About Me
- Sue Parler
- New Jersey, United States
- I'm currently in my 32nd year teaching at DePaul Catholic HS in Wayne, NJ. I teach Game Design, Cryptology, and Spanish -- yes, it's an odd mix -- even I admit it. I am the IT Coordinator at DePaul Catholic as well, which means I manage the network, the student information system, the website, and the 900+ computers in the building. Yep, keeps me busy.
Monday, October 4, 2010
BP4_Web2.0Tools
Tikatok allows users to create a book online. Write, embellish, order the book -- it's that simple. Its primary emphasis is to have children write their own creative stories which they can illustrate with their own images uploaded through a very simple web interface.
Parents can create books about their children as keepsakes or as gifts for family members.
The graphical user interface is very intuitive plus there are helpful hints as to how your story could be developing throughout the book. The image below shows just how easy it is -- and it really is as easy as it looks.
Your question might be, but why would I want a book? If I were a geometry teacher, I may do a project-based learning activity in my class that puts angle bisectors to work like this: There are three parking lots in your town and the promoters for a concert want to build the stage so as not to overburden any one parking lot -- how do you determine where to build it?
Let the kids frame the question, hypothesize a solution, test the theory, and illustrate the solution. Done. Publishing it all in a book gives material proof (pun intended) of accomplishment.
As a Spanish teacher, I'm using it to summarize each Chapter in our textbook. I have my class broken up into "Guilds" and each Guild takes a portion of the chapter to review. The top-ranking Guild gets first choice.
Here's an example that uses Comic Life as our illustration of two people meeting:
The one drawback is that the book is limited to ten print pages.
You can create an account for free, but you would need to purchase the finished product. The pricing of a hardcover edition of the book is $18.30. The softcover edition runs $15.26. You can download an eBook for just $2.99. I was so excited about it, I ran to our Chaplain and he has each class creating its own prayer book. The possibilities are endless.
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5 comments:
What good ideas you have! I'm more impressed by your creative application than I even am of tikatok its self. Order the book, you say? That is new. I've seen several book creating sites, but this is the first one I'm aware of that lets you buy a physical copy. Do they guard your group's copyright privileges? Who has access to the books you make? -Pat
This is from Tikatok's FAQ page:
Tikatok users own the copyright of all original stories and images they submit to Tikatok. You must be the parent account holder to make a purchase. The book being purchased must be associated with your parent account or your child’s account.
I think having tangible evidence of an accomplished task is great for kids -- and yes, we could do it all with a paper portfolio, but since we have so much under-utilized technology in our school, I'm just trying to find creative ways to use it.
Thanks for the kind words! --Sue
I love it! My children have been creating their own books in their elementary school classrooms, but this one blows away the creativity. I am going to forward this on to my colleagues.
Sue, I’m enjoying this new medium of book publishing for children on line. There are many children who are extremely talented when it comes to expressing their ideas on paper. However, for those that are struggling with their writing, having the visuals provides valuable assistance in making their stories come alive. Just a year ago when I taught 3rd grade, my students wrote, illustrated, and published their very own first book. Another teacher and I turned this event into a big deal for our students. We celebrated with an evening called, “Meet the Author.” At this event, the children were allowed to read a portion of their book. The parents were so proud and excited to see their children’s writing abilities, some of them purchased extra books for their child to sign and send to relatives. Yes, this is a fantastic tool to bring out the writer in a child. We used Student Publishing, which is a division of “Creations By You,” makers of Illustory.
Deborah
Deborah,
I LOVE the "Meet the Author" night -- Excellent idea!
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