Download to read offline
![1. Haiku Deck
Simple, lovely
presentations
Searchable photos or
upload your own
App and social media
Can share many ways
www.haikudeck.com
Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow].
Available at
https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-
teasdale](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/libs602toolspresentation-compressedforconference-151117174526-lva1-app6891/85/Lightning-Fast-Tech-Tools-Awesome-Results-in-One-Lesson-or-Less-5-320.jpg)
![1. Haiku Deck
Templates are only
option
No music
No free downloads
www.haikudeck.com
Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow].
Available at
https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-
teasdale](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/libs602toolspresentation-compressedforconference-151117174526-lva1-app6891/85/Lightning-Fast-Tech-Tools-Awesome-Results-in-One-Lesson-or-Less-6-320.jpg)
![Haiku Deck Ideas #1
Beautiful Poetry!
Create slideshow for oral
presentation of original
poems
(VA English SOL 4.7)
or
Illustrate poems by
someone else
(VA English SOLs 6.4, 7.5, 9.1, 9.2, 10.5, 11.5,
12.5)
www.haikudeck.com
https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-teasdale
Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow].
Available at
https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-
teasdale](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/libs602toolspresentation-compressedforconference-151117174526-lva1-app6891/85/Lightning-Fast-Tech-Tools-Awesome-Results-in-One-Lesson-or-Less-7-320.jpg)
![Haiku Deck Ideas #2
Simple text-based layouts
Upload own images
www.haikudeck.com
Single-Topic Research:
Book report, biography of
famous American, science
topic (type of insect, animal,
or storm?), social studies
(country report or event?)
Kramer, J. (2015). Ladybugs and butterflies. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/ladybugs--butterflies-science-and-technology-presentation-qkDBhIjoLC](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/libs602toolspresentation-compressedforconference-151117174526-lva1-app6891/85/Lightning-Fast-Tech-Tools-Awesome-Results-in-One-Lesson-or-Less-8-320.jpg)
![Haiku Deck Ideas #3
Mission Statements
Bring your class,
school, or personal
mission statements to
life!
www.haikudeck.com McKenzie, S. (2015). Inspire 13. [Slideshow]. Available at
https://www.haikudeck.com/inspire-13-uncategorized-presentation-
NKPxpCqq9V](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/libs602toolspresentation-compressedforconference-151117174526-lva1-app6891/85/Lightning-Fast-Tech-Tools-Awesome-Results-in-One-Lesson-or-Less-9-320.jpg)
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Similar to Lightning-Fast Tech Tools: Awesome Results in One Lesson or Less!
Lightning-Fast Tech Tools: Awesome Results in One Lesson or Less!
- 1. LIGHTNING-FAST TECH TOOLS AwesomeResults in One Lesson or Less! GUARANTEED or your money back* *just kidding All photos are screenshots from the site in question unless otherwise credited.
- 2. About Me Graduate studentin library science at ODU Editor/writer Lover of tech tools Mom of two Library substitute teacher Can’t wait to be a school librarian! Nelson, W. (2015). Personal photo.
- 3.
- 4. FIVE SIX LIGHTNING-FASTTECH TOOLS TO THE RESCUE! GUARANTEED or your money back* *still just kidding X
- 5. 1. Haiku Deck Simple,lovely presentations Searchable photos or upload your own App and social media Can share many ways www.haikudeck.com Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara- teasdale
- 6. 1. Haiku Deck Templatesare only option No music No free downloads www.haikudeck.com Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara- teasdale
- 7. Haiku Deck Ideas#1 Beautiful Poetry! Create slideshow for oral presentation of original poems (VA English SOL 4.7) or Illustrate poems by someone else (VA English SOLs 6.4, 7.5, 9.1, 9.2, 10.5, 11.5, 12.5) www.haikudeck.com https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-teasdale Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara- teasdale
- 8. Haiku Deck Ideas#2 Simple text-based layouts Upload own images www.haikudeck.com Single-Topic Research: Book report, biography of famous American, science topic (type of insect, animal, or storm?), social studies (country report or event?) Kramer, J. (2015). Ladybugs and butterflies. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/ladybugs--butterflies-science-and-technology-presentation-qkDBhIjoLC
- 9. Haiku Deck Ideas#3 Mission Statements Bring your class, school, or personal mission statements to life! www.haikudeck.com McKenzie, S. (2015). Inspire 13. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/inspire-13-uncategorized-presentation- NKPxpCqq9V
- 10. For More Haiku DeckIdeas Education Pinterest Board: https://www.pinterest.com/haikudeck/education- case-studies/ Haiku Deck Blog, tag “edtech”: https://blog.haikudeck.com/tag/edtech/ www.haikudeck.com
- 11.
- 12. 2. FoldPlay Upload pictures,make a foldable www.foldplay.com http://www.foldplay.co m
- 13. 2. FoldPlay Only afew activities Site not updated Activities include printable origami, foldbooks, kaleidocycles, and paper models www.foldplay.com
- 14. FoldPlay Ideas #1 VocabularyWord Flip Books Challenge kids to find photos for each of their vocabulary words and create a photo flip book! Tip: Make sure to click “Build Page” after you select each photo file or your book will be blank. www.foldplay.com http://foldplay.com/book.actio n
- 15. FoldPlay Ideas #2 ScienceCycles Make flip books for the plant cycle, water cycle, carbon cycle, etc. Make together as a class, students fold their own www.foldplay.com
- 16. FoldPlay Ideas #3 Force,Motion, and Energy (VA Science SOL 4.2) Each student makes a sphericon Use different materials Experiment with friction, motion, and kinetic energy www.foldplay.com http://foldplay.com/polyPuzzle.action
- 17.
- 18. 3. Kizoa Extremely versatile Alternativeto iMovie or Windows Movie Makerwww.kizoa.com
- 19.
- 20. 3. Kizoa Facebook or uploaded photos Shareresults or download Video clips limited to two minutes each www.kizoa.com
- 21. Kizoa Ideas #1 Post-FieldTrip Activity Assign students to be field trip reporters who take photos, videos, and notes on trip day. Use Kizoa to create virtual field trip to share with others. www.kizoa.com
- 22. Kizoa Ideas #2 www.kizoa.com MathProblems Students make a virtual whiteboard demonstration of math problems using step- by-step photos/videos. (VA Math SOL 6.2.) Alternative: Have each student explain a different step and compile the video clips. Tip: Screencast-o-matic.com is one way to do this. You can also film an actual whiteboard. Photo: PowerPoint Clipart
- 23. Kizoa Ideas #3 FamousSpeech or Poem Film each student reading a line or two of a famous speech or poem. On Kizoa, intersperse the clips with historic video clips, pictures, or screenshots of the text of the speech/poem and add music. www.kizoa.com Photo: PowerPoint Clipart
- 24.
- 25. 4. and 5.Vocaroo and Clyp These two audio tools are similar and work well alone or together. www.vocaroo.com www.clyp.it
- 26. Vocaroo: Record audio Downloadable Share link Integratedwith social media No account needed www.vocaroo.com www.clyp.it Clyp: Record or upload audio Not downloadable Share link Integrated with social media Account required Also an app 4. and 5. Vocaroo and Clyp http://www.vocaroo.com http://www.clyp.it
- 27. Vocaroo and ClypIdeas #1 Audio Book Reviews Students make short “radio broadcasts” reviewing books. Share on blog, website, or via QR code. www.vocaroo.com www.clyp.it Photo: PowerPoint Clipart
- 28. Vocaroo and ClypIdeas #2 Responsibilities of Citizens (VA SOL Civics and Economics 3.D) In small groups, students research, write, and create a series of short audio broadcasts about the responsibilities of U.S. citizens. www.vocaroo.com www.clyp.it American flag. (n.d.). Free clipart, available at http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/80000/nahled/americ an-flag-1392926500mE6.jpg
- 29. Vocaroo and ClypIdeas #3 Reading Buddies/ Modeled Reading: Students record themselves reading popular beginning readers to share with younger students. www.vocaroo.com www.clyp.it Moss, B. (2013). Canada water kids’ library. CC-BY 2.0
- 30. Vocaroo and ClypIdeas #4 Commercials from History Students write and record a 30- second radio commercial related to a current social studies unit. www.vocaroo.com www.clyp.it Lincoln campaign poster. CC-0 1.0.
- 31.
- 32. 6. My Storybook Onlinestorybook creator Easy and intuitivewww.mystorybook.com
- 33. 6. My Storybook Pros: Noaccount to start Can share stories or keep private Cons: Account needed to save $$ for ebook Library inappropriate? www.mystorybook.com https://www.mystorybook.co m
- 34. My Storybook Ideas#1 Two Characters Meet What would happen? Students create a storybook to answer this question meets ?? www.mystorybook.com Junie B. Jones Geronimo Stilton
- 35. My Storybook Ideas#2 Pass the Storybook Each student begins a storybook in My Storybook, then switches to their neighbor’s story. Continue until all stories are done! www.mystorybook.com
- 36. My Storybook Ideas#3 Teacher-Created Template Stories may be edited and remixed. Create a template for students to make their own. (VA English SOL 2.12, 2.13, 2.14) www.mystorybook.com
- 37.
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Editor's Notes
- #2 Session Description: Lightning-Fast Tech Tools: Awesome Results in One Lesson or Less! This presentation is all about lightning-fast tech tools—the ones that are easy and intuitive for most students. With these free tools, you and your students will be able to get awesome results in one lesson or less without headaches or high learning curves. Script: Hello and welcome! This presentation is about technology tools, but my focus will be on lightning-fast tools—the ones that are easy and intuitive for most students. I want you and your students to be able to get awesome results in one lesson or less without headaches or high learning curves. Does anyone have any questions before we get right to it? (1 min) All photos are screenshots from the site in question unless otherwise credited.
- #3 My name is Wendy Nelson and I’m a graduate student in library science at ODU. Once upon a time I was an English major and I became an editor and writer. Yes, I do care deeply about commas. I’m also a singer and I do community theater in my spare time. Personal plug: Come see “The Women” at Little Theatre of Norfolk in January. I am lucky to be in this show with my daughter, which is such a fun experience. So anyway I once told my father I’d never need to learn to use a computer, but now I am a lover of tech tools. I am the mother of two kids ages 12 and 15, and I began by volunteering in the school libraries while working as a freelance editor. Then I became a library substitute teacher, and now I am in grad school. They sucked me in! Plus I figured I already love cardigans and cats, so why not? I’ve had some amazing library mentors and I can’t wait to be a school librarian! Should you happen to be hiring for next fall, just saying… (30 sec) Nelson, W. (2015). Personal photo.
- #4 Why lightning-fast? You already know this but, you’re busy. You have time to plan, but not as much as you’d like. As a librarian, you probably have students for only one lesson, and given the crazy schedule, who knows when they will be back? And if you’re a classroom teacher, you want time to be spent productively and not with students bogging down on difficult technology. You want your library lessons to be memorable and the students to produce something interesting that supports the curriculum. Teachers want this, too. You NEED awesome results in one lesson or less! I’ll be outlining the pros and cons of the tools and giving instructional ideas for each one. are good for library lessons but a lot are either co-teaching lessons or ideas to suggest to teachers when you are recommending these tools. (Needless to say, many of these ideas and tools can be stretched to more than one lesson, but you can get lightning-fast results from each of these tools.) (1 min)
- #5 Today I am going to show you five tools and five sets of ideas for quick lessons or classroom ideas incorporating technology. But wait, there’s more! I’m actually going to show you six tools, because two of them are similar but have some important differences in their features. (30 sec)
- #6 The first tool is Haiku Deck at www.haikudeck.com. I really love this one. This tool is very quick out of the gate and gives lovely results. My example here is a screenshot of a HaikuDeck I created based on a poem called “Barter” by Sarah Teasdale. It’s a presentation tool, very simple to use with a large selection of searchable photos or you can also upload your own. HaikuDeck is also an app and is integrated with social media. You can share your results in many ways for free. (1 min) Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-teasdale
- #7 HaikuDeck has a few minor drawbacks. The preloaded templates are your only option, so while they are very attractive, they can become visually repetitive. Also, you cannot upload music to back your presentation, and you cannot download your presentation without a pro account. The pro account is $5 a month for educators. (1 min) Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-teasdale
- #8 Haiku Deck Ideas #1: Beautiful Poetry! As you have seen in my demo, Haiku Deck is perfect for writing original poems and creating slideshow for oral presentation. This satisfies VA English SOL 4.7 or Use Haiku Deck to illustrate a poem by someone else , which satisfies a whole bunch of SOLs. (VA SOLs 6.4, 7.5, 9.1, 9.2, 10.5, 11.5, 12.5) To do this you would enter one line of the poem on each slide, as I have done in my example. You can add a photo to illustrate the image, which is good practice for kids working on their ability to interpret poetry. The photos are searchable and really well tagged, so for example if you are looking for a photo showing the word “brilliance,” you’d have many different options. For the image here I searched for music and gold and I got what I think is a perfect result. The photos are also rights-released and fully cited, so it supports our mission of teaching students to use media responsibly. You can also upload your own images, which we’ll see in the next example. (1.5 min) Nelson, W. (2015). Barter by Sarah Teasdale. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8Evl10XZj7/barter-by-sara-teasdale
- #9 Single-Topic Research As you can see in the screenshot at left, Haiku Deck has very simple text-based layouts you can choose from. Some have a picture plus text and others are text only. You can also upload your own images. This makes Haiku Deck a good option for single-topic research projects, such as a book report, mini-biography of a famous American, science topic (type of insect, animal, or storm?), or something related to Social studies (country report or single event?) This example is on butterflies. Because creating the HaikuDecks is so quick, students could actually research a very specific topic and create one in just one lesson. Or of course it could build on something they have already learned about. (1.5 min) Kramer, J. (2015). Ladybugs and butterflies. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/ladybugs--butterflies-science-and-technology-presentation-qkDBhIjoLC
- #10 Mission Statements This idea is a great team-building exercise for a class, especially at the beginning of the school year. Most schools have a mission statement, and many teachers create one for their class, or perhaps the library has one. You could also do this with library rules as part of your class orientation lessons. Bring your mission statements to life with a powerful Haiku Deck, as in this example. (1.5 min) McKenzie, S. (2015). Inspire 13. [Slideshow]. Available at https://www.haikudeck.com/inspire-13-uncategorized-presentation-NKPxpCqq9V
- #11 Unlike some sites, HaikuDeck is pretty active at promoting itself, and they have some great ideas on their Pinterest board and on their blog. I encourage you to check these out for more inspiration. (1 min)
- #12 We’ll pause here for questions and comments for a bit. Does anyone have any questions about Haiku Deck or have any great ideas for how to use this resource in a short lesson? I would love to hear your thoughts about this particular tech tool. It’s one of my favorites. (1 min)
- #13 Our second tool is a site called FoldPlay. Kids love origami and creating things with paper, and this site is really easy to explain. You upload a picture or pictures and make a printable foldable or cuttable product. Like origami, some of these are easy and some are tricky. (30 sec)
- #14 FoldPlay does have some drawbacks. First, the site has limited activities, though what they have are good ones and the site is unique and colorful. It also is not updated or supported anymore, though it still works. Available activities include printable origami, foldbooks, kaleidocycles, and paper models. (1 min)
- #15 FoldPlay Idea #1 is Vocabulary Word Flip Books This activity is good for English class, world language learners, or ELL—basically any situation where students have vocabulary words to learn. You would challenge kids to find photos for each of their vocabulary words and create a photo flip book with captions. It might work best and quickest if they gather photos from clip art galleries or premade selections. Aside from issues of unexpected image search results, using Google image search can bog down the lightning-fast process. The FoldPlay flip books have eight pages, which of course may be doubled or tripled or quadrupled. The secret is that simply by creating the book, students will learn the vocabulary words every time! (1.5 min)
- #16 Foldplay Idea #2: Science Cycles Flip books are great for illustrating the plant cycle, water cycle, carbon cycle, etc. There are lots of science cycle printables, but in this case I think creating one from scratch could be a more engaging activity. The act of uploading the photos and captions in order helps students review the topic. To save time, assemble the book together as a class with the site projected on an interactive whiteboard, and print one of the resulting pages for each student. Each student folds and keeps a book to study for their own use. By uploading the pictures, assembling the book, and reading it through once or twice, students will have already studied the science cycle in question multiple times. (1.5 min)
- #17 This is a specific activity that is suitable for fourth-graders who are studying force, Motion, and Energy. Each student will make a sphericon (There are several different templates that make the same shape) Sphericons roll but not well Use different thicknesses or types of paper or different tape Have a race to experiment with friction, motion, and kinetic energy—use different ramps or surfaces. What do students observe and learn? (1.5 min)
- #18 Questions or comments about FoldPlay? What about other good origami tools or activities? I did find one other where you can print pdfs of three-dimensional objects. It has a wide selection of choices but it’s not as kid-friendly as FoldPlay. The URL is here though in case anyone wants to jot it down. (1 min)
- #19 Third tool is Kizoa. This is not a new tool, but it’s not particularly well-known. I first found it out of total frustration with another online tool, Slidely. I created a whole video and then found I couldn’t see the captions that I had put on the slides. I googled “best video making tools” and found Kizoa. I had never heard of it before! It is extremely versatile and free! It’s a great web alternative to iMovie or Windows Movie Maker and has almost all of the features of that software. As such, it has a slightly higher learning curve than some of these others because you can bog down in details, but you can also get something accomplished quickly if quick is what you need. Teachers can provide more or less guidance and templating depending on time limits. (1 min)
- #20 Like iMovie or Movie Maker, you can start with a template in Kizoa or not. There are dozens of templates and they make for very attractive results. This screenshot shows some of the template choices. You can also make photo collages, add effects or filters to the picture, have animated transitions between pictures, and add music. Kizoa offers a lot of royalty-free choices or you can upload your own. When you’re done you can share the video in multiple ways including Facebook, Youtube, email, or downloading it locally. (1 min)
- #21 This is the slideshow or video creation screen. In this screen capture, as you can see (or as previously demonstrated) I have pulled some personal photos in from Facebook just to show you what it looks like. You can attach a Facebook account to your account or just pull photos from your computer. There are only a couple of cons with Kizoa--Video clips if you include them are limited to two minutes each. You can have more than one but no more than two minutes each. However, you can cut a longer video clip down to just the two minutes you want using Kizoa. Also, you do need an account to use the site. It is just an email address and password. (1 min)
- #22 On the left is an idea of a Kizoa template. I quickly pulled a couple of personal photos into this so you can see what it would look like. As you can see, it is highly graphic and attractive. This is a travel-related template so I thought it fit well with this idea. Kizoa idea #1: A Post-Field Trip Activity This is not technically a one-lesson lesson, but it can be done in one lesson after a field trip. This activity works well with a historic site or museum—anything that has a nice visual element you want to preserve. Assign students to be field trip reporters, who take photos or videos during the trip as well as notes on what they saw. Upon return to school, students use Kizoa to create a virtual field trip with captions to share with others. This could be done as a class but is better in small groups or alone. (1.5 min)
- #23 Kizoa Idea #2: Math Problems You’ve seen numerous virtual whiteboard demonstrations, I’m sure, but for this project I am thinking of those you see on Khan Academy. This can be done in numerous ways depending on the equipment you have available. It does fulfill the Virginia MATH SOL 6.2 in particular, which specifically asks students to demonstrate orally and in writing equivalent relationships among decimals, percents, and fractions, but it is a good activity for any level. These virtual whiteboard demonstrations are a good thing to post on a class Edmodo or blog for kids who are doing homework. Once you get a routine down, they don’t take long at all to make. Students make a virtual whiteboard demonstration of math problems using step by step photos/videos, then assemble the results in Kizoa. (Tip: Screencast-o-matic.com is one way to do this. You can also film an actual whiteboard.) Among others, this idea works with VA SOL 6.2, where students are expected to “Describe orally and in writing the equivalent relationships among decimals, percents, and fractions that have denominators that are factors of 100.” [Essential Understandings] Alternative: Have each student explain a different step of a single problem or concept in a short video and then compile the videos together (1.5 min)
- #24 Kizoa Idea #2: Read a Famous Speech or Poem In groups or as a class, film each student reading a line or two of a famous speech or poem. (I Have a Dream or similar) You can do this with anything inspirational as well—for example, encouragement during test-taking time. Upload video clips and intersperse them with historic video clips, pictures, or screenshots of the text of the speech/poem. Add background music. The result is a moving video created through an interactive experience. (1.5 min)
- #25 I highly recommend you explore this tool. It can do so many things. Any questions or comments about Kizoa? Are there other video-making tools that you use? (1 min)
- #26 Tools 4 and 5 are Vocaroo and Clyp. I’m including these two audio tools together because they are similar and work well alone or together. There are some key differences and for that reason you may prefer one or the other. (30 sec)
- #27 Some key differences exist between these two sites, which are both free. You can record audio directly onto both sites. You can only upload audio files to Clyp. Vocaroo recordings are downloadable and Clyp’s are not. Both are sharable and postable to social media. It is also possible to record something on Vocaroo and then upload it to Clyp as well. You do not need an account for Vocaroo but you do for Clyp. You can sign up through Facebook or use an email address and password. Clyp is the only one that is also an app, which is good to know if you are using iPads or tablets. (1 min)
- #28 Here are some ideas that are good for either Vocaroo or Clyp. The first is Audio Book Reviews, which is great for the library. Have students make short “radio broadcasts” reviewing or summarizing the books they are reading. Compile the clips by embedding them in a blog on your library site You can also make QR codes for bulletin boards or bookshelves linking to the reviews (1.5 min)
- #29 Idea #2: The Responsibilities of Citizens. This satisfies VA SOL Civics and Economics 3.D, for 8th or 9th grade. Civics students learn about the important responsibilities of U.S. citizenship. For this activity, you divide students into small groups, give each a topic from the list on the curriculum framework. Research, write, and create a series of short audio broadcasts about the responsibilities of U.S. citizens: Register and vote Hold elective office Communicate with government officials to influence government actions Serve in voluntary, appointed government positions Participate in political campaigns. Keep informed regarding current issues Respect others’ right to an equal voice in government (1.5 min) American flag. (n.d.). Free clipart, available at http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/80000/nahled/american-flag-1392926500mE6.jpg
- #30 This is another great library activity and can be done in students’ downtime. I know some libraries let students come in at lunch. This would also be a fun one as an alternative for student pages on days when there are no books to shelve. It’s a workaround as well for scheduling difficulties in establishing reading buddy programs. It’s not the same as one-on-one time but at least it’s an older student’s voice reading. Vocaroo/Clyp idea #3 is Reading Buddies/Modeled Reading. This activity builds reading fluency and allows young students to practice reading on their own. The process is simple. Have older students record themselves reading popular beginning reading books such as the Biscuit series. This takes only a couple of minutes. Place these clips together on a web page or blog. Share with teachers and parents of younger students. The students can listen at school or at home as they look at the book. Here’s my disclaimer: For copyright reasons you should put these behind some sort of password protection and inform teachers, parents, and students that they should not share the files publicly. Technically you should get the publisher’s permission to record audio versions of books. It’s very unlikely the authors’ guild is going to beat down your door for this, but it’s worth noting. I still think it’s a great idea! (1.5 min) Moss, B. (2013). Canada water kids’ library. CC-BY 2.0
- #31 Students always enjoy this activity, which is Idea #4 for Vocaroo and Clyp: Commercials from History Students write and record a 30-second radio commercial from a current social studies unit as if radio commercials existed at the time. Examples: “Come settle in the New World!” “Vote for Abraham Lincoln” “Visit (Ancient) Rome” (1.5 min) Lincoln campaign poster. CC-0 1.0.
- #32 Questions or comments about Vocaroo and Clyp? Has anyone used these before or have a preference for one over the other? (1 min)
- #33 Our last tool, #6, is My Storybook. As you can guess from its name, it’s an online storybook creator. It was named one of the best websites for teaching and learning by the American Association of School Libraries for 2015. This site is pretty new and the design is easy and intuitive. Students should be up and running on this quickly. I first looked at this one over the summer and it was kind of a ghost town, but I’m glad to say it looks like people are catching on to it now. (30 sec)
- #34 The images I’ve shown here are the first page you see when you begin a storybook. On the left are buttons where you can add different elements to your page. You can add pre-fab images and stickers and you can also draw with pencil and pen tools. On the right is a button where you add pages. The blue button at the top is a tutorial. On the right image I show here is a storybook I created in about 5 minutes just to show you what it looks like. It’s a literary masterpiece. My Storybook has some pros and cons. You do not need an account to start using the site and the site is completely free. You can share your creation with all of the MyStorybook users or keep it private. However, you do need an account to save books (requires email and username). You can download an ebook, but it costs money, currently $5. Also, while exploring the site over the summer I found some weirdly inappropriate user-created books in the library of storybooks. My Storybook states that they will delete inappropriate material but perhaps they aren’t doing that fast enough. This is something to be aware of if your students are browsing freely. When I went back to look at the site again, I did not find any inappropriate material so they may have gotten on the ball about this one. (1 min)
- #35 My Storybook ideas #1: This is more of a writing prompt, but it’s a great one to get students started. What would happen if two characters from two different books meet? For example, Junie B. meets Geronimo Stilton. Create a storybook to answer this question. (1.5 min) https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/P/0679991301.jpg
- #36 Idea #2 is called Pass the Storybook This is a creative game and of course it can also be done on paper with pencils, but using My Storybook is so much more fun! This works best with iPads/tablets or when many computers are available, and with students who are already familiar with using the site. You’ll need some sort of timer. Each student begins a storybook in My Storybook, adding a title and the first page. Give them no more than a couple of minutes to do this. Of course, you’ll have to set some ground rules about appropriateness, otherwise this can get really silly really fast. Students then get up (or pass the tablet) and switch to their neighbor’s story. They quickly add one page to continue that story, then get up and switch to the next story. Continue until time is up, trying to give every story a beginning, middle, and end. The results should be hilarious and of course students should share them. Believe it or not, this teaches students to pay attention to narrative structure as they write. (1.5 min)
- #37 Idea #3 for MyStorybook is to work with a Teacher-Created Template One nice thing about this site is that existing stories may be edited and remixed by other users. Therefore you can create a template on your own account for students to work with. My example here is a “fill in the blank” rhyming picture dictionary. Have students open the template, and click “Edit book” to make their own changes. They won’t need to have a login because you can save the book publicly without a login. Teachers can view and grade the books that way, or you could create a login to share or a login for each student. The site is pretty flexible that way. This is great for second-graders who are not quite ready to write their own stories yet and would help fulfill the VA English SOLs 2.12, 2.13, 2.14. (1.5 min)
- #38 Does anyone have any questions or comments about MyStorybook? Has anyone seen or tried this site before? (1 min)
- #39 You’ve now seen six lightning-fast tools that will give your students results in one lesson or less. Here are those addresses again in case you did not get a chance to write them down and I have this as a one-page handout as well. This entire presentation has been placed on Slideshare. If anyone would like access to the Powerpoint including my script for the presentation, I have also placed it on Google Drive. Please feel free to share it or any of these ideas with your peers. I hope they have sparked your imagination.
- #40 Thank you so much for your time and attention! Any final thoughts? (30 sec)