroom.

World Math Day 2009

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on World Math Day 20093674 views

What it is:  World Math Day is March 4, 2009!  If you participated in World Math Day last year with the World Math Day website, you know how motivating and fun it was.  If not, this is your year to join in the fun!  Students play against other students in countries around the world in real time mental arithmetic games.  Each game lasts for 60 seconds.  Students can play as many games as they want to.  When you sign up your class, you will choose the level of difficulty based on age and ability.   World Math Day is best for students who are 5 to 18 years old (k-12!).   There are even prizes awarded including student prizes, and school prizes for highest achievers.  Registration for World Math Day is open (and free), your students can start practicing right now!

 

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom:  World Math Day was one of the highlights of math class last year.  The students who participated had a great time competing against other students from around the world.  I have never seen students so excited to practice math facts and many asked, “can we do this at home too?”  How often do you get students asking for more math practice at home?!  Get your students excited about competing on March 4 and start practicing now.  If you have one or two computers in the classroom you can set up a training center.  Reserve a computer lab during math class to practice as a class.  You can also split your class into teams of 3 to complete the 60 second games using a projector or interactive whiteboard.  You will not believe how motivating this site is for students!

 

Tips:  This is an amazing development, World Math Day 2009 is available on the iPhone and iPod Touch!!!  Woot, woot! Students can join in the fun of the practice period and work on their skills against other students before the big day. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.

Lit2Go

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Lit2Go3885 views

What it is: Lit2Go is a FREE online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format from Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse.  With Lit2Go teachers and students can download files to an iPod or Mp3 player, listen to the Mp3 files on the computer, view the text on a webpage and read along with the audio, and print out the stories and poems to create a customized book.  Lit2Go can be searched by author, tiltle, or searched via the database (by authro, keywords, title, or reading level).  Each reading passage can be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or supplemental reading material for your classroom.  Many of the selections can be downloaded directly to your iTuens library making it a simple transfer to one or many iPods.  

 

How to integrate Lit2Go into the classroom:  Lit2Go is a fabulous resource for all readers, but is especially valuable for struggling readers.  Set up a Lit2Go listening center in your classroom.  You can either download the audio to a Mp3 player or let the students listen from the computer.  Each audio file has a PDF text version that can be downloaded and printed out as a read along.  If students are listening from the computer they can also view the text online.  Lit2Go would be a great help for a reading buddy program.  Send your struggling readers home with a Mp3 player loaded with level appropriate stories or poems and the PDF print out.  Students can practice reading anywhere, even if a parent or sibling isn’t available to read with them.  Reading levels range from .10 to 53.  You are sure to find something for every student!  This is an easy way to help differentiate instruction.

 

Tips: Search Lit2Go in the iTunes store or visit the Lit2Go website to get started.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Lit2Go in your classroom.

Myths and Legends

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Myths and Legends4227 views

What it is:  Myths and Legends is an awesome, free, online digital story telling website.  I heard about the website through @kjarrett.  The story creator lets students combine pictures that they compose with clip art or images that they upload, sound, and words to create a digital story.  The stories can be saved, printed, and shared.  Students can record themselves reading the story aloud and even add video!  The website is pretty comprehensive as far as online digital storytelling tools go, I am impressed!  

 

How to integrate Myths and Legends into the classroom:  Myths and Legends is a great way to get your students interested and eager to write.  The digital story telling format gives students a unique opportunity to express themselves creatively.  Many of your reluctant writers will jump at the chance to create a story in this manner because it doesn’t “feel” like writing.  They don’t get stuck looking at that blank piece of paper and feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead of them.  I have found that students write more, and the quality of work is better when they create digital stories that are shared later with the whole class.  In the one or two computer classroom you can set up a digital storytelling writing center that students can work at, in the lab setting whole classes can create at the same time, and as a whole class with an interactive whiteboard or projector, the entire class can create a story together.  

 

Tips: Each student should sign up and register for a free account so that they can save their work.  As a teacher you can also sign up for a school account where you can login and review all of your students work online. 

 

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

Literactive

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Literactive4815 views

What it is: Literactive is an outstanding website for reading material for pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade.  The program is made up of leveled guided readers, comprehensive phonics activities, and supplemental reading material that is aimed at developing reading skills in a sequential, motivating manner.  To use and view the site is free.  To download material you are required to register but registration is also free.  The guided readers are fully animated and each comes with a breakdown of every word in the stories.  The Road to Reading is an interactive journey for students that moves them sequentially though pre-reading activities, alphabet awareness, letter sounds, short vowels, CVC word blending, initial blends, long vowels, and various phonic activities.  There are over one hundred learning activities that can be used for individual or whole class use that can be downloaded for free.  Worksheets are available in pdf format that correlate with each reading skill.  An ESL version is offered for each guided reader, stories can be translated with the click of a mouse.  E-picture books tell traditional tales for early readers and e poetry is a collection of interactive poetry including poems by Rober Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Lear, and more.  The Literactive website is packed full with reading activities for primary students that will have them on the road to reading!  

 

How to integrate Literactive into the classroom:  Literactive is a complete reading program that should be included in any primary classroom.  I am amazed at the comprehensive list of activities, stories, and scope and sequence of this program.  Because activities are downloaded, after having downloaded them your computer does not need an Internet connection to use them.  Use Literactive as a daily reading center, individually in the computer lab setting, or for whole class instruction and reading.  The activities on Literactive are highly motivating and provide an excellent foundation for reading.  

 

Tips: Register for free today and transform your classroom into a reading-rich environment for your beginning readers!  Thank you to @annemarie80 who sent a Tweet about this site!

 

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