Happy Spring!
I want to tell you a little bit about book trailers. These videos are becoming more and more popular in schools and classrooms. Book trailers are a fun way to get students excited about books! Essentially, a book trailer is very similar to a movie trailer. These videos give viewers a quick look into what a book is about, without giving away any spoilers. Book trailers are meant to advertise books in a way that will make the viewers want to read the book after watching the trailer. If you would like to watch a few examples, click here. When making book trailers, you may use a variety of medias to create. A few of my favorite resources to make these videos are Animoto, WeVideo, and iMovie. To use Animoto, you must create an account. You may purchase a subscription if you really like this resource, however, you can also create videos with a free trial. With a free trial of Animoto, certain aspects of the resource are limited. Of the three resources that I have listed, I think Animoto is the easiest to use and the most user friendly. WeVideo is different from Animoto in that you have a lot more freedom in how you want to make your video. WeVideo is also a resource in which you may purchase a subscription, but free trials are available with limited features. The last resource that I mentioned, iMovie, is only available with iOS and macOS. This application is easy for students to use with iPads and is very similar to WeVideo. Enjoy!
0 Comments
I want to talk a little bit about citing sources that are used in research projects, among other things, and also a bit about plagiarism. When it comes to citing sources, giving credit where it is due is extremely important. I know the different formatting options (ALA, MLA, Chicago) can be confusing for students. However, with implementation at an early age (as early as Kindergarten), citing sources will become habit. Many schools and teachers are now letting students use citation generators, such as www.easybib.com , because students still need to know how to find the information; the citation generators just put that information in the preferred format (ALA, MLA, Chicago). In addition, some online resources (MackinVIA, Britannica Online, etc.) will cite the sources for you; you just have to copy and paste the citation into your own document. A couple good websites about what to teach regarding citation and at what level they should be taught are:
http://copyrightkids.org/ http://www.schrockguide.net/uploads/3/9/2/2/392267/workscited_1_6.pdf https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/how-cite-site-6-8 It is important to teach students that citing sources that you use is a law. Plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward. ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ARE CONSIDERED PLAGIARISM:
Hello & Happy January!
I am just popping in to tell you a little bit about available resources for eBooks. The resources that I am going to spotlight this month are MackinVIA, EPIC!, Tumblebooks, and Bridges. MackinVia is available to the district through the AEA’s online resources. MackinVIA provides easy access to eBooks, audiobooks, databases and videos. Students will need to log in to MackinVIA with the districts AEA online resources username and password. EPIC! is available free of charge to educators. Teachers will need to create accounts for themselves and their students in order for students to use the eBooks from this resource. This resource is only for students K-6 and has tons of great titles. EPIC! is the #1 children's ebook library, offering unlimited access to over 15,000 high-quality children's books, including audiobooks and videos. Teachers can also keep track of how many minutes are being read by students. If you are interested in using this resource, I suggest watching this short tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGgbsxy-Od8 . Tumblebooks is available only to those who subscribe. However, the Britt and Kanawha Public Libraries do have a subscription to Tumblebooks and for those students who have accounts at the library can access these books free of charge; they will just need their library card number to sign in. This resource is also geared towards grades K-6. TumbleBooks are animated, talking picture books. TumbleBooks are created by taking existing picture books, adding animation, sound, music and narration to produce an electronic picture book which you can read, or have read to you. Bridges is also available to students who have accounts at the Britt or Kanawha Public Libraries. Again, students will need to know their library card number to sign into an account. Bridges is a large online database that provides books of various formats to anyone with access. This resources is geared toward all ages. One of the most common ways in which teacher librarians can help a teacher is by showing and providing reliable resources for research projects and assignments. Almost everything can be found online, but students need to know that not everything that they find online is true and/or factual. Searching on Google can bring up many unreliable resources. Two ways that I encourage students to do research is through Britannica online or through an advanced search on Google. Britannica online is an online encyclopedia. Britannica online has over 120,000 articles that are updated regularly. It has daily features, updates and links to news reports from The New York Times and the BBC. Britannica can be used at any level, from elementary to high school, and has a variety of features, such as text to speech, highlight, translate (to name just a few). Britannica online is a resource that our AEA provides to us, free of cost. Researching using a simple Google search will provide many results to browse through. You can access Google’s advanced search at this link: https://www.google.com/advanced_search. From there, you can refine your search so you won’t have so many results to search from. Though this type of resource will provide a vast amount of articles, students will need to be able to know how to tell which resources are reliable and which ones are not. Happy researching! It's National Picture Book Month! Click here to read about why picture books are for EVERYONE!
Our next Scholastic book fair for elementary students is right around the corner! November 1st and November 3rd from 3:30pm-7:30pm. Your young readers will have several opportunities to walk through the fair and choose books they may want to purchase. We will also have fun stationery items like spy pens, erasers, bookmarks, and posters for sale! To visit our book fair website, click here.
Hello students! It is the start of another school year and I am excited to be here! I hope you are, too! I enjoyed my summer reading tons of great books! Did you read any great books this summer? There were lots of new books that came out this summer. These are some of the most popular books of the summer:
Ages 3-5 Sophie’s Squash Go to School by Pat Zietlow Miller, illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf Believe it or not, Sophie’s classmates think it’s strange to have squash as friends. But Steven also wants to be Sophie’s friend — so maybe it’s time for her to consider getting to know humans, too. Ages 6-8 NanoBots by Chris Gall From the creator of DinoTrux come the NanoBots, which help their boy inventor with everything — keeping him healthy, picking up after him, and searching for new microscopic creatures. They may be small, but they can do big things, including saving a super-sized robot in trouble. A Unicorn Named Sparkle by Amy Young Lucy can’t wait for her mail-order unicorn, Sparkle, to arrive. She’s horrified when a smelly, flea-ridden, long-eared creature shows up instead of what she imagined. Despite her initial misgivings, Lucy learns that Sparkle is just perfect for her. Ages 9-12 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Part I & II by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany In this play (the eighth story in the Harry Potter series), Harry, and his son Albus face mounting struggles as Harry’s past and present collide. Whether or not you can go see the play, you won’t want to miss the book in which we finally meet Harry as an adult and see how Albus gets along at Hogwarts. The Trouble with Twins by Katheryn Siebel Henrietta attempts to get even with the twin sister who has abandoned their close friendship, but instead of getting even, she gets exiled to her creepy great-aunt Priscilla’s. Luckily, Henrietta’s twin, Arabella, misses her just as much, so she sets off on a journey to reunite with Henrietta. If you want to see what other books were popular this summer, read more here! |
AuthorHi! I am the Teacher Librarian for West Hancock Schools. Archives
March 2017
|