A goal in all eMINTS classrooms is to make lessons relevant to students by having them create products and solve problems that are based on real life issues. One profession that lends itself to standards that many teachers teach is the job of an Author. Oftentimes teachers include writing a book as an end product in the Elaborate portion of the Constructivist lesson plan form. Having students write and publish original works requires students to think at higher levels including synthesizing information to create real world, authentic products.
There are tons of websites that allow people to create printed books for a cost, but what many don’t know is that some allow users to produce them electronically as well. Electronic books (or e-books as they are known) allow authors to embed code or link directly to the online story, thus eliminating the need to pay for a printed copy. Here is a short list of some of these sites including the designer’s descriptions:
- Snapfish Create books from templates using your photos.
- Shutterfly Create books from templates using your photos.
- My eBook Create and share dynamic books. Site needs to be previewed by teacher and possibly start projects to avoid interaction with some content. Shared in previous post
- UDL Book Builder Use this site to create, share, publish, and read digital books that engage and support diverse learners according to their individual needs, interests, and skills.
- Mix Book Photo books that are free and easy to create and share.
- Story Bird Short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print.
- Story Something Allows users to add kids names into books, save to their computer and share with kids – good Early Childhood resource.
- Story Jumper A place to create and discover stories for kids. Free to create/publish but cost for printing hardback book.
- Big Universe Get a free 14 day trial – see what other kids are writing and create project to see how you like it.
Whether you look at “new Bloom’s” revised by Lorin Anderson or the works of Benjamin Bloom, writing original works would be considered CREATING which on both hierarchies is a higher level intellectual behavior important for learning.
Written by: Brooke Higgins & Julie Szaj, eMINTS Instructional Specialists
Image by: alless&ro http://www.flickr.com/photos/regi_a/4462985171/