TumbleBookCloud

The LRC is very happy to announce its new subscription e-book, video and audiobook service to the Secondary School community.

We have purchased a year long subscription to TumbleBookCloud, just in time for summer reading and in anticipation of the upcoming school year. 

This subscription is a collection of videos, audiobooks and  e-books which is accessible to all Secondary School Students and Secondary School Staff at the ABC.

This is a paid subscription and different than the Graphic novel summer reading subscription I shared with staff and students earlier in the month. Unlike the Graphic novel subscription which will expire toward the end of summer, this new subscription will be available all year long!

Please encourage your students to make use of this account by logging in to the site below with the credentials that have been sent to them via email. 

Their first step will be to create a login of  their own in the MyCloud section of the site, using the instructions on our website.

This link contains all of the information they will need to get started using this fantastic new ebook, video and audiobook subscription. 

We hope our ABC Secondary School community really makes the most of and truly enjoys this new service!

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Morphing the A Better World Project with Tellegami

During the last round of our A Better World Project, we realised we would need yet another talking avatar generator. While we still used Morfo on a few iPads and gave the kids the option to use Crazy Talk,  we needed an alternative that would serve the needs of some of our students, better than the current apps did.

One of the problems we had encountered is that Crazy Talk, while wonderful, is quite complex and takes a while to learn well. There is nothing wrong with spending that time, but when the weeks go by and it is all about the app as opposed to being all about the creativity, a balance must be found.  We also found that Morfo, on some of our ipads, would no longer allow us to download the videos without paying and this caught us out in the middle of the project. We didn't have a budget to purchase it with.

Another problem which we encountered, was that we had begun to run out of time during the project, and this was becoming a pattern with each new group. We attributed much of this to the extra time devoted to the work with Crazy Talk. It seems that some students really fly with it while others struggle a great deal. We needed another option for those students.

We looked around and discovered Tellegami. This is a free app that is simple to use and effective. Using Tellegami, the work shifts from dedicating a huge amount of time to learning an app to being creative with a simple app. This is exactly what we needed for some of our students.  Not only is it available for iOS, but also be downloaded on Android devices.

I have added a page on the A Better World Project with more information I have found on how to use this lovely little app. I hope you enjoy it. We do!

Here is a short video clip of one of the student projects created with Tellegami.

6th Grade Discovers Audio Books

Last school year I began purchasing playaway audio books for the LRC. We had a nice cabinet put together for them, introduced students to them in assemblies and orientation lessons and then waited for the demand to become greater than the supply. It didn't happen quite that way, Some of the audio books became very popular and a certain number of students did use them often, but it wasn't the explosion we had expected.

Schools are busy places and initiatives, while important, can often get waylaid temporarily at certain crunch times. It doesn't mean they are forgotten and it is not necessarily a bad thing. Often we need to step back and rethink an initiative, weigh things a bit and decide on a new plan of action.

Just this week I was approached by a teacher in the English Dept. who wanted to broaden her students' awareness of the variety of resources we have on offer. Sometimes it makes sense to listen to a book, sometimes reading it is a better fit. For reluctant readers an audio book can provide a enjoyable respite, in which they can experience the story through an audio rendition, pick up new vocabulary, visit new destinations and live amazing experiences all through the eyes of the characters in the book.

We set up two lessons with the 6th grade today in which we sat down and explored the Playaways, as well as the other digital book collections we have been curating over the last few years. Everyone enjoyed this special reading/listening time.  We are hopeful that word will continue to spread,  and that our students will continue to use these great resources.

When the new audio books come in we will invite teachers to bring the students down and explore them as well as our online collections in the Useful Resources Section of the Learning Resources Centre Website.

Here is a small collection of images from the visits. For a more complete collection please visit the LRC Facebook page.