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Friday, May 30, 2008

LookyBook

LookyBook is a great resource for sharing high quality picture books with students via the Internet. I recently read about this tool on Kevin Jarrett's blog and I agree with him that it would be a great site to use with an interactive Whiteboard. You can access the books and even embed them without signing up for an account, which is a bonus when working with elementary students. Whenever you can utilize a tool without having to sign-up 25, 50, 100 students it is a definite plus. However, in case you are wondering, registering does allow you to comment on books, much like writing a review, as well as create your own bookshelf of books from their collection.

I have embedded a book below to show how this works. If you click on the eyeballs it will show you a larger version of the book. Of course, you could go directly to their site and view the same book but I always like the option of being able to embed content into my own sites such as a Wiki, blog or class homepage because it means my students don't have to learn a new URL just to access the content.




You will notice that there isn't any audio so students don't get any assistance in that regard with reading the book. Obviously, you would have to think about the best way to use this type of tool and take into consideration the reading ability of your students. Considering the cost of pictures books, I like the fact that I can share a broader range of books with my students without having to purchase hardcopies. It's also a nice little break for the environment!

2 comments:

Amber said...

I like LookyBook. Have you seen Big Universe (http://www.biguniverse.com)? It's similar and has a fantastic "Create" feature. One for the smaller students is Mighty Book (http://www.mightybook.com).

Stein Brunvand said...

Thanks Amber. I have seen both Big Universe and Mighty Book and agree that they are great tools as well.