Interactive book – Page 5 – iLearn Technology

FlipSnack: Turn a PDF into an embeddable Flash Flip Book

May 27, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3861 views

What it is: FlipSnack lets students turn PDF documents into embeddable Flipbooks quickly and easily. Students upload a PDF (or multiple PDFs) to be included in the book and FlipSnack instantly transforms it into an interactive flippable book. In order to login to FlipSnack, students will need an email address (this can be a temporary email such as Tempinbox or Mailinator). Students can also login using a Twitter account, Facebook connect, Google connect or MySpace connect. FlipSnack has some neat options available that other pdf to embeddable book services like Issuu do not have. Students can choose a template for their Flip including classic, hardcover, coil bound and interactive. Student also have the ability to customize the background, size and buttons included in their embed. Students can share their FlipSnack with a unique url, on social media sites and email, or embed it in another website. The free version lets students embed the finished FlipSnack on a website or blog with a FlipSnack watermark.

How to integrate FlipSnack into the classroom: FlipSnack is a neat way for students (and teachers) to share pdf documents online. Students can save their work as a PDF and upload into an interactive book that can be embedded on a blog, wiki or website.

Use your classroom computers as a student created library. Students can upload original stories to a class FlipSnack account to create a library of student work. During silent reading time, give students the opportunity to enjoy their peers as authors. This is perfect for an elementary classroom that may not have the email addresses for each student to sign up for a separate account.

Create custom books for your students by combining PDF documents into one customized text-book. These can be embedded on a class blog, website, or wiki for students to access from anywhere they have internet access.

Upload school handbooks, resources etc. to the classroom and school website for easy access by students and parents.

One of the features I enjoy about FlipSnack is the ability to view statistics for the flip books. Find out how many views a Flip has had by day, month or all time.

Tips: I often use Issuu to share and embed PDFs. It has been my go-to favorite for personal use. I hesitated to use Issuu with students because of the collection of ALL user publications on the home page of the website. Sometimes these were inappropriate for elementary students. I like that FlipSnack doesn’t share user-created publications with little eyes.

Take a look at the FlipSnack I created for my new school, Anastasis Academy, embedded below:

Please leave a comment and let us know how you are using FlipSnack in your classroom!

Books Should Be Free: Free Audio Books from the Public Domain

May 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4636 views

What it is: Books Should Be Free is a fantastic collection of audio books that students can download and listen to for free from the public domain. Books are easily searchable by genre, keyword, title or author. Books can be downloaded as MP3 files, iPod or iTunes format. Each book includes a description of the book, full text from Project Gutenberg, a Wikipedia link, and the audio download. Students can play a snippet of the audio before deciding to download. The collection is pretty impressive, including my favorite classics.

How to integrate Books Should Be Free into the classroom: Not every child has an extensive collection of books at home, or parents who model a love of reading. Books Should Be Free expands every classroom and home library by giving students access to some of the most loved books of all time. Students can download both the audio and accompanying text for a read along or simply listen to the audio file. Audio books help students build comprehension, fluency and help students develop a love for story. Books Should Be Free is a great way to start a Reading Buddies program at your school with some MP3 players or iPods that can go home with students loaded up with good books.

Tips: Looking for some more ebooks to expand your classroom library? Check these out!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Books Should Be Free in your classroom!

Fraboom Online Children’s Museum: Online classes, videos, interactive book, games, oh my!

May 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments8132 views

What it is: Oh. My. Word. I have just stumbled on gold my friends, gold! Fraboom is an online children’s museum packed full of games, interactive books, creativity, learning and-are you ready for this-LIVE online teachers! On Fraboom students can learn about US presidents while they play games, watch Fraboom TV cartoons to learn vocabulary, read interactive books that encourage creativity and join live online classes with real flesh and blood teachers! Fraboom TV has a variety of cartoons that will teach students content area vocabulary words. Each cartoon on Fabroom TV lists all associated vocabulary words so teachers can quickly find a video that will support learning. Cartoons can be searched by keyword or category. The very best part of Fraboom (in my humble opinion) is the live online teachers. Drawing classes start every hour on the hour. Students can drop into a class and learn how to draw cartoons. There is a new challenge every day so content is always fresh! Students can interact with teachers through the chat feature; students type a message and the teacher responds to them by name. Fraboom cartoon characters introduce the activity for the day and the teachers interact with the cartoon on the screen- very fun! Students learn how to draw step by step guided by the teacher and follow along on their own whiteboard space. When students are finished, they can share their pictures with the class. After drawing, the class completes a mad lib together. The teacher explains a part of speech and requests words for that part of speech from the class. Students can contribute words to the story by typing them into the chat area. Throughout the class, the teacher shares submitted pictures with the whole class. I attended two live classes and was really impressed with the teachers in both sessions. They are upbeat, engaging and fun. Fraboom was created for students six to twelve years old. Content is being added regularly and fresh challenges in the live classes every day. Plenty to keep kids creating and learning!

How to integrate Fraboom Online Children’s Museum into the classroom: With widespread budget cuts and art programs being cut regularly, Fraboom is a welcome new addition to the education landscape. Being able to connect every student in your class with another teacher is amazing. Fraboom could be used on classroom computers as a creativity/art/grammar center that kids can visit throughout the week. Students can get one-on-one attention from a virtual teacher freeing you up to work in small reading or writing groups knowing that all of your students are engaged in learning. Connect to a Fraboom online session as a class using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Students can follow along with the drawing instructions and take turns engaging in the chat as a whole class. Students can take turns creating the class picture on the projector or interactive whiteboard while students at their seats create their own masterpiece. This would be a great activity for students to do while you hold one-on-one student conferences in your classroom.

Fraboom TV is full of fun cartoon videos that help students learn a variety of content area vocabulary. Use these videos to introduce a new unit so that students are familiar with vocabulary before engaging in new learning.

The interactive stories on Fraboom can be shared with your class using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. Read through the story as a class and practice comprehension strategies together.

Tips: Be sure to share Fraboom with parents, this would be a great opportunity for learning at home too!

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

Story Time for Me: Digital Children’s Books

April 11, 2011April 11, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments3925 views

What it is: Story Time for Me is a beautiful collection of digital children’s books for primary students in kindergarten through second grade. Each story includes charming illustrations, animation and professional narration with music and sound effects. Activities accompany every story that encourage imagination and creativity (these are coming soon!). The stories have been developed to teach important values through positive moral themes. Story Time for Me currently has a library of over 30 books and growing. Next Friday (April 22, 2011) Story Time for Me will be launching free personalized activity books where students can become the star of a book.

Students can choose to read each story with or without narration, with or without animation and choose to highlight the words as they are read.

I can’t tell you how impressed I am with this free digital story site. It expands your classroom library, encourages a focus on character development and invigorates children to read more.

How to integrate Story Time for Me into the classroom: Story Time for Me expands your classroom library with winsome digital stories that your students will love. Story Time for Me makes a great reading center on classroom computers. Because students have the option to read with narration or independently, it meets the needs of both strong and developing. Each story reinforces positive character education values often dealing with friendship. These stories are a wonderful way to begin class discussions about friendship and empathy with students. If you have an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, the stories can be used as a whole-class “big book”.

When the personalized versions are available, give your students the opportunity to star in their own story. These personalized stories would make a fun beginning of the year activity as a way to welcome students to a new grade, or end the school year with a personalized story they can enjoy all summer.

Tips: I learned about Story Time for Me from @2sparkley’s blog, Bits and Pieces Place. If it isn’t a blog you subscribe to, it should be!

Story Time for Me is completely free, the more visitors they can attract the more stories they will be able to add to the library. You can help them by spreading the word to family and friends on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Story Time for Me in your classroom!

Digital Book about Energy

March 23, 2011March 23, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2914 views

What it is: IKT FOR LAGET out of Norway has created a fantastic ebook all about Energy. This is more than just a book that happens to be online (I know we have all seen those!), this is an interactive book that is great for ALL of your learners. In addition to the text and bold images in the book, there is an audio feature on every page that will read the text to students. Click on the video icon to watch a related video. Students can even download related images from some of the films for use in their own projects where they reflect or construct their own understanding. Additional resources and links are provided within the book for teachers, parents, and students. All of the additional content “enlarges the book” into something really useful for learning and exploring. This is a big step in the right direction for ebooks– no more trying to pass off a PDF as a digital ebook, this is the real deal.

How to integrate the Digital Energy Book into the classroom: If you study energy in your science curriculum this ebook is a super resource and addition to your classroom library. Set up the ebook on classroom computers during independent reading time for some non-fiction reading material. The ebook is great for all levels of readers, confident readers can read the book independently while struggling readers may want to read along with the audio. Use the ebook as a “big book” using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer to read about energy as a class.

Tips: Right now the digital book uses Flash and is only available on a Mac or PC. Work is being done to bring the ebook to the iDevices!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Digital Energy Book in your classroom!

Little Bird Tales

February 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4658 views

What it is: I am late on this post, but it is too good to skip a mention! Little Bird Tales is a new way to digital story tell with primary students. With Little Bird Tales, students can upload their own artwork, record their voice, add text and email their finished creations to family and friends. Sign up on Little Bird Tales requires an email address for verification purposes. This can be a parent or teacher email address (the site is geared for 3 to 14-year-old children so a student address is not necessary). Little Bird Tales includes a built-in art pad where students can create pictures online. They also have the option to upload photographs and images they have created offline. Each page give students a place to add a picture, text and voice recording. Finished books can be saved and accessed online or sent via email.

How to integrate Little Bird Tales into the classroom: Little Bird Tales is a brilliant option for digital storytelling in the primary classroom. I love that it includes both online and offline student creations, as well as student voice recordings. Students can use Little Bird Tales for creative writing and imaginative stories, as a way to reflect on learning, or as a keepsake for parents. Students can take pictures of science experiments and create a digital science journal detailing the experiment with text and student voice reflections included.

Use Little Bird Tales to create whole class stories where each student contributes a page. This type of book can be made over a few weeks using classroom computers as a writing center. This would be a fun way to create an A to Z type book of learning, reflections by students after a unit, a 100 day book, fact vs. opinion book, an interactive glossary, a class book of poems, a phonics book, or a class book about a field trip that students took. The finished product can be shared with parents and families easily through an email. For a back to school night activity, take a picture of each student to add to a class book and record students sharing what their favorite part of the school day is. This same idea could be used in preparation for parent-teacher conferences. Students can upload pictures of their best school work, record thoughts about why they are proud of the work they did, and add reflections in the text field. These can be shared as a starting point for conferences, at the end of the conference, parents have a keepsake.

Because of the voice recording capabilities, Little Bird Tales, would be a great way for students to practice a foreign language. They can illustrate a word or phrase accompanied by the audio. Classes could work together to create a “living” digital glossary.

Do you have a planned absence coming? Why not create a digital story that your substitute can share with students? Upload pictures that support learning, text, and your voice.

Tips: If you have parent email addresses in Google, Yahoo, or Outlook, they can be directly imported into Little Bird Tales as contacts.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Little Bird Tales in your classroom!

HIP2B²: Science/Math edutainment magazine and videos

February 11, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3649 views

Open publication – Free publishing – More science

What it is: HIP2B² is an edutainment site that aims to show students that subjects that are generally labeled as “difficult” or “hard” can be fun and are important to our future success. HIP2B² is a website, digital magazine, and TV show that work to equip learners with vital life skills including analytical thinking, problem solving, and a curious mindset. The goal is to encourage curiosity in science and math in everyday life. The magazine is a high-quality quarterly publication that is free to view online, the magazine uses the Issuu platform for the digital viewing. You can see an example of the digital HIP2B² embedded above. The TV show can be viewed online, powered by YouTube.

How to integrate HIP2B² into the classroom: The HIP2B² videos and digital magazine are a fantastic way to invigorate a sense of curiosity and discovery in your students. The digital magazines are really well done, students will eagerly read through them. Each of the digital magazines is focused on a science or math topic such as mysteries, senses, the environment, technology, origins, animals, safety, food, intelligence, and much more. Students can view the digital magazines all the way back to June 2007. Use the digital magazines as inspiration for science and math inquiry. Students can read through the digital magazines on a classroom computer set up as a reading center, as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer, or individually in a lab setting. Do your students get silent reading time in class? Allow them to use the computers to read through the HIP2B² digital magazine.

In the video section, students can learn about “tricks” of science like invisibility cloaks and floating paperclips or more serious science like nanotechnology and extreme weather. These videos can be used to introduce a topic or science/math concept or to illustrate a concept.

Are your students working on science and math that encourages analytical thinking, problem solving, and curiosity? Why not have them create their own HIP2B² inspired digital magazine. Students can put together their own magazine using any word processing or publishing program and upload the finished product to Issuu to share with the world.

Tips: For those of you who don’t have access to YouTube in your building, you can still use these awesome videos in your classrooms with a little bit of pre-planning. Download and save YouTube videos so that you can show them at school without accessing the YouTube site. UseKeepVid, YouTube DownloaderHD, Kick YouTube, SaveVid, or Zamzar. Some of these tools will even let you download at school if you know the YouTube url. The downloaded video should have no trouble playing at school!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using HIP2B² in your classroom!

LEGO Education Magazine-Free!

December 15, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments4144 views

What it is: LEGO Education has some truly fantastic resources for classrooms. LEGO Club In-School Edition Magazines are free to schools and designed for first, second, third, and fourth grade students. The 2011 LEGO Club In-School Magazines have two themes: Ancient Egypt and Space Exploration. The magazines can be ordered in two versions. For first grade students, LEGO Club Junior includes puzzles, easy-to-read comics, and fun building challenges. For students in second, third, and fourth grade, LEGO Club focuses on basic reading, critical thinking games, and building ideas. Each magazine comes with a custom teacher’s guide that include fun hands-on activities, classroom tidbits, and articles about how to create a LEGO Smart classroom for your students.

How to integrate LEGO Education Magazine into your curriculum: These fun magazines will have your students learning about and exploring Ancient Egypt and Space Exploration in new hands-on ways. Your students will love the building challenges, comics and reading material, and activities that pique their curiosity. Use the LEGO Club Magazine as an introduction to a unit on Space or Ancient Egypt, or offer the activities in the magazine as extension activities.

Tips: Magazines are packaged in groups of 50, 100, and 200. Consider ordering the magazine for the entire grade or school.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using LEGO Education Magazine in your classroom!

The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators: FREE ebook!!

December 13, 2010December 13, 2010Kelly Tenkely12 Comments4960 views

I am excited to announce the release of a free ebook: The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators- a comprehensive introduction to using technology in all k-12 classrooms. Think of this as an early Christmas present!

Richard Byrne from Free Tech 4 Teachers is the brilliant mind behind this ebook. About a month ago, he approached some of your favorite educators and bloggers (myself included…still can’t wrap my brain around that 🙂 ) to contribute to an ebook. Today is the release and I have to say, it is pretty amazing!! I just finished reading through the finished product and have bookmarked some new tools, had my jaw dropped by Silvia Tolisano and her AMAZING Skype guide, and been inspired all over again by fellow educators and administrators. I am honored to be a part of this incredible resource and guide. Contributers include: Steven Anderson, Adam Bellow, Richard Byrne, George Couros, Larry Ferlazzo, Lee Kolbert, Patrick Larkin, Cory Plough, Beth Still, me (Kelly Tenkely) and Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. Thank you Richard for the outstanding idea and for acting as editor and pulling it all together!

You can read the ebook in it’s entirety embedded below, by following this link, or download it here.

Interactive book from Google: 20 Things I Learned

November 18, 2010Kelly Tenkely7 Comments3822 views

What it is: Google has done it again with a new online e-book called 20 Things I Learned. This interactive e-book is your guide to how browsers and the web work, how the World Wide Web has evolved, cloud computing, and what we need to know to navigate the web safely. The book has an enchanting quality with its humorous approach to the web (love the titles) and fun illustrations. This guide-book is one you will want to share with all of your colleagues, relatives, friends, students…you will want to dive into it yourself.

How to integrate 20 Things I Learned into your curriculum: This handy little online book is a great one to share with students. Share an individual chapter (called a thing) or the whole book. Here your students can learn all about the web, how to keep themselves safe, and will know the difference between cloud computing and a web app. 20 Things I Learned is also a must share with your co-workers, neighbors, mom, grandpa, and the rest of the crew that is constantly calling you for your tech expertise.

Tips: Each page has a little red bookmark that drops down, scroll over the bookmark to share the thing on Twitter, Facebook, or printout.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using 20 Things I Learned in your classroom!