Bringing Your Next Read Aloud to Life

www.booktrack.com

With ISTE 2015 currently wrapping up in Philadelphia, I've been watching my Twitter feed like a hawk (check out #ISTE2015 if you haven't already). I've been gleefully taking note of all of the amazing tools I want to try, thoughts I want to ponder, and innovations I need to discuss with my colleagues!

One of the tools I recently learned about from an ISTE goer is called Booktrack. Booktrack is a free tool that lets teachers and students create a soundtrack to any book -- instantly supercharging any text!

Let me explain how this works.

Basically, there are a few ways to use Booktrack. The first is as a teacher conducting a read aloud. You can choose a book from the Booktrack library or you can upload your own book by copying and pasting (or typing) a text into the upload wizard. If you use a book from the library, the work is done for you! Your text is set to a track of music and sound effects that make your words come alive.

If you upload your own text, you can also select and add music or sound effects from Booktrack's site to help tell your story. In fact, you can even upload your own music and sounds to incorporate into your soundtrack. The site makes it extremely easy to do and allows you to test out your work before making it accessible to others.

Finally, you can upload a cover image and then when you're satisfied, you can publish your work either to your class Bookshelf, which you set up for each of your classes, or you can share it via social media, email, or embed it into your classroom website or blog.

As you read the text aloud, presumably to your class, a little arrow on the right side of the text helps you keep pace with the soundtrack. If you want, you can speed up or speed down the wpm with the click of a button depending on how quickly you read. It is entirely dramatic and adds an undeniably engaging layer to your "performance."

If you can't finish the entire read aloud in one sitting, not to worry! When you're logged in, Booktrack keeps your place and syncs across devices. Which means, you can start reading on your iPad and finish the book on your computer the next day without skipping a beat.

Students can also write their own books in any genre and publish them to Booktrack - personal narratives, autobiographies, non-fiction, how to, etc. Imagine the potential for students to publish a text during Writers Workshop, design their own cover (app smashing, anyone?), and then produce their own soundtrack to bring to life their published work. Imagine how proud parents would be at the classroom publishing party, listening to their child read aloud to a meticulously planned, complimentary soundtrack!

Booktrack is an amazing way to capture the attention of struggling readers, as well. It's new, it's exciting, and the music just might help the reader make connections and visualize the text. Simply hearing the scary music, or sounds of a basketball bouncing, or a car horn blaring, etc. certainly does help paint a vivid picture. Not to mention, can you imagine how helpful this would be when introducing mood and tone to a classroom?

Pro tip: If you're looking to upload a text but don't have time to write your own story, you might want to check out the exhaustive list of royalty free texts by the Gutenberg Project.

To Blog or Not to Blog: Increasing Engagement & Accountability Through Student Blogs

This year, I've been charged with teaching a group of scholars with intensive academic and behavior needs within my urban charter school. The scholars are dealing with a lot inside of the school, and outside of it. The Austin community in Chicago where I teach is high-poverty and riddled with gangs. Currently, I'm teaching an LRE 3 special education classroom, in which I teach all 5 core subjects to 5 different grade levels. 

Needless to say, keeping levels of engagement and collaboration high has been a priority. This task has also been really stretching my creativity! How will I keep students accountable for excellent work? How can I make our learning worthwhile? How can I give these scholars an experience that will extend beyond the classroom and help them later in life? How can I help them share their work without hanging it in the hallway, which is embarrassing for them?

Enter: KidBlog. 

I decided to use KidBlog like an online portfolio for our students. In this way, students work hard to create and fine tune their excellent work. Ultimately, they know that it will be displayed "publicly" for their parents, classmates, favorite teachers and administrators. They will also be able to view each other's work and provide appropriate, respectful feedback (a skill in itself).

Additionally, I created my own KidBlog page for our classroom. On this page, I blog about the assignment, the process and skills involved, the expected outcomes, and ways for parents to extend their learning at home through conversations and additional learning. When appropriate, I post pictures of student work and the process behind it for parents to get a glimpse into the AWESOME that is our evolving classroom. 

To share our work and make it seem extra official, I've created professional business cards. Now, students can share a link to their KidBlog with trusted adults and friends - parents, aunties and uncles, siblings, etc. all through a QR code which they can scan through any smart phone or tablet. 

On the back of each business card, I have included a QR code to my own teacher blog. Again, the purpose of my blog is so that parents can quickly scan and learn more about the projects and how to talk to their child about the topics at home. Sometimes parents need a little empowerment, too!

I've committed to connecting the experience of having a business card, running a blog, and posting comments/feedback to real life. We look at professional portfolios and blogs and we reflect about how we can make our work as professional as possible. Since all of our work ends up on the blog, students are more invested into the process, which ultimately increases engagement. This is the perfect storm that also allows me to increase rigor, as well.

There are many blogging sites that are perfect for students, but KidBlog is nice because you don't need an email address to get started and all posts can be moderated by the teacher and parent access codes can be created for safe distribution.

The downside of KidBlog is there is limited space available for free accounts. But! We'll cross that bridge we come to it.

In the mean time, happy blogging!