Be Internet Awesome

Phishers, hackers, digital citizenship, empathy for others, password creations.  When you read the previous words, what immediately comes to mind?  

INTERNET SAFETY  

What's more...are we safe online?  Are our children safe?  What can we do to protect ourselves and others?  Are you ready to teach your students and children how to be safe on the Internet in a manner that would really hit home with them?  Then the website Be Internet Awesome is the right tool for you!  

What is it?

Sponsored by Google, Be Internet Awesome was created to help families and teachers educate children on how to be safe when navigating on the Internet both at home and school.  

How Does it Work?

The nifty thing about this site is that it actually teaches our children through an interactive game exploring the "Interland".  Throughout the levels, children are asked different questions regarding Internet safety, which will help their character progress to harder realms.  In addition to the game, a handy curriculum guide is provided as well to further enhance the lessons learned through the game.  

How Would I Use This in My Library and/or at Home?

Be Internet Awesome comes with fully written curriculum guides differentiated for both parents and teachers.  Parents can use the guide to help teach their children the best ways to be safe when no one is monitoring their Internet searches and activities.  

The teacher guide directs students on the basic pillars of being good digital citizens and how to make the best choices online, which are:

• Share with Care
• Don't Fall for Fake
• Secure Your Secrets
• It's Cool to be Kind
• When in Doubt, Talk it Out  

Both the parent and educator curriculum guides provide notes, lessons, activities, discussions, posters, crafts and awards.  Best of all, it is FREE to use!     

What is My Opinion?  

I LOVE this website!  I think it is very user friendly, even if you are only getting on to allow exploration of the Interland game.  I had a lot of fun exploring the Interland and trying my hand at making wise Internet choices.  Some of the questions even stumped me and I had to go back and try again.  Talk about amping up your perseverance!    

Even better, I like that Google has provided a full curriculum guide to help us teach our students the best practices when "surfing the web".  I like that the guide teaches the basic fundamentals for digital citizenship and making wise choices.  I think these pillars will lead to a lot of open discussions regarding their past experiences and what might have given them a different outcome of the situation.  These discussions will help our children see that "when in doubt, talk it out" with an adult.  I think this will allow our children to have an open door policy about asking for Internet guidance when needed.    

I think most of our students would love to learn these safety tips through a fun, self-paced game.  Best of all, it is FREE!  (Did I mention that already?!)     

Written by:  Ashley White

https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/

All About Newseum ED

About this Web site: Newseum ED is an excellent resource for school librarians and was recently listed on AASL’s Best Websites list. The link for this resource is https://newseumed.org/ . This resource is a product of the Newseum Museum in D.C. It’s super easy to sign up for the site, all you need is an email for your username and a password. The site is free to use and can be used to access resources relating to the 1st Amendment, media literacy, civics, and more.

What it offers: I could see myself utilizing this resource often since it offers so much for school librarians and educators. There are thousands of lesson plans, classes, artifacts, and other learning tools that you can access once you sign up. It seems very user-friendly with tabs and search tools to help you find the resources you need. Tabs at the top of the page are broken down into “Classes and Training”, “Tools”, and “News”. You can also narrow your search with options such as “Type of Tool”, “Topic”, “Grade”, etc.

In the Library: I could see this tool being used by school librarians at all levels. They offer classes and lesson plans broken into grades 3-5, 6-8. 9-12, and even college level courses. The classes that you can sign up for take place at the Newseum Museum, which could be a great experience on a school field trip to D.C. This would be especially convenient for my school since we are located right next to the capital. For those unable to physically travel to the museum, lesson plans and other useful resources are still available online. The lesson plans tie in nicely with a library curriculum and SOLs. An example of one of these lessons is titled “E.S.C.A.P.E. Junk News”. This is a lesson made for grades 6-12 but I think could easily be tweaked for lower grades. This lesson uses an acronym that teaches students how to evaluate information such as news. Students then work in teams to practice their new knowledge on real news sources.

You could also use the web site to access ED Collections. These are curated resources that are separated into eight different topics. Possible topics to explore range from “Recognizing Bias” to “Uncovering How News is Made”. I think that students could really benefit from the resources about how news is made which may help them understand the mechanics of putting together newspapers and news websites. They also offer collections to help librarians and educators further their own learning with ED Collections like “Taking Charge of Your Role” which offers items like flowcharts to display or activities to conduct with students.

In today’s world of “fake news” and constantly evolving technology, I believe a site like Newseum ED can be a valuable tool to add to a school librarian’s “toolbox”. It offers resources for school librarians and students at all levels without costing a cent. We as librarians have a duty to provide students with the skills they need to navigate the online world, and this resource helps to lessen the burden.

Prodigy

Prodigy is a perfect example of gamifying learning that creates a fun way to understand and practice math skills.

Here is an overview of this AASL best website from 2018:

While the site is free, teachers or parents need to create an account for their student(s) and there is an option to purchase a premium membership at $4.99 a month which allows for access to more game areas, rewards and prizes.

Though I was not able to really navigate through as a student from the onset, I did create a class and a practice student account to preview the activities. It was really easy to create a teacher account and the dashboard was easy to navigate. There was also a decent amount of FAQs to help and the reports were very comprehensive.

Each student is given a personalized username and password. From there the fun begins! Students get to personalize their avatar and choose a name, which is chosen from a predetermined list. I appreciate this anonymity as it seems to me it will provide a small level of safety. I think students will also love that they can really make their avatar their own and even adopt a pet!

I had a lot of fun going through the questions and really appreciated that there was immediate help if needed by clicking on the information button next to the question.

To add to the fun, students can earn treasure and cast spells! What a great math adventure!

Some of my favorite things about this website are that math activities are based on the standards where you live. So these are SOL and grade level specific for Virginia. In addition, my students and who are already using Prodigy really love it and will even ask to play it during their free time.

I could see using this in the library as a station and it could be a great collaboration tool to help with math review.

If you want to learn more about this fun website, check it out here: Prodigy Game

My Review of The Learning Network

The Learning Network -

Teaching and Learning with The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/section/learning

I found The Learning Network to be a great resource for teachers and librarians who are interested in teaching using current articles from a newspaper. This website provides a large array of lessons for students. I think that the way students access news is different today with social media being their first means of communication and keeping current with the events of the world by reading news articles can be very beneficial to students in a multitude of ways. Teaching students how to read an article and summarize it, write their opinions about what they have read, and learn how to extract the main points of an article are just some of the things that students should be taught and they can learn these things from reading The New York Times through The Learning Network. Contained in the lesson plans on this website there are writing prompts, current news quizzes, lesson plans in a variety of subject areas and contests for students to enter their writing in. Current events are used to improve writing and content knowledge in a lot of the core classes such as English and Science. Students will be able to find articles to satisfy a lot of core skills on this website. Below are some of the options of activities for students and lesson plans subjects that the website offers:

I think that this website would be a great resource to show teachers at a faculty meeting and urge them to explore. They can sign up for a free trial provided by the website. If there is enough interest, I would consider having the library subscribe to the site so that the teachers could have access to the website during the school year. This website would be a great collaboration tool for the teachers and librarians to use together and bring students into the library for lessons.


I explored the website and found so much information that it was hard to select one example to show but I decided to look at a current event, From the homepage, I selected “Latest” from the top tab so I could see the most recent articles.

 

That took me to a list of articles for the week and I selected that article about the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The article was displayed as well as information to read “before reading the article” and questions to respond to after reading the article.

 

I found this format for reading current events very beneficial for students to follow and some guidance is given to help them determine the main points of the article and ideas on what they should write about for their response. I will definitely be recommending this website to teachers, you should too!

Kapwing

Technological Difficulties

I’m always on the hunt for easy ways my students can create their own videos. For me, the struggle of creating accounts or having issues with students logging in to different programs makes my head spin. Downloading software and finding that programs are not compatible with differing devices is another real pain. I think many educators are hesitant to try new emerging technology for fear of technological difficulties. That’s why I fell in love with Kapwing! Kapwing is accessible from every device. There is no necessary log in information for students to enter, and everything is saved automatically on the cloud. Without those worries in the way, we can spend our time focusing on content and creativity!

Purpose

The site  was designed to help users easily create memes, GIFs, videos, picture slide shows, flashcards, etc. Students simply start with a blank canvas, like the image below, or use a template.

They can then add images, text, audio, or backgrounds. You can even upload existing videos and stitch clips together. The program is pretty intuitive and students won’t have a hard time trying to figure out how to format their projects. While it is recommended for grades 4+, I think even students as young as second grade could work with this program.

Educational Uses

The website suggests several ways that this program can enhance instruction and I've added some ideas of my own. Some ideas of items students can create during collaborative lessons or library lessons are…

- a meme on a particular history topic

-flashcards for science or math content

-digital storytelling creations

-book trailers

-How-to videos

-a GIF on a book character

-a picture video on a geographic location

-a book summary

I tried the program out and created a very simple meme using Kapwing’s approved photos and text. It only took me a minute, and I have the option of publishing/sharing my creation.

This website incorporates the AASL standards of Engage and Explore. Students will enjoy this creation tool as a way to express their ideas and curricular knowledge. I think students will embrace combining this digital media with their school work. I’m impressed with this site and will certainly add it to my bank of resources to use with my students!

Visit Kapwing here

Book Creator

    Book Creator

WHAT:  

Book Creator is a website and app presentation tool to create, read, and publish digital books.  Books are created with text, images, audio, and videos.  

Book Creator was named one of the American Association of School Librarians(AASL) Best Websites for Teaching and Learning for 2018.  The committee apparently loved it so much they also created a presentation of their 25 top websites using this tool!

Best Websites Presentation Link

WHO: 

Book Creator is used by students and/or educators. Teachers can sign up for a free account and can have one library set of 40 books total. Students can log into the teacher account to create their own books. If the book total is exceeded, books will be archived for later use.  There are other pricing options to be able to create multiple libraries and more copies.  

(There's a separate $4.99 charge per ipad app that is installed.)

WHY:

Book Creator is a great website because it is incredibly simple and intuitive to use!  There's so many options available and no limit on the amount of pages that you can add or the length of audio/videos that users embed.   All grades from elementary to high would be able to use and enjoy producing their original digital books.  The final product is attractive, creative, and easy to publish and share!  

How: 

Educators will find many possibilities for using Book Creator.  Their website suggests - -

• interactive storytelling, 
• digital portfolios
• research journals
• poetry books
• science reports
• instruction manuals
• 'about me' books
• comic adventures

            50 Ways Link

Final Thoughts: 

I was thrilled with this website.  It truly is a wonderful presentation tool with the short learning curve, numerous creative possibilities, and sharing options.  

I see it being a very usable tool in the school library.  Students could quickly pick up on how to create their own books and then have a blast reading each other's published books.  This meets National Standards for School Libraries in the areas of Explore, Engage and possibly Collaborate.  

Although truly wonderful, there were a few limitations that I was disappointed by.  The number of free books allowed each teacher could be limiting if trying to use it with a classroom.  I also think the background/colors/text options would be disappointing for older students wanting to have more possibilities for their book creations.  

***I had so much fun with this website that I created a book for my students and their families as a memento of our Explore Week adventures of Jewelry Making! (I won't be able to post because it contains student names and photos)

BoomWriter

by Kathleen Northrop

BoomWriter is a free website for all educators of any subject area. The website allows for easy collaborative story writing, with the possibility of publication in a paperback book!  Students can create original stories with the help of their peers based on a multitude of “Story Starters.” The story starters incorporate a vast amount of interests and exciting, suspenseful cliffhangers. 

This photo shows a story starter entitled “America’s Next Big Star.” Upon selecting the story starter, the teacher sees what ages and subjects it is aimed for. The teacher can also read the story starter before assigning it. On the left hand side, there are link to Lesson Plans to help the teacher ease this process into their classroom.

After the teacher chooses a story start, the students assigned to the lesson will read it and work together (or individually) to write the next part of the story.  The teacher can then review the writing and provide feedback. The students assigned to the project then. Vote for the best entry to become the next chapter. This read-write-vote process will continue until all the chapters (number selected by teacher) have been completed. Once the story is completed, the class is given the option to purchase their book as a paperback!

As you can see, the educator can easily select the number of additional chapters that the students will produce. I believe it went from 1-20. Then, the teacher can assign the project to a whole class or a group of students of their choosing. This website works well with Google Classroom— you can sync your students straight from it! This photo also has a link to a letter and email template for parents. Using this, the educator can easily keep parents in the loop about the goings on of their classroom.

As an English teacher, I love a tool like this. I am constantly working to get kids writing in any way I can. Due to the large amount of story starters on varying topics, I think that teachers of all subjects could use this tool to add a little creativity and collaboration to a unit. This website would also make for a fun librarian led activity with a class (especially for teachers who are not comfortable with the writing process). It could also be used for a library sponsored creative writing or book club. Overall, I enjoyed learning about this website and can see myself using it in the near future.