K12 Online Conference

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=442

I just watched a great video about publishing ebooks. I chose this video because I love to teach writing and I like the first and second grade age group which is the age of the class in the video.

This video shows how to create and edit an ebook. I think it's a great idea because the kids get to work with technology and work on a more long term project. Most writing, especially at a young age, is personal and doesn't last more than a week for each essay. The students are typically asked to write about an experience or about their favorite something or other. The writing of an ebook takes time. They get to experience the whole writing process of editing and conferencing and fine tuning their project. It allows them to set goals. I think it also motivates them to know that people are looking at their work and you can see this as a feature of the site. They can go home too and show their families what they are working on.

 The ebook site works like a blog meets microsoft's paint. The video will give you enough confidence to go poking around to learn it. It's really similar to stuff we use everyday like power point and facebook. Some other cool features include adding audio so the kids can read parts of their work out loud on the book. There is this microphone too that is used to help the kids edit. They read their work in to it and the microphone sort of does some editing and helps the kids see where their errors are. They can also make little videos for pages. Another great thing is, you have to use ink in order to get a better quality to your scan. I know kids love markers more than pencil!:-)

I can't wait to use this. While watching the video, I thought of a few projects I had worked on with teachers and this would be a great addition to those. For example, my friend teaches third grade and every year she does this writing called The Ugliest Gourd. The kids write these silly descriptions about a gourd they pick out. This would make an excellent ebook!