Booktrack Classroom

Reading on a digital device is what you make of it, but reading on a digital devices that has an enhanced effects is really fun!  That is what Booktrack Classroom is all about.  This great site allows a teacher to create a book or essay to be published  for students with enhancements in the form of a movie-style soundtrack and sound effects.  Studies cited on the website indicate that there is a significant increase in comprehension and engagement for those students who read using Booktrack.  Booktrack is an app in the Google Chrome Webstore!

Creating an account, class and students seems to be simple.  See blow for information on Terms of Service.  I am excited to see how this can be used with text from a site such as Newsela with the added soundtrack enhancements to engage students with text right at their level.  Another really great tool natural to reading text using Booktrack is that you can adjust the pace of the track to provide the reader with a more successful pace of reading.  Students that create and publish their own writing through this site can then add a soundtrack to their own work, adding interest and excitement.  

The Terms of Service on this site indicate you cannot create and account for kids under 13 although that is unclear as the teacher blogs are very clear about its use with kids at the elementary level.  I have written the help desk for clarification to see if that only applies for the creation studio or if it apples to all around use.  I'll update this post if I hear back.  

Here's a great video that will give you an idea of how this tool works: 

One Stop Page for Student Learning Online

Blendspace is another resource (Similar to Been for Edu) that I am really excited to see used in a designated device environment. Using Blendspace a teacher can collect resources from various locations online for a class or lesson topic and share them out for learning by sharing just one URL to the class.  I love this resource as it will allow you to share media and resources from all areas.  You can share videos from YouTube, those that you have created yourself or from Educreations, a video creation resource.  Presentations, documents, links, images, and the ability to bring information directly from your Google Drive, make it possible to easily focus the attention of the students on a topic or idea.  In addition this tool would be very helpful in pulling together Flipped learning resources per unit in a class or course.  Students are given a code used to get to the Blendspace class that you have created.  There are ways to use quizzes within the resource, track students progress and easily adjust resources to meet the needs of the class. 

Check out how to use Blendspace here:

TweenTribune - News Resource for Classrooms

I am super excited to share the fun resource supporting non-fiction, current events and teaches some great tips for online commenting all rolled into one resource.  More and more we see that people are getting away from a newspaper subscription and reading content online.  As more and more schools move toward a 1:1 environment, the collection of online media seems to be growing.  The trouble is that you need to find resources that will keep kids safe, allow them to learn how to use them in a secure way, and provide content at their age level taking consideration for content and reading level.  I believe that TweenTribune by Smithsonian will do that.

TweenTribune is a moderated comment sharing community where a teacher when registered for free, and assign educational content to students.  Students log in using a screen name and have the ability to make comments of which the teacher moderates and can choose to post on the Teacher's TTribune page, or publicly in the TTribune site.  Articles come from reputable sources such as AP, local newspapers and TV stations.  They are vetted for grade and reading level.  TTribune is very clear about the teacher gaining permission from parents to create accounts for students under 18 years of age, and also that they collect no information about the students, email addresses, etc.
Creating an account is simple.  The account automatically creates a list of classes of which you can rename.  Adding students is simple and I love that they encourage you to use a safe naming system when you create the user names as shown in the screen capture below: 


 Once you have created an account and have students registered, you can begin to select articles.  The articles are fantastic as they are sorted by grade span, have Lexile levels listed and a quiz should you decide to use it.  As shown, you click "Assign" and the article will be placed on the class  list of readings.



This resource is so great for kids and teachers to use.  As far as I can tell you cannot assign a different article to different kids and I wonder if the best way to differentiate would be to create different classes to accommodate different groupings.  TweenTribune is all supported via a free app for iOS.  This video will help you to learn about it, or create and account and explore!