Tech Tuesday 5-26

 

Here's How to Participate:

1- Write about your tech idea on your blog and grab the image above to include in your post. Make sure to link back to this post.

2- Add your link up below

3- Share the linky party on your choice of social media


This will be the LAST Tech Tuesday of this school year! I will be announcing a new linky and the summer dates next Tuesday. Be sure to come back and check it out! :)

I'm sharing about an app that I am guilty of trying to avoid for a while and eventually ended up using. Now, it has proved to be one of the most helpful apps in my classroom. It is one of those apps that you need to have in front of you in order to understand how to use it, but I decided to post about it because many of my students have been choosing to use it for their projects and have asked their parents to get it on their family iPad at home for the summer. That's when it really hit me - Not only does this app have many capabilities and purposes, but the students are also really proud of what they create using it.

App: Creative Book Builder (CBB) - (It does cost $3.99)

CBB is perfect for making informational books. CBB is a book-making tool that has different formats. Your students can choose the option that is organized by chapter. Then, they name their chapter, type the text, and can add almost any form of media they choose - images, videos, audio files, links, projects created in other apps, and just about anything else you can image. When the student is finished with the book, they click "generate book" and then "preview". The preview feature allows them to open their book in other apps. We always choose open in "ibooks" so then they have a published ibook. This is what they share with the class or their families.

 We also used CBB to make portfolios for parent-teacher conferences. On the cover page, the students put a short video of themselves that I was able to share with parents. It changes the whole mood of a conference to have the students' cute faces there speaking to their parents about their learning. The students made a chapter for each subject, then uploaded all the content from that subject that they wanted to show. They used the text box to share what they were learning, what they were proud of, and goals for next steps. Some examples - In their math chapter, they uploaded a recording of solving a two-step word problem in Explain Everything. In their Writing chapter, they uploaded an Opinion letter they wrote in Pages. In their reading chapter, they uploaded an organizer they used to show their thinking from Notability. As you can see, it is a great tool for "housing" projects completed in apps throughout the iPad. It takes out the step of having to go into each individual app.

 My school has also used this app for grant writing. They had students in multiple grade levels take videos of learning in action. They put all the videos together with other projects/information that provided the necessary information for the grant. They used the trailer feature in iMovie to create an engaging introduction/theme.

I feel like I have just gotten started with this app this year, but I couldn't live without it because I know it is always there to pull everything together for projects, portfolios, or other purposes.

An InLinkz Link-up