Using Screencastify to Record a Book Review

Recently a teacher asked me for advice on how to have students share a book review using their Chromebooks.  We decided to have students complete a simple "Powerpoint" presentation using Google Presentation.  The first slide would have the student's name and the title of the book they were reviewing.  The second slide (and third, if necessary) would have 3-5 bullets explaining what the book was about and whether or not they would recommend it to their classmates.

These particular students had already created a few Google Presentations before, and got right to work.  In the mean time, I added an extension on each of their Chromebooks called Screencastify.  This extension allows students to create a screencast.  Wikipedia defines a screencast as "a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as video screen capture, often containing audio narration."  Using this simple tool and some sound effects from YouTube, students created a screencast of their book review.

Here is one student's book review:

The students were so eager to share their book reviews with their classmates.  The principal is even considering posting this latest project on the school website.  What fun we had!  The best part?  The project only took 30 minutes from start to finish!

Research Tool in Google Docs and Google Presentation

Over the last couple of weeks I have had the privilege to work with two fourth grade classes at one of the schools in our district.  The students were studying nonfiction research in reading and writing and were tasked with picking any topic of their choosing to research.  Students created an outline for the research paper and then I introduced them to Google Docs.  I showed students how to enter in their text, format it, and use the Research Tool in Google Docs.  The Research Tool allows students to locate text, images, and scholarly articles related to a topic.  Even better, if inserted through the Research Tool, the citation information is automatically inserted into the footnote.

Once students had written most of their research paper, I returned to show them how to create a Google Presentation about their research topic.  Students were tasked with creating a title slide and informational slides that supported their writing.  Again, using the Research Tool, students inserted images that reinforced their writing.

The students were excited to learn new tools (Google Docs and Google Presentation) as well as to share it with their teacher and peers using the "Share" button in Google.  Creating documents and presentations in Google Drive allows students to access them from any device that has internet because the documents are stored on the cloud.  They simply log into their GCPS Google Drive account at www.drive.google.com rather than having it saved on one particular device at school. 

Here are some pictures of students working on the nonfiction Google Docs and Google Presentations and using the Research Tool: