Friday, December 6, 2013

Whiteboard and Ebooks

This week during the Assemblies Anne used A Web Whiteboard  to project Unity words for all to see. You can access the web based app at http://www.awwapp.com/. It can be used with any device, but with an iPad you can use the touch interface. As you saw it is really minimalist allowing you to choose various colors and pencil widths.

In the past two weeks several second grade classrooms got to explore Schenk's ebook collection with the ipads. The ebooks can be accessed at http://madison.campusguides.com/aecontent.php?pid=494652&sid=4259879. One week they explored the Follett eBooks which like a regular book the student needs to read themselves.  This week they explored Capstone Interactive Library which was a mixture of simple, non-fiction texts, and chapter books. The advantage of Capstone was like, Tumble Books, the text was read for you.

While the Second Graders enjoyed both types of ebooks, Capstone Interactive definitely was the preference because of the audio feedback. However; the lack of sound or narration in the Follett ebooks could be a preference in some learning environments (quiet reading).

As more and more assessment takes a digital form, so must student's learning. The ebooks at Schenk are great way at giving students exposure to extended readings of the digital text that they will see on future assessments.

If you want to explore ebooks during literacy (or any other time) but are nervous, I am more than willing to offer support. This could be as simple as being available for tech support, or actual planning on how a particular type of technology could fit into a lesson or academic block.        

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