Pocket Manila
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.