book report – Page 2 – iLearn Technology

Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master

September 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments6048 views

What it is: The Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master is a portion of the Read Me program (learn about it here). This is a really cool online comic creator, the interface is fun to use and very intuitive. It is obviously geared toward students with a great look and even an embedded music player. I love the details on this site, including the headline “Reading isn’t only in books, it’s everywhere!”. Using the Graphic Novel Creator, students can create their own multi-page graphic novels with interesting backgrounds, characters, props, and customized text. The graphic novels can be saved and printed out.

How to integrate Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master into your curriculum: Graphic novels are becoming increasingly popular reading material, particularly for boys. They have even the most reluctant readers excited to pull out a book. Now those kids who love reading graphic novels, can create their own. A graphic novel is a great way for students to show what they know. They can create a graphic novel re-tell of a story as a book report, describe a science experiment, re-tell a portion of history with a superhero twist, practice another language by telling a story, even define and demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words.

Tips: Be sure to check out the read me site for great teachers notes, ideas, and additional resources for teaching with the Graphic Novel Creator. A special thank you to @thebookchook for introducing me to this tool!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master in your classroom!

The Zimmer Twins

March 25, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment5437 views

What it is: Who are the Zimmer Twins, you might ask? Edgar and Eva Zimmer are 12 year old twins who appear normal but have developed psychic powers. Strange things began to happen when the twins adopted a black cat named 13. On the Zimmer Twins website, students can create their own cartoon movie endings to a story starter or create their own animated movie from scratch. Students can create and edit movies solo or “Collab-o-write” and work together creating a collaborative movie. Zimmer Twins runs well in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari making it easy to get to and use in any classroom setting. You will need Flash 8 (or higher) installed for the Zimmer Twins to work properly.

How to integrate Zimmer Twins into the classroom: Your students are going to love this site! They can direct and produce their very own animated movies. The easiest way to start using Zimmer Twins in the classroom, is to use it as a story starter. Students can watch a “starter” video and finish the story however they would like. The first time you introduce the site, it might be fun to complete a video as a class. Then students can take over and create their own ending to a Zimmer Twins movie. These video clips make excellent story starters for journal writing even if you can’t take the time to make it into an actual video. To use as a story starter, show the beginning of the short animation to your students on an interactive whiteboard or projector, then let students take over on classroom computers, working together, or writing a journal entry. After your students are familiar with the Zimmer Twins website, they can start a story from scratch. Students could direct “screen plays” of their writing, as a way to publish their finished work. Zimmer Twins would make an excellent alternative to the traditional book report. Students could create a movie where the main character is being interviewed, the story is being summarized, or retold. Students could also create movies about historical events, describing a science experiment or concept, in math as a story problem, to demonstrate understanding of character education or for vocabulary practice. My students have really enjoyed creating movies to show what they have learned on any topic, it is always a sure winner! Are you looking for new ways to engage your students? Why not create a Zimmer Twins original yourself to introduce a new topic. If you are looking for more great ideas for using Zimmer Twins in your classroom, be sure to check out the lesson plans on the teacher page, there are some good ones.

Tips: Students can create a movie on Zimmer Twins without registering; however, they will not be able to save their creation. Creating an account requires an email address. If this presents a problem in your classroom you can do a few things: 1. create a classroom account that every student logs into and saves their videos on. Students will need to include their first name or a class number in the title of their video to differentiate it from others in the class. 2. Set up an account for each student using your email account. You will have to check this email account to provide your students with their passwords. 3. Ask parents to set up accounts for their kids to use at school.

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

Skratch Track

December 2, 2009Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3168 views

What it is: Skratch Track is an amazing virtual bookshelf for primary students. It uses the same idea behind Shelfari, giving students a virtual bookshelf where they can track which books they are reading, rate the book, write a little synopsis of the book, and even turn in a virtual book report to earn Skratch Track awards. The interface of this site is very easy for primary kiddos to use independently. Students can keep up to 15 books on their bookshelf at a time (for free account). Parents or teachers sign up for an account and add children accounts to their head account. Parents and teachers can then receive reports about what books kids are reading, and a copy of the book report they complete. The book report asks students questions such as: was this book real or make believe?, How did you complete the book? (someone read it to me, I read it by myself), genre of the book, favorite characters in the book, new words learned, favorite part of the story, moral of the story, how hard was the book to read?, how did the book make you feel?, did the book remind you of something that happened to you in real life?, and did the book remind you of another book you have read?.

How to integrate Skratch Track into the classroom: Skratch Track is a great alternative to the paper reading log. Students will be proud to show off their virtual bookshelves and awards on their Skratch Track account. No more keeping track of the reading log between home and school, no more extra copies, or ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuses. Skratch Track is a great way for students to show what they are reading, how it was read (independently or with help) and makes it simple to keep track of what your students are reading at home. The mini book reports help students to check comprehension. They can rate the book, think about genre, record new words learned, write about their favorite part of the story, rate how difficult the book was to read, and make connections to their life and connections to other literature. Each time a student completes a book report or earns an award, teachers or parents are notified by email and on the parent account page. Skratch Track keeps teachers and parents connected to what children are reading so that they can begin to gauge comprehension and writing levels.

Tips: The free Skratch Track account allows a parent or teacher to sign up 2 children, record up to 15 books, and earn the first 3 awards. To record additional books, earn all of the available awards, or sign up more children is $19.99 annually. Skratch Track will work with educators, schools, and libraries to make bulk accounts available and affordable. If you plan on using this with students as a reading log, it may be worth purchasing an account.

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

DomoNation

October 11, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments4329 views

What it is: DomoNation is a free animation website that is powered by Go! Animate. The site is very intuitive to use and makes impressive cartoon animations. Students can create animations with backdrops, characters, dialogue, props, music, and special effects. Students can create on scene or several to make up their animation. The interface is very simple to learn, the drag and drop platform will be familiar to students. To make their cartoon come to life, each character has a set of actions and emotions that can be added by clicking on the character and choosing from a drop down menu. Special effects, such as weather occurrences or zooming, are simple to add to the project. Animations can be saved for personal or public view on the DomoNation site. This is an impressive little web application that makes students the director of their very own movie.

How to integrate DomoNation into the classroom: Allow students to present their knowledge creatively using DomoNation instead of requiring the traditional report, diorama, or poster plastered with pictures and information. Students can create an impressive alternative book report by creating an animated book talk, interviewing a character from the story, or re-creating an important scene in the story. Students can display their knowledge about a historical figure by “interviewing” the historical person of interest or an eye-witness of a historical event. DomoNation would be a great platform for creating public service announcements (how about the importance of hand washing with the H1N1 outbreak?) or short video commercials that persuade in a debate. Students can write a screen play and then transform it into an animation. Animations are also a great way to illustrate vocabulary words and story problems in math. In the foreign language classroom, students can create short cartoons practicing the new vocabulary they are learning. The possibilities are endless! Hold a DomoNation premier party day in your classroom so that students can watch each other’s finished animations and learn from their peers.

Tips: Direct your students to the Create page of DomoNation, some of the content created by other users may not be appropriate for your school.

Related Resources: Kerpoof, Shidonni, XtraNormal, DoInk

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

Audible Kids

February 5, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment4714 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.

Letter Pop

September 28, 2007October 4, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1624 views

What it is: Letter Pop is a web-based newsletter publishing center. Best of all, Letter Pop is free! The newsletters are easy to create, just add text and pictures.

How to integrate Letter Pop into your classroom: If you don’t have a publishing program like Pages, this is the next best thing. Students can use Letter Pop for mini reports, class newsletters, and book reports. Teachers can use Letter Pop to create their weekly or monthly newsletters or for back to school letters.

Tips: Letter Pop is integrated with flickr.com making uploading pictures to your newsletter even more convenient.