Mixbook - Pros and Cons

Pros of Mixbook:

-Free!

-Teachers receive an educational discount on printed books

-Collaborative - invite by other authors by email to modify book (I made one gmail account that everyone used and I typed in the password for them)

-web based so students could work from home

-I could easily check student progress from home and make notes to discuss with students, or design mini lessons to cover a concept they did not understand

-Students can view the work of their classmates

-uploading photos was easy, with multiple choices of where you can get photos from (computer, flickr, picasa..)

-easy to use - literally everyone was able to use the sites basic features with minimal instruction. They enjoyed showing their new discoveries about the features with their classmates.

-allows for creativity. Layouts are easily modifiable. Adding and subtracting photo or text boxes is easy

-can choose from a variety of book sizes and shapes

-can put the book on your blog or wiki to share with families at home

-lots of backgrounds, layouts and ‘stickers’ to choose from

-students publish their own book that looks professional

-families can order a copy online if they wish once book is published

-students loved making the book!


Cons

-no history feature, so it is impossible to know who contributed what or if someone decides to modify another student’s page it would be possible.

-need email to become a collaborator (author). I suppose you could use the gmail+ method to create accounts for students who do not have email.

-occasionally does not save work (because I had everyone working off the same account, perhaps?)

-students had some difficulties with changing text size. As soon as they clicked out of the text box the size would revert to the original. Frustrating if you are trying to fit things on a page and need to make the font smaller.

-book seems very small online even using the full screen function to view the book. This causes students to type their work in very large font (usually over 14 font), which may not be appropriate for a printed book, but necessary to be readable online

-if students decided to change the layout after they had begun typing and putting pictures in, could cause parts of the page to disappear. Layout needs to be carefully planned and not changed once students have begun making their page.

-expensive to buy a printed book (exchange rate, shipping and handling from US to Canada)

Following My Students Enthusiasm

Mixbook

Mixbook is a collaborative book making site. I used this site at the end of the school year with students. Students investigated the school yard, as part of the CIESE Squares of Life project. Each group of 4 students choose a square meter of the school yard, marked it off with string and explored it. For 40 minutes students sketched and took notes about what they observed in their square. Students moved rocks to see what was under them and some scratched the surface dirt to see what else was there. The reaction students had to the project was incredible. They were very loud, hooped and hollered at each find and were stunned to see the things that until now they over looked. To say they had a good time would be an understatement. However, what amazed me was how little students knew about the things around them in the school yard. Many thought flies were mosquitoes, an immature reddish pinecone was a strawberry and while they could identify a dandelion in bloom they could not identify it from the leaves. I wanted students to remain intrigued and to capitalize on their enthusiasm. So, I combined research of students choice with nonfiction text features. The result was a student made book using Mixbook and photos from Creative Commons (I found photos for students through Flickr - I didn’t want students to come across any inappropriate photos) and some that I or students took of the items they found. Below is the book we created.

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

Project Sketch

Next to the school in which I teach is an athletic park with a natural areas through which a creek (Enver Creek) runs. One lunch hour a teacher friend of mine and I walked through the park on the small trail that has been worn into the land by neighborhood kids and adults. What we saw was shocking. Garbage was strewn all over, a folding chair laid in the creek and a board acting as a makeshift bridge. Earlier in the year, motor oil had been dumped into storm drains on school property and students told me that some had also been dumped into the creek.

In this project I want to combine the school goal of improving student achievement in nonfiction reading with nonfiction writing, science, daily physical education and Fine Arts. While the aim of the project is to be integrated so that subjects are not separated, it helps me in my planning to think of each subject separately. My goals for this project is first, to encourage students to appreciate what they have in their athletic park and natural area. Secondly, I hope to make the study of renewable resources more substantial and hopefully more meaningful to students in an urban school by narrowing the breadth of the topics covered with an emphasis on watersheds (renewable resources).

Science

Grade 5 students are required to learn about conservation and natural resources in science. Instead of just studying renewable resources (water, fishing, forestry) in a few lessons from our textbook, I am going to have students study the watershed (natural area). The creek supports a salmon hatchery which will be investigated to tie in fishing to our study. Water and forestry are naturally linked into the concept of watersheds. Students will become scientists and investigate what is contained within our watershed (living and non living things) and how they are interconnected (food webs, water cycle ..). As far as I can tell, what is contained with in the watershed has not been investigated previously, in fact there is little written about the creek and even finding out the name of the creek was challenging. What I have found out is that the creek is listed as threatened by the DFO, due to water quality issues caused by humans misuse of the watershed. Fifth grade scientists will take field trips into the park to make guided observations. We will record our observations through digital photos, sketches and in written form.

Fine Arts

My class has access to 15 digital cameras for three weeks which will be used to capture images of the things we find in the watershed. Students will be taught about digital cameras, taking photos and working together to create a collaborative ‘display’.

Language Arts

Students will be organized into pairs and will research a topic of interest (water, a bug, a tree...) that they observed. There are possibilities for obtaining primary, original data (such as water and soil quality testing) and observations (canopy cover) that could be done if it is an area of student interest. Research topics might include what happens when this water enters the ocean, specific plants and animals could be researched as well. At this point it will become necessary for students to communicate with experts, which I will facilitate. In pairs, students will create a two page spread, using Mixbook, in which they will organize information using nonfiction text features. This forms part of the reading prescribed learning outcomes I plan to include in this project. Students will present their research to the community by presenting the page that they created (oral language prescribed learning outcomes) at a celebration of their work in December.

Potential Problems

-The project does not cover nonrenewable resources in a direct, substantial way. I'd have to plan for some additional science to be taught to satisfy the required learning outcomes.

-I do not know my class. The readiness of my class at this time is unknown. I will have 3 weeks prior to the project to assess my students’ knowledge.

-Weather is a possible problem. Rain will limit the use of digital cameras. This project is planned for October. (Really, even having this project planned for May this year would have been problematic - will summer ever start in Vancouver?)

PBL - My First Attempt At A Project

I have been interested in project based learning since I first heard of it. As a student I loved working on projects and I know that when I have students work on a project most of them are highly engaged. The book “Reinventing Project Based Learning” is acting as my field guide as I attempt to design my first project. One challenge I am facing is that I am doing this on my own. I will have new collegues at my grade level in September and there are no other classroom teachers interested in attempting PBL with me at this time. However, the Learning Support Teacher is supportive of the idea and has provided some feedback on aspects of my project. I will be using this blog as a place to reflect, complete activities listed in “Reinventing Project Based Learning”, and hopefully receive some feedback regarding my project.