"Life on Earth" interactive book

WOW! Checking out only a sample of this book made me want to take a science class! The visuals (pics/videos) were amazing and I particularly liked the interactive diagram of the insect. It just makes for more interesting learning. Just like a regular textbook, the teacher still needs to guide students in the learning process by assigning sections to read...asking them questions to check for understanding and allowing time for students to gather info from their teacher that may not have been answered or understood by reading the material.

Flipboard (learning task 2, week 5)

An app that finds articles for me...based on my interests? Although I do feel apps like Zite and Flipboard will appeal to "non-readers", I do believe their is something to be said for reading from an actual book, magazine or newspaper. Albeit, this may be a hang up for someone who was not born into a technologically advanced culture. I did find myself being easily distracted at times and just aimlessly flipping through the pages and only reading the introduction to an article...would some students do the same? Could this be a challenge? On a positive, I could see kids thinking this is a fun way to do research or just read info on topics that you choose to read about.

Scoop It

http://www.scoop.it/t/internet-safety-for-middle-schoolers

My first idea when checking out this site was "wouldn't this be a cool newsletter for parents". What a neat tool for connecting students, parents or colleagues to info on the web! I did have trouble with getting this to show up on my browser so I instead, copied and then would paste the site I wanted. This worked rather easily. I found some topics to follow including school counselor, bullying, middle school and apps for middle schoolers. This "feature" to me is similar to the boards on Pinterest.