I think that using LiveBinders for teachers and students is a great idea. I have been working with new teachers that have found that teaching is not as easy as they thought it was going to be. LiveBinders can help them to collect great teaching ideas that they can easily access without losing or misplacing papers with information they would like to refer to later. LiveBinders can also help students become better organized when they are working on projects.
During this time of the school year is when teachers start to feel tired and stressed. New teachers have shared with me that they are struggling with classroom management. I do not think it is only new teachers that struggle with this because every year teachers end up with a new group that may require different techniques and strategies. LiveBinders is a good place for teachers to collect important information they come across. Too many times we read something online and then we forget where it was when we want to go back to refer to it. LiveBinders allow teachers to store information that we may want to save to use later in the school year as well.
I think that LiveBinders is beneficial for students as well. One way that fourth grade students can use it is to collect and organize information when they are working on a project. In Social Studies fourth grade students study Native American tribes. One project they could do is to create a final product that includes the type of shelter, clothing, food, traditions and area they lived in. LiveBinders will help students collect pictures and information for each area that they would be held responsible for including in their project. The tabs and subtabs would help them stay organized and will also prevent them from losing their information.
Another way that LiveBinders can be used in all grade levels is for portfolios. Each student can keep their portfolios private and can upload their own videos and/or pictures from the school year. They can have a subtab for each content area and upload research papers, compositions, projects, and experiments they have completed throughout the school year. The portfolio can help the students monitor their own learning and progress throughout the year.
LiveBinders seemed a little intimidating when I first started reading about them, but they turned out to be easy to use.
Here is the link to my LiveBinder http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=2114389
Hello Susie,
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of using it with 4th graders on a Social Studies project. It allows students to interact with technology and has them engaged in the activity. This can also be helpful when they need to take a test because they can always present their presentation and share it with the rest of the class as a study guide.
Hello Susana,
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct about classroom management and looking up ideas at the beginning of the year and then not being able to find the information. That has happened to me many times. Your social studies idea is genius, I am going to borrow it.:) Thank you for your ideas.
Hi Susana:
ReplyDeleteYour fourth grade project is excellent. We can create a structured digital binder to learn the specific topic of any subject. Students team up with partners and gather info to populate sub-tabs. The teacher need to provided an introductory tab as well as guidelines, handouts and resources that help the students with their projects.
Jorge Villarreal.