Penzu

The resource for today is called Penzu.

What is Penzu?

Penzu is an online journaling program. Students' creations are ALL protected with each entry being private. Students are also allowed to share their works of art with others by e-mail or a public link and add photos. The program automatically auto saves you work, comments are allowed, and entries can be deleted.

Is it free?

Penzu is free for any user. You don't even have to log in to work, BUT in order to have it save, you must log in. There is an option for the PRO account, which is $19.00 a month. Below are the details of what each account gets:

Penzu Classroom is also available for $49.00 a year.

What will Penzu bring to your classroom?

This product can prove to be beneficial in all different grades throughout the education system. From using it in the Kindergarten classroom to create a short two sentence response to a daily question to using it in 8th grade classrooms to write a story about their families to a college student using it as a journal reflection of their time in their internship daily. This tool brings an easier way to create journal while adding a Web 2.0 element to the projects at hand.

How do I use Penzu?

Below, I will show you the steps of using Penzu.

This is the beginning of your Penzu page once you log in. You can see when it was last edited, the settings, and whether or not this journal is locked or not.

Once you click on your journal page, you are brought to the page below. The buttons along the top stand for the following (in order from left to right):
New entry / Save / Print / Insert Photo / Share / Lock Entry / Format / Tag / Customize / Versions / Comments
Begin typing where it says ENTER TITLE and go from there. Write away! Save and you are good to go.

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How can I use Penzu in my classroom?

Below is a list of ways that this tool can be utilized in the classroom:

-Peer review journal entries
-Use for note taking purposes
-Use Penzu to create assignments
-Write small or large group stories
-Work on punctuation and grammar
-Work on writing stories about families
-Have students respond to daily questions
-Use to have students journal daily their thoughts
-Work on collaborative journals with your students
-Use for research projects by writing information down
-Presentation on oneself to allow others to 'get to know' you
-Allow students to show their understanding of a topic in the classroom
-Compare student writing at beginning of year to end of year to check for growth
-Use as a teaser of what the days events will hold - specific subjects you're going to go over

-Vocabulary words - describe the word, definition, how you could use it, part of speech, etc.

Honestly, the possibilities are ENDLESS.

How would YOU use Penzu in your classroom? Answer in the comments on this post!