Live Binders
Maegan E. Slaten collected, what she feels, is the Top 10 technology tools for Elementary Educators. As I was reading through them, I found a website called livebinders.com. This website is an online 3-ring binder which allows anyone to collect websites, photos, documents, etc. into an easy to navigate "binder". Students can use this in the classroom to collect information for projects.
When creating the binder, the information is dropped into your binder on different tabs. The tabs can then be labeled to allow easy navigation to the information that is needed. On these tabs, students can paste links from other websites for easy access to more information.
The binder is easy to use and is recommended for young students to keep information online in a neat organized way. The binders can be shared so that others may see the work that the students did. It can also be shared to the teacher for an easy grade.
Pros: free, easy to use, works on any computer with internet connection, can be shared, can be public or private
Cons: runs on pop-ups, must have internet access to use,
no customized links for sharing (like blogger uses for sharing)
Teachers can also use the live binders for in-class exercises for the students. Exercises in math, science, history, etc. can be easily dropped into a binder. They can be accessible to all of the students at the same time.
Technology has become an important tool in the classroom. Teachers are sometimes forced to use the technology given to them in the classroom. I think using the live binders allows the students to use technology effectively in the classroom. It allows the students to put order to the information they are gathering. I would definitely use this website in my classroom if we had access to the computers and internet that is needed for this.
In my classroom I would have my students use live binder to collect information for a project (for example, a history project). They could look up dates and events that happened in a certain time period and place them in the live binder to keep everything together. They could put the information that they gathered into a chronological order. I as a teacher can go on and look at their progress. I can also grade them on their project right online, instead of having them turn things in on paper. In doing so, we would be saving paper, ink, and time.
I love this website and I would recommend viewing it at your convenience. I would also recommend looking at the other technology tools that Maegan Slaten says are the top 10 tools for elementary educators.
For more technology tools for Educators: http://www.slideshare.net/mes285/my-top-10-tools-for-elementary-educators
This is the live binder website with some examples of binders: http://www.livebinders.com/
Posted by: Sarah DeMar
Group number: 10
Members: Sarah DeMar, Megan Daugherty, Alyssa Baldwin, and Grace DeWalt
Wow! This idea is something that I never heard of before. I think that this could be very useful for technology savvy classrooms, and it seems very user friendly. I went to the website and it seems to be very easy to use for teachers and students alike of any age. All I wonder about is if the teacher is able to go into the binders of the students to make sure that they are always on task and using the binders appropriately? Otherwise, this could be extremely useful for many different reasons.
ReplyDeleteAs the students add to their binders, the teacher can see what updates they have made. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to make sure that the students turned on the public view option. The teacher would have to walk them through that process like Dr. Jenny does, but it is just one setting that needs to be changed for easy access to their binders.
DeleteOh, okay that makes a lot more sense! Great idea.
DeleteYour post also uses http://www.Slideshare.net as a reference to the top ten, and it is a great resource in and of itself. :-)
ReplyDelete