Category: Interactive book

International Childrens Digital Library

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on International Childrens Digital Library3908 views

 

What it is:  The International Childrens Digital Library (also known as ICDL) is an online digital library for children of all ages.  The mission of ICDL is to “ excite and inspire the world’s children to become members of the global community – children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas — by making the best in children’s literature available online.”  When students visit the ICDL website they are brought to a simple search area where they can choose different options for finding a book.  They can narrow down results by age (3-13), fiction or non-fiction, book length, award winners, language, picture or chapter books, subject matter, and even what colors that cover has in it.  When students choose a book they can read the book in its entirety online.  I learned about this site in the iTunes store, they have a free iPod Touch and iPhone application for downloading books from the ICDL in addition to their online content.  So neat!

 

How to integrate ICDL into the classroom:   The ICDL website reminds me a lot of LookyBook.  The search options are extremely user friendly and allow even the youngest readers to find a book they are sure to love.  Students can register for the library (free) and then leave an online review of the book.  I like the idea of digital libraries for students because it opens up a number of books to them that they may not otherwise have access to.  If a story is started during school, students can finish the story when they get home from any Internet connected computer.  The ICDL is nice for reading groups.  All students can be reading the same book from school and from home without setting aside a large budget for group sets.  The search is a wonderful way for students to discover what types of literature they enjoy.  Many of the books featured are from different cultures and languages, these would be perfect to bring into a foreign language classroom.  ICDL books provide a fun way for students to gain global awareness.  Books in other languages could also be used as a starting point for student created stories.  Students can do picture walks through the online books and then compose their own story to accompany the pictures.  ICDL is a great way to read with the whole class.  Connect your computer with a projector and students can read the story along with you, everyone will be able to see the pictures as you discuss the story!  

 

Tips:  One thing that I really appreciate about ICDL is the ability to view the books full screen and zoom in and out of the pages.  The site is easy to navigate and this feature makes it even more user friendly.  

 

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

App Shopper

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on App Shopper2059 views

 

What it is:  The iPod Touch has opened up a whole world of portable education to schools.  Several of the Applications in the iTunes Application store are free!  App Shopper is a website that makes it simple to find free education applications for the iPod Touch (or iPhone).  Select your category, free, and enjoy browsing through great, free applications for your students!  

 

How to integrate App Shopper into the classroom:  Use App shopper to easily find free applications for your classroom iPod Touch(es).  I like the way that App Shopper shows an icon of the program and gives a description of the application.  Applications can be downloaded right from App Shopper or from iTunes…these are free to use, who doesn’t appreciate free classroom tools?!

 

Tips:  The second edition of the iLearn Ezine is coming soon with a great section on iPods in education and a review of the best free education apps.

 

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

Speakaboos

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Speakaboos4195 views

 

What it is:  Some websites are so impressive that I immediately spam all teachers in my address book with them.  Speakaboos is one of these sites for me.  I learned about the site from the Free Technology for Teachers blog (I highly recommend it for middle and high school teachers).  Speakaboos is a collection of online children stories read by celebrities (although this is not what impresses me).  Each story is read aloud with flash illustrations and the words on each page for read-along.  The stories are captivating and include popular titles like Arthur and Curious George.  This highly engaging website has some other features that make this one of my favorite website finds of the year.  When you sign up for a free membership, Speakaboos offers a free story download.  The download is a swf (flash) file but can be converted with a site like Zamzar to make it iPod ready (aka mobile learning!).  They plan to add more free downloads throughout the year.  Parents can also purchase individual stories iTunes style for $0.99.  Speakaboos  has a feature coming for parents, students, grandparents, teachers, etc. to record their own stories!  Speakaboos offers several activities for students including a diary to write in, a place to create their own story, games, ecards, and printable coloring pages from their favorite stories.  Speakaboos is in beta version right now so some of the above features are not yet  active.  

 

How to integrate Speakaboos into the classroom:   Speakaboos stories and activities are a fun and engaging way to develop students reading, writing, and speaking abilities while learning basic computer skills.  The Record your own Story feature is a wonderful way for students to practice fluency, it is also a great feature for struggling readers who can listen for mistakes that they make during reading.  Older students could make recordings for their younger reading buddies to enjoy.  The ability to download select stories for free is amazing for an iPod reading lab.  Speakaboos is a great reading or writing center for students to visit in the one or two computer classroom.  It would also make a nice whole class read along using a projector.  Speakaboos offers free story guides for teachers to help lead discussions on each story.  The guides come complete with themes to help reinforce the story message and offer questions to check general comprehension, discussion, and personal extension.  There are also printables that you can use with your class in conjunction with the Speakaboos site.

 

Tips:   Membership on Speakaboos is free and provides access to the free downloads.

 

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

Northpole.com

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Northpole.com2565 views

What it is:  Northpole.com is a fun Christmas themed website for kids pre-k through 3rd grade.  Students can work on fine motor skills with activities like connect the dots, connect the dashes, and mazes.  You will also find great Christmas time activities to help build letter recognition, sound recognition, vocabulary, numbers, ordinal numbers, right and left, and size.  Students can practice writing skills with a letter to Santa or a holiday postcard.  Northpole.com has printable awards and diplomas for students who complete the activities.  Northpole.com also has a number of online Christmas stories that students can read on their own or have read to them.  My favorite feature are the personalized stories.  Students fill in their name and some other information and Northpole.com creates a story with the student as the main character that they can immediately read online!  

 

How to integrate Northpole.com into the classroom:  Use the outstanding activities on Northpole.com during the holiday season to teach and reinforce fine motor skills, alphabet, numbers, reading, and writing.  Set up your classroom computer as a personalized story generator.  Throughout the week, allow students to read a story about themselves during silent reading time.  

 

Tips:  The teacher page at Northpole.com gives a great break down of the site so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

 

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

Voice Thread Update

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on Voice Thread Update4457 views

 

What it is:   Voice Thread is an amazing site that just keeps getting better!  Voice Thread is the site that makes outstanding web 2.0 slide shows interactive and collaborative.  You can read my original posts about Voice Thread here.  Voice Thread came out with an outstanding new update yesterday, the ability to take your Voice Thread’s with you via an iPod!!!  Whenever you export a Voice Thread, you now have the option to download a full sized, high resolution movie version or one that has been formatted to go directly onto you iPod, or iPhone- how sweet is that?!  Additional new features include the ability to clone your Voice Thread so that you can have a backup copy or a copy of the same Thread to use with different audiences.  Voice Thread now supports Microsoft Office 2007 formats when uploading into your Voice Threads with Microsoft Photo Story 3 video supporting coming.  

 

How to integrate the Voice Thread Updates into the classroom:  So, why am I so excited about the new Voice Thread features?  The ability to save a Voice Thread onto an iPod or iPhone opens up a whole new realm of possibilities in the classroom.  Now you can create learning activities with Voice Thread that are portable for your students.  You can extend your students learning day with a Voice Thread based on your curriculum and the students needs using an iPod.  Math explinations,  sight words, phonics, and read alongs can all be created with Voice Thread and uploaded onto the iPod.  Create a reading buddies program with pictures and sound using Voice Thread.  To find out more about the Reading Buddies program click here.

 

Tips:   If you haven’t used Voice Thread in your classroom yet, now is the perfect time to sign up for a free account and start!

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

Jump Start 3-D

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Jump Start 3-D2226 views

 

What it is:   I got the tip off for Jump Start 3-D from a tweet by Kevin Jarrett (@kjarrett) the other night and have been having a great time exploring ever since.  Jump Start is the popular software title that makes educational home and school software for pre-k through 2nd grade.  Jump Start 3-D is a highly interactive virtual world for kids.  Each location within the Jump Start 3-D world offers fun learning adventures focused on math, reading, and critical thinking skills.  Students start out by creating a character avitar that represents them in the virtual world.  Registration is free on Jump Start 3-D for access to the basic world.  Membership for $7.99/ month has the added benefit of new games and activities added monthly, grows with students (as they get better at the games, new more challenging games are added).  I was very impressed with the free version!  

 

How to integrate Jump Start 3-D into the classroom:  Jump Start 3-D is really geared toward home use, however, I think it would make a great center in the one or two computer classroom.  The site is an awesome way to familiarize students with computer skills like mouse manipulation, clicking links, using arrow keys, etc.  As the students are playing in the virtual world they will also be building reading, math, and critical thinking skills…just what they need for a great 21st century literacy base.  

 

Tips:   Even if you don’t have room in your curriculum for the Jump Start 3-D virtual world in your classroom, be sure to let parents know about this fun site.  It is a great alternative to other video games that students may be playing at home because of all the learning skills packed in.  This site is highly interactive including video clips, highly interactive games, and sounds.  You will need a high speed connection for this site.  Jump Start 3-D does require an Internet plugin called Utility Web Player.dmg.  The install is very simple and fast directly from the Jump Start website.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Jump Start 3-D in your classroom.

Animalia

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Animalia3747 views

 

What it is: The Animalia website is based on the popular book and television series written and illustrated by Graeme Base. The website is just as impressive as the book with amazing illustrations and activities for students.  On the Animalia website, students are introduced to the characters of Animalia, the goal of the Animalia site, Animalia news, and games and activities.  The Animalia site brings students on a wonderful adventure where their goal is to collect all of the “core spores” to restore the Core of Animalia.  Students collect the core spores by going on several adventures where they will play learning games, discover, and follow directions.  Games and activities include logic puzzles, memory skills, code cracking, map reading, and listening skills.  The listening game is called Toucan Talk (which I learned about on Larry Ferrazlo’s blog) and  asks students to listen to a message in the wrong order, and change the order of words or sounds so that the message makes sense.  The site is extremely interactive.  Students will love becoming part of the adventure.

 

How to integrate Animalia into the classroom:   Animalia is like a giant online scavenger hunt where students solve problems to advance in the game.  This site would be a great one to use to teach following written and oral directions, logical thinking, and problem solving skills.  These aren’t skills that we generally focus on in isolation but the Animalia site does a wonderful job of weaving a story around a problem and inviting students along on an adventure to solve the problem.  Because students are problem solving, this would be an excellent site for students to work on collaboratively as a team.  Students can be split into teams to see who can collect all of the “core spores” first through problem solving.  What I love about watching my students interact with each other on this site, is the way that one team would solve a problem and then teach another team how they did it.  Nothing better than kids teaching kids!  For younger students, the game could be completed as a whole class with a projector or interactive whiteboard.  The clues and games will have to be more teacher directed but your students will quickly catch on and be ready to play!

 

Tips:   This site is highly interactive including video clips, highly interactive games, and sounds.  You will need a high speed connection for this site.  Bring on the bandwidth!

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

Pocket Manila

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Pocket Manila2792 views

 

What it is: Pocket Manila is a site that provides online notebooks that can be used as a journal, blog, idea bank, photo album, portfolio, group blog, ezine, story book, and more.  Pocket Manila is unique because it feels like a canvas-bound, manila paper journal.  Pocket Manila makes it feel like you are writing in a real notebook.  The pages turn, writing and pictures automatically flow to the next page and are sized correctly for the page.  Students can easily change the look of their notebooks with colors and themes.  The control panel is simple, streamlined and easy to use.  

 

How to integrate Pocket Manila into the classroom:    Use Pocket Manila in a creative writing classroom as a creative writing journal.  Students can work on their writing wherever they have an Internet connection without having to remember to tote their journals everywhere they go.  Pocket Manila’s sharing ability makes it wonderful for collaboration in writing classes.  Students can read and comment on each others writing, leaving constructive criticism right in their journals.  Pocket Manila is also great used in the science classroom as a place to take lab notes, record observations and the scientific method.  Teachers can use Pocket Manila as a place to collect and organize lesson plans, class notes, etc.  Younger students can use Pocket Manila to record thoughts about books they are reading, practice their writing.  Teachers can comment right in the student notebook.

 

Tips:   I love Pocket Manila because there is something special about having a notebook or writing journal of your own to record thoughts.  Those of us who didn’t grow up with the Internet appreciate simple pleasures like notebooks that feel like notebooks and day runners full of sticky notes and scribbled reminders!  Pocket Manila provides the nostalgia of a notebook and the convenience and cool factor of digital. 

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

Mrs. P’s Magic Library

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Mrs. P’s Magic Library3587 views

 

What it is: I heard about this wonderful website from Larry Ferlazzo on his blog last week and have been exploring it ever since.  Mrs. P’s Magic Library is a free website for kids that celebrates reading and books.  Mrs. P is the librarian at the Magic Library, she brings story time to life with video stories and read-alongs.  Her library also features fun animated games and lots of crazy characters that students will love.   When students enter this virtual library they will have access to Mrs. P reading them a story, fun interactive games, and videos (lots more to explore!!).  The whole idea behind the library is to introduce students to great literature read to them in classic story-time style (not just listening to an audio book).  This virtual library is about as close as you can get to the real thing!  Your students will love Mrs. P.

 

How to integrate Mrs. P’s Magic Library into the classroom:    Mrs. P’s Magic Library is an outstanding addition to any classroom.  Use Mrs. P.com as a place to begin silent reading one day a week.  Use a projector and speakers so that Mrs. P can read to your class before they begin their silent reading time.  Mrs. P’s excellent storytelling abilities will have even your reluctant readers eager to read.  Tell parents about Mrs. P so that students can enjoy the virtual library from school or home.  Mrs. P’s Magic Library makes a great reading/ listening center and the options to read along or listen make it ideal for any students ability level.

 

Tips:   Mrs. P’s Magic Library requires high speed Internet access because of all the video and interactive games on the site.  This one may eat up some serious bandwidth in a computer lab setting!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Mrs. P’s Magic Library in your classroom.

Kid Thing

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Kid Thing2443 views

 

What it is:   I could have sworn that I had written a post about Kid Thing in the past, but after running several searches on my posts, I came up empty.  Kid Thing is a secure digital media player for kids in grades k-4.  Kid Thing accesses the Internet but is not a web browser.  It is more like an iTunes type environment designed specifically for kids.  There are no advertisements on Kid Thing and because it is not a web browser, there is no place to type a web address where students could inadvertently stumble on inappropriate content.  The Kid Thing player is free to download and they often have free downloads of learning and interactive activities for students.  There is also a Kid Thing store where additional books, videos, games, and creative arts can be downloaded to the Kid Thing player.  Everything in the store is very reasonably priced.  Right now Kid Thing is offering a free download in addition to the player, a 25 day Countdown to Christmas.  Each day students will get to open a new kid thing Surprise with a game to play.  After the game has been opened, it will stay on the Kid Thing player to be played over and over again.  

 

How to integrate Kid Thing into the classroom:   The Kid Thing player would make an excellent reading center, or learning center for phonics, language arts, and math.  The player is very user friendly for students.  Start each morning with the free Countdown for Christmas, let each student have a turn to be the one to open the Countdown for Christmas surprise.  Throughout the day, let students visit the Kid Thing center to complete the new activity for the day.  Kid Thing is great for the one or two classroom computers, a computer lab, a projector or interactive whiteboard, and for home use.  Encourage parents to download Kid Thing at home and add books and games that are appropriate for their child.

 

Tips:   At the moment Kid Thing only runs on PC’s running Window’s XP and Vista.  There is a Mac version in the works (hooray!!) and if you visit the download page you can sign up to be the first to know when the Mac version is available.  

 

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