BP4 Flipsnack

Flipsnack is web 2.0 tool that allows you to take any PDF document and convert it into a beautiful flash page digital flipping book. This website is free. You can join Flipsnack using your Google, Facebook, twitter, yahoo, or MySpace account, which makes signing up a breeze. You can create as many flipping books you want as well as edit and republish flipbooks you have made. Each flipbook created can hold up to 30 PDF documents. You can share your flipbook by a embedding it, a direct link, or through email. You can embed your flipping book in various social networks such as Facebook, wordpress, or blogger. However when you embed your flipping book to one of these social networks it embeds it with a watermark attached to it. The watermark can be removed by purchasing points, it costs about 10 points per watermark, which is around $19.00. You can also earn points by promoting Flipsnack on your Facebook or twitter account. Each friend that follows your link and signs up you get 10 points which is pretty cool. So, with that being said, if you have not done so already please follow this link to sign up http://www.flipsnack.com/?uref=2020603

Flipsnack allows you to create flipping books with the templates featured on the site. You can choose from a hardcover, softcover, and a wire bound or spiral template. After you choose the template you can now choose the background either using as solid color, patterned color, wood texture, or a stainless steel background.

Flipsnack is a pretty awesome tool, because you can create any PDF document into a stylish flipbook. The quality of this flipbook is amazing and gives any boring PDF a little flair. Flipsnack is pretty easy to use and navigate, but I did encounter a few drawbacks to this site, one when uploading your PDF documents you have to upload them in the order you wish them to follow in your flipping book. You cannot rearrange documents once they are uploaded. This was something I was quite surprised by, because after uploading a PDF document I wanted to add a cover to it, when uploading the cover after I had uploaded the PDF I was unable to rearrange them and it ended up showing up on the last page. So I had to delete that flipbook and start over uploading the PDF’s in the order I wanted them to be featured in the flipbook. Other than that is website can be pretty useful in the classroom, you can use this when creating newsletters, project notes, homework directions, or putting together a classroom newspaper. All of these can be posted right on to your class website or blog. Image are all snapshots taken from flipsnack.com
Here are a two examples of my flipbook.

BP2 Storybird

The web 2.0 tool I wanted to explore was Storybird. Storybird is a wonderful literacy tool that I can see myself using in the classroom. I really enjoyed discovering this tool. I think it is innovative, creative and most of all imaginative. Storybird encourages literacy through exploration, art, and storytelling.

In Storybird students can create short visual stories that can be made individually or in a collaborative process. Storybird is a free web 2.0 tool for families and classrooms, here you can read other stories in their virtual library or create a Storybird using artwork provided on the site.

 

When creating my Storybird I saw its clean and simple interface and was extremely easy to use. You click and drag pictures to your Storybird then add text and that is pretty much it. You control where you want your picture to go and a text box will be provided with the available space.

What I liked best about Storybird is the artwork. The art provided were awesome, definitely no pixelated clip art here, they were nice quality, fun, and colorful illustrations great for inspiring a unique story. Another great feature of Storybird is that it’s completely a kid friendly site, it is monitored and any inappropriate material is immediately pulled from the website.  

Probably the most difficulty I had with Storybird was writing the actual story, everything else in Storybird was completely user friendly. I definitely plan on incorporating Storybird into my classroom as a Web 2.0 tool to increase motivation during my CBR project. All images are screenshots taken from Storybird.com

BP3 Google Screen Shots

iGoogle Home Page

FSO/CBR Tab

ETC Tab

BP1_Welcome to my blog post

 Hello, thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. I am new to blogging but am enthusiastic to try it out. Blogging has an immense amount of learning opportunities entwined with it and I can see it being a useful educational web 2.0 tool in the classroom. I will be posting my thoughts, experiences, and questions on this blog while going through Full Sail’s Education Media Design and Technology program. I have really embarked on a wonderful learning journey while attending Full Sail. I looked forward to what this program has to offer and the wide range of learning opportunities that arises from it.