Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

BiblioNasium

The resource for today is called BiblioNasium.

What is BiblioNasium?
BiblioNasium is a book recommendation service for kids by kids. It's also provides online reading logs for students to use when reading and working on books. If you need a specific book in a specific reading level, this website can be of service, as well.

Is it free?
BiblioNasium is free for all users. In order to sign up as a student, you must put in your name and your PARENT'S e-mail address. Then, a message is sent to your parents to get them to agree. As a parent or teacher, you must have an e-mail address, first name, last name, and a password. You will receive a confirmation message in your e-mail, allowing you to use the program. As a teacher, you CAN CHOOSE to put in your school name as well as the address in order to use the program OR skip straight to the homepage and input that information later on.

What will BiblioNasium 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 find books by their favorite authors to using it in 7th grade classrooms as a challenge to increase outside reading to a college student looking for books for pleasure reading. This tool brings an easier way to locate books for students that are related to books they already like. It's also an easy way to hold onto reading logs without having to worry about paper book logs.

How do I use BiblioNasium?
Below, I will show you the steps of using BiblioNasium.

First, select who you are in order to sign up. There's profiles for parents, teachers, and students. 

When you first log in, you'll see this page pop up. It allows you to manage your classroom book lists, set up a challenge for your students, generate reports, or manage your class itself.

Step 1: Add a classroom to your page. This will then generate a CODE for your students to enter when they are signing up.

Step 2: Manage your classroom. You can change the reading system, e-mail a list of students' usernames or passwords, e-mail letter to parents, or print a letter to parents. That's it! Begin assigning work or books and use search features for books you're looking for. Explore the page and use what you would like and don't use what you DON'T like.

 This is the search feature. I did a search for "Toy Story" and it pulled up all these books. The nice thing about BiblioNasium is that they bring up a synopsis of the book and what it's about, as well as the cover, title, and author. It also shows the genre.

The following are the different pages you can access along the side as a teacher. Above each picture, I'll state what page it is and I'll explain what you can do with each one.

My Books - this page gives you the books that you have in your class. You can sort them as favorites, recommended, required, or the classroom wish list. The wish list can be made available to parents, giving them an idea of books you would like to see in the classroom.

My Classes - this page is about your class. It shows the books you have from above, the students in the class, and the challenges you have set up for your classroom.

Challenges - This page is where you set up challenges for your classroom. It can be to read a specific amount of books based upon category or genre OR you can create a challenge based upon your own choice of books as the teacher.

Reports - this page is for the reports of your classroom. You can see the different amounts of time spent reading, pages read, books completed, and then can select students to see a more detailed report PER student.

Suggested Reading - this page suggests reading to your classroom. It can be based on favorites, popular serieses, book prize winners, or fun books. Like the search feature, if you highlight over the books, it gives you the title, author, a synopsis AND the Lexile reading measure.

Resources - finally, the resource page. This is where you can find out information for notable articles, book lists, fun stuff for kids, and reading resources and organizations. This could be very useful for the works of students and teachers.

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How can I use BiblioNasium in my classroom?
Below is a list of ways that this tool can be utilized in the classroom:

-Use for reading logs
-Use for author studies
-Use in research projects
-Use for monthly reading projects
-Use when working on genre studies
-Hold competitions between students
-Share book recommendations with parents
-Hold competitions between various classes
-Create lists of books to be read for families
-Use when working on book recommendations
-Creating posts on your favorite books or authors
-Have students create wish lists for their own classroom library
-Create different movie trailers based on books that have been read
-Use to hold children accountable for reading over extended breaks
-Use as a group chat room for students to communicate about books with one another

Honestly, the possibilities are ENDLESS.

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

Monday, November 26, 2012

Zocial Books

The resource for today is called Zocial Books.


What is Zocial Books?
Zocial Books is a search engine for books. Rather than logging on to Amazon, log on here to get a quick review of the book, the bibliographic information, book dimensions, and a potential book preview.

Is it free?
Zocial Books is free for all users. There is no log in required or a password, therefore the services are provided free because of the partners that are intertwined with this website to make it free for us to use!

What will Zocial Books 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 locate books by your favorite authors to using it in 12th grade classrooms to work on creating citations to a college student looking for books about a specific topic such as accounting. This tool brings an easier way to locate favorite books or new books for a research project and so much more.

How do I use Zocial Books?
Below, I will show you the short steps of using Zocial Books.

This is the front page of Zocial Books. This website is REALLY easy to use. Type in your topic or title in the search bar and hit the magnifying glass.

You can choose filters. I chose history in categories to limit my search of "history." As you can see, my results went from 1,565 books to 598 books. Other than adding filters, it's really simple to use!


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How can I use Zocial Books in my classroom?
Below is a list of ways that this tool can be utilized in the classroom:

-Work on research skills
-Summarize a story in 30 seconds
-Incorporate the search in research projects
-Write a wish list for books students want to read
-Find books that are related to your favorite author
-Look at books to decide whether it's fiction or non-fiction
-Create different movie trailers for books that have been read
-Write out a shopping list of books to purchase based on student searches
-Name 10 books for students to look up and put in order by date published
-Look at books to determine genre by title, description, and picture of cover
-Have students do a search for their top favorite 10 books and write out why
-Point out different book titles and have students write a story using the titles
-Get together as teachers to come up with ideas for new books for the classroom
-Have groups find books about specific subjects to work on their researching skills
-Look at covers of books and write thoughts about what is going to happen in the story

Honestly, the possibilities are ENDLESS.

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

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Storybird

The resource for today is called Storybird.


What is Storybird?
Storybird is a website where you can make your own stories using images provided by other artists. You can create your own stories and then publish them for others to see. Students can use this website to read stories, make up their own, or work with a peer to develop a storybook as a group.

Is it free?
Storybird is free for all users. Each account requires a username, password, and an e-mail address. BUT if you are a teacher trying to create a class account, you can host up to 30 different people. Students will also be signed up via one e-mail account, not requiring them to have one in order to sign in. There are other options for the plans, though. This chart is below with all the information and perks:

What will Storybird 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 story about a pet to using it in 8th Grade classrooms to tell a story about a fictional character to a college student creating a story for their younger siblings or cousins. This tool brings an easier way to create stories while adding a fun aspect to the activity of creating. The images also provide a great starting point for those who do not know what they would like to write about. 

How do I use Storybird?
Below, I will show you the steps of using Storybird.

Choose how you want your art to look for your story based upon your ideas OR based upon others - you can choose by art, themes, or challenges.
 


For my example story, I chose to use the art by Paul McDougall. Now, I have no idea who he is, but I liked his work!

Here is ALL of his work in one area. As you can see on the webpage, there's step by step directions.
Step 1. Start writing here.
Step 2. Find artwork here.
Step 3. Add or remove pages here.
Step 4. Invite others here.
Under the #4, this is also where you publish your finished story.

After you've completed your story, you then publish it. But, there's some things you can choose about the publishing. These details are:
~The summary
~Tags
~Whether the Storybird is private or public
~The age range for your story

Here's the example I created for another course:
The Christmas Present by ventres on Storybird
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How can I use Storybird in my classroom?
Below is a list of ways that this tool can be utilized in the classroom:

-Use for prewriting
-Create comic strips
-Work on poetry using the images
-Work on reading skills with younger students
-Use as social stories for students with disabilities
-Write a story about what you want to be in the future
-Practice writing stories in a foreign language classroom
-Presentation on oneself to allow others to 'get to know' you
-Use for writing a fairy tale or fable when studying those in units
-Create different movie trailers for books that have been read in real life
-Use for inferencing and have students look at pictures ONLY to tell a story
-Create a story using the 5 W's and How to encourage critical thinking skills
-Assign a group story for students to work on together to bounce ideas off one another
-Use as a teaser of what the days events will hold - specific subjects you're going to go over
-Create a series of stories (representing chapters) to create a novel in upper grade classrooms

Honestly, the possibilities are ENDLESS.

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