Create Beautiful eBooks

Drop your manuscript into Vellum and it will open as a book divided into chapters. While in Vellum, you can edit your book or start writing a new one. Books may be shared with family and friends and uploaded to online stores. There’s a free download to try the software; if you wish to purchase, the cost is $49.99 for a single book, $99.99 for three books, and $149.00 for five books. The product was developed by Pixar veterans, so one wonders if Vellum may evolve to include interactive capabilities appropriate for exciting eTexts? In the meantime, it looks like a very nice solution for students and educators who want to create good-looking eBooks.

Storia: A Scholastic Reading Experience

Scholastic’s Storia is a place for your students to find over 2000 eBooks to read at home and at school. There are Read-to-Me books with highlighted text; Enriched eBooks that tackle topics in mathematics, science, geography, and history; reference tools and a dictionary; books with puzzles and quizzes; personal bookshelves; and tools for teachers. Many Scholastic favorites and classics are part of the Storia list, which is divided into categories according to Age (2 to 13 and up), Product Type (eBooks, Enriched eBooks, Read-to-Me Books, Reading Challenge, ePacks, eCollections), Reading Level, Grade Level (Pre-K to 8 and Teen), and Character & Series (Clifford, Harry Potter, Magic School Bus, etc.). Prices vary according to the book or pack selected. The eBooks may be used on iPad, Kindle Fire, Android devices, and Windows PCs. A Mac version will be out soon.

Wonderful, Wanderful Books Now Available for iPad and Android Devices

Harry and The Haunted House, Arthur’s Teacher Trouble, Ruff’s Bone, and other children’s digital classics are now ready for Android devices. The series, which has until now, only been available for the iPad, includes thirteen apps, eight of which are for the U.S. market and have story content in English and Spanish.  Other apps are available in UK English and in French. iPad apps for the books can be found at the iTunes App Store; Android apps, at the Google Play Store. If you haven’t tried these delightful apps, you’ll want to download the Wanderful Storybook Sampler to enjoy some very special pages from these very special interactive digital books.

Raz-Kids Have Read over 1.3 Billon Books

Almost 7-million Raz-Kids in 165 countries have read over 1,392,992,483, and counting, books. The company, Learning A-Z, reports that almost 525 million books have been read on the Raz-Kids site in the last 12 months. The CODiE-award winning books are definitely popular; just ask students who use them. My 7-year-old friend Lebby, whose mom works in my office, delighted in showing me how to use Raz-Kids and all the books she was reading. She loved taking me through the quizzes and showing me how well she understood what she read.

In addition to Raz-Kids, Learning A-Z has other fine programs: Reading A-Z, Science A-Z, Writing A-Z, Vocabulary A-Z, and Reading Tutors.

Robotics & Literature—Watch

Watch students merge literature and robotics using a Hummingbird Robotics Kit. On the Hummingbird site, you’ll find two videos—one is the presentation of Robert Frost’s Fire & Ice and the other shows how the students created their poetry theater. It’s not just in language arts that you can integrate engineering with course content. Creative teachers and students are finding ways to have fun with the electronics kits in science, art, math, and social studies, as well as, technology. Hummingbird kits are priced below $200 and include tutorials, hardware, and software that works using Windows, Mac, and Linux. On the Arts & Bots curricula site, you’ll find full curricula, after-school activities, project ideas, and classroom resources.

Creativity & Non-Fiction

Most of what students read today in school is non-fiction, and now, according to an article in Ed Week Teacher, with the introduction of Common Core, even greater emphasis will be placed on non-fiction curricular materials. AP Teacher Nathan Sun-Kleinberger says that students in his classes learn to be creative with non-fiction. He teaches the “Declaration of Independence” as a breakup song and for homework has students create their own “Declarations”.  Sun-Kleinberger’s students write satire like “State of the Union” addresses, but focus on topics such as “texting, zombies, drama queens, the NBA, reality television, and Velcro. Humor, this AP teacher believes, sets students into creative gear. You’ll want to read about his AP birthday card project and “brutally honest” class discussions.

Children Create Their Own Disney Stories

Disney Princess: Story Theater! is ready for students to create their own stories. It’s a delightful learning app that ignites imaginations as children enjoy adventures with Cinderella, Belle, and Ariel. They can record their own voice, move the characters, and bring their story onscreen. The app costs $2.99 at the iTunes store and is available for iPhone 3GS and higher, iPod touch, third generation and higher, and iPad. Check the Disney Book site for other children’s apps such as Disney Storytime, Sophia the First: Story Theater, Cinderella Storybook Deluxe, Monsters, Inc., Storybook Deluxe, and Phineas and Ferb Agent P VS. The Puzzle-Inator.

Can e-Readers Entice Reluctant Readers to Read?

Matt Renwick, a Wisconsin elementary school principal and former elementary teacher, believes that digital books encourage students to read. Renwick noticed that even though students are surrounded by books, they often do not pick them up to read. So, he put e-Readers to work in the student book club because the language students speak today is “technology”. The readers make reading interactive; students can change font sizes to suit their preferences and can highlight and annotate digitally. Even though Renwick is a fan of e-Readers, he makes sure that students know that “Lifelong readers rely on a variety of formats,” since some books lend themselves better to traditional text and printed picture presentation and some books lend themselves better to interactivity.

Pandastory Book Shelf

When downloaded from iTunes, Pandastory creates a bookshelf for children on an iPad, thus creating a great place for preschool and primary level students to “check out” books both at home and school.  The shelf app is free and comes preloaded with a free book that you and your students can read, enjoy the animations, and create your own versions of the story. Teachers and parents can publish and share books that are personalized for individual children or classes. Other books (priced approximately $1-$3) are available for the shelf.  An iPhone version will be available soon, and new books for the shelf are available monthly.  So, let your students take off with stories of monsters everywhere, a wild west rabbit and hare, a buck-tooth dinosaur, a kooky pirate, and more.

Mobistories for Ages 2-6

An interesting collection of digital books for children to use at home or school is available from Still Motion Media. The stories target ages 2-6, 4-8, and 6-10, and may be used on Mac and PC computers, iPads, iPhones, iPods, Xbox, Wii, and Playstation. Stories cost about $1 each, but parents can subscribe to Mobistories in order to receive free downloads each month, entrance into Mobistories library collection, and special offers. For school and library subscription offers, contact Still Motion Media. Short previews are available online, and you can also sign up to receive a free book.