Student Book Review Project

This post is going to be about a project that I'm working on at one of the schools where I work, Seymour Middle School.  If you are not interested in podcasting or book reviews you may want to skip this post.  If you are into that sort of thing then keep reading!  Last year, I had an idea.  I wanted students to create audio podcasts reviewing a book they read and then take those podcasts and organize them into a website where other students could listen to them before selecting a book from the library.  It seemed like such a simple idea but there were many different pieces to consider (e.g. logistics of pc/tablet/iPad, where to store the reviews, sorting of genre/author/title, where to consistently get book information).  To this point, over a year later, I have gotten the idea off the ground but it is still only slightly hovering above the earth.  The site is live on the web (only seven reviews) and I think I have worked out the kinks to the point where I can really start to focus on my main intent which was to get kids talking about books.

Now What?

The reason I decided to post about this project is to offer ideas/suggestions to anyone looking to implement something similar in their school.  Being that I have gone through the process and managed the pitfalls, I can help you to avoid some of the mistakes that I made initially.  So...if you are up for starting a project for the second half of the year send me an e-mail or a message on Twitter.

Tagul

I was working with Wordle today and in my travels happened upon a site called Tagul.  Tagul is now my new favorite word cloud generator.  Wordle has always disappointed me in the fact that you cannot save your image  without having to use print screen.  Tagul offers the ability to save your image, embed your image or even e-mail it to a friend.  What I liked most about Tagul was the amount of editing options that were offered.  I was able to get very finite with the colors fonts, words, and was even able to have the words fit to an image.
Check out this sweet cloud using the Declaration of Independence with the image of the United States

Now What?

There are so many ways to incorporate word clouds into your classroom.  I like the idea of using them as a review or preassessment to find out how much the class knows about something.  You can also use a list of items (prepositions, famous authors, etc.) and create a poster for your classroom walls.

Trueflix by Scholastic

Trueflix is a website developed by Scholastic to further develop their collection of non-fiction books in the area of social studies and science.  Included with each digital book/video are project ideas, web links, games, quizzes, lesson plans and more.  It is very simple to navigate and extremely easy to access and use.  Currently, Seymour Public Schools has a free trial that will expire on December 15, 2011.  Up to that point we will have full access to all of the books, videos and resources.  If you can find some time to check out what the site has to offer, you will not be disappointed.

Username: trueflix
Password: cup

Now What?

This site has some great non-fiction books that you can share with your classes in a variety of ways including to teach content or during content literacy to develop reading strategies.  The videos are excellent and the book can be set to read aloud so students can hear the inflection and pronunciation by the author.  There is also a great variety of books including categories such as U.S. Government, natural disasters, extreme nature, and more.

Wordle

I know that I have talked about Wordle before but I have yet to write about it here on the blog.  I absolutely love this site because it is super simple and there a million and one ways to use it in your classroom.  Check out my example below which visually represents the ISTE | NETS Standards for Students:

Now What?

You can use Wordle to demonstrate the important parts of a speech, class notes, as a game where students try to guess the origin of the content, an introduction to a new topic, book abstract and anything else you can think of that will generate a unique set of words.  You can even create a Wordle using your own words to make a unique image for your classroom or website.  Even more ideas