SAILOn is a collaborative effort of 9 different school districts in the Houston area. Their goal is to help classroom teachers integrate technology into the curriculum by identifying and providing interactive Internet resources addressing specific objectives. When you navigate to your particular grade level, you will find a plethora of interactive resources that support all content areas. These resources can be used as a way of introducing a topic or reinforcing skills through workstations in your classroom or lessons in the computer lab.
They don’t have an interactive activity for every single TEK…yet. It looks like something they are continually updating. If you find an activity that you would like to use with your students and need an extra set of hands, please let me know. I can also help you create some task cards and recording sheets for use in a workstation.
In this webinar @tjhouston and @llacrosse will overview 20 apps in 20 minutes. These are the apps that were used in the classroom and found to be effective supplements to the curriculum. They were used with 5th grade science students while working with ipads for an entire school year.
While there is no perfect list of apps that will be guaranteed to work with all students in all classrooms, this list may be a good starting point for seeing the variety of apps available for the classroom. The types of apps available to teachers and students range from basic consumption of information apps to creation apps that allow teachers to provide a platform for students to showcase growth and learning. Each teacher and group of students will benefit from working to individualize their class with app usage. The best apps are those that work for YOUR content, YOUR class structure, and YOUR needs.
Scholastic BookFlix is a new online literacy resource that pairs classic video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction eBooks from Scholastic to build a love of reading and learning. BookFlix is an engaging way to link fact and fiction, and it reinforces early reading skills by introducing children to a world of knowledge and exploration. Bookflix also offers lesson plans, web links, puzzles and games based on the books shared.
ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life.
The Rainforest by Marshall, Alan, Mary, and Sayali in Mrs. Oswald’s Class
ZooBurst books ‘live’ online and can be experienced using nothing more than a web browser running the Adobe Flash plug-in. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials.
Once constructed, books can be inspected from any angle from within a 3D space, and rotating around a book is as easy as dragging and dropping a mouse. In addition, authors can choose to make items “clickable,” allowing readers to learn more about individual characters within a story. Each character can have its own ‘chat bubble’ that pops up when that character is clicked. In addition, authors can also record their own voices using the ZooBurst audio recorder to have their characters really ‘speak’ when clicked!
Readers can choose to experience and participate in a ZooBurst book in a number of ways. Authors can share books with readers using a simple hyperlink, and books can easily be ’embedded’ in any website or blog, allowing authors to provide their own contextual framework to their stories. Authors can also maintain a moderated discussion forum for each book, providing a virtual space in which readers can interact with one another.
Readers who have a webcam installed on their computer can also experience any ZooBurst book in Augmented Reality. Once a book has been loaded, readers can click on the ‘Webcam Mode’ button at the top of the screen. This button will turn on their webcam and allow them to see themselves as though they were looking in a mirror. From here, visitors can hold up a special symbol to the webcam to watch as the book ‘flys’ out of the paper and into the room around them! In addition, Augmented Reality mode also allows readers the ability to interact with a book using simple gestures. For example, simply waving your hand in front of a book will allow you to turn its pages back and forth.
As an educational tool, ZooBurst provides students with new ways in which they can tell stories, deliver presentations, write reports and express complex ideas. ZooBurst contains a powerful ‘classroom management’ feature for teachers that lets them easily set up protected, safe spaces for their students. Teachers can assign usernames and passwords to their students without having to input any sensitive or personal information, and can manage and moderate student work in a protected environment.
The best way to learn more about ZooBurst is to give it a try! Click here to sign up for your own ZooBurst account – it’s free!
