What is Zooburst?
"Zooburst is a digital storytelling tool that allows teachers and students to easily create their own on-line pop-up books."
Below is the link to a TED presentation talk by Craig Kapp, who is the founder and CEO of the Zooburst website. He discusses his motive, goals and success of his on-line tool within the classroom.
CEO and Founder of Zooburst Craig Kapp - Storytelling in the 3rd Dimension [Youtube Video]
This online learning tool comes with a variety of different features that brings a fresh take on both teacher's reading to the class and the way students create, write and present a story. There are three different accounts, a basic account that is free, and two others that need to be paid. A basic account allows students to create 10 books, access the Zooburst picture gallery or upload their own, customise their books backgrounds, publish book privately or a password required to view, present their stories with the 'Augmented Reality Mode', and leave comments on other stories. However, the paid accounts offer better features for a classroom setting. The Zooburst classroom management package is only offered in the paid accounts. The classroom management offers the following features:
- A virtual classroom space and allows teacher to create usernames and passwords for students,
- set default privacy level for all books within a class page,
- ad-free,
- download copies of students books to play when offline,
- students can access premium features of unlimited books and audio recordings.
The link below is a Zooburst story I created myself for this week's activity:
As a teacher, it is always important to refer to the SAMR model to ensure that students learning can be transformed by the use of an on-line tool.
Substitution: Teacher substitutes a book being read in the classroom to create and present a Zooburst popup book.
Augmentation: Students use Zooburst to add speech and thoughts to characters in a story being presented by the teacher. Teacher reads the book and the students are able to create and analyse what the characters would be saying, thinking or feeling about the situations they are in at that part of the story.
Modification: Students now use Zooburst to create, write and present their stories to other classmates through the class page set up by the teacher. Teacher then leaves feedback for the student on their story by posting a written comment.
Redefinition: Students collaborate together in pairs to make their own stories and then present to the class using the Zooburst 'Augmented Reality Tool'. Students then leave feedback through the use of the audio comments tool for at least two other peers stories. This tool has allowed for student-centred learning within the classroom as they need to collaborate together and give each other peer feedback.
Zooburst would be a successful tool in the classroom for the development of students engagement, creativity and collaboration. As a teacher, you are able to create a classroom page, where you can add students, the class gallery of students own books they have published and a class roster which has links to each students page to view their books. This class page tool would allow myself as a teacher to access easily students work to give instant feedback.
Zooburst is a tool that can be used safely, legally and ethically by the use of the privacy setting and having it being able to be pre-set so students could never accidentally load a presentation to the outside community. Pages can also be password protected which would be useful for a class page.
Zooburst would be a great tool in the classroom, however to access some of these functions requires payment. For a school this can be an issue due to budgets and funding not always being available. This also includes the Augmented Reality Mode tool that requires webcams. Although webcams are common feature on iPads and laptops, they are sold separately for computers, which means a school would also need to be webcams.
I found Zooburst to be confusing and complicated to use and would most likely not use this as a tool for my students learning or assessments. I would use it however as a teacher to enhance my students engagement when conducting modelled and shared reading within the classroom setting.
That's my thoughts for this week!
Over and Out,
Alanna
Zooburst would be a successful tool in the classroom for the development of students engagement, creativity and collaboration. As a teacher, you are able to create a classroom page, where you can add students, the class gallery of students own books they have published and a class roster which has links to each students page to view their books. This class page tool would allow myself as a teacher to access easily students work to give instant feedback.
Zooburst is a tool that can be used safely, legally and ethically by the use of the privacy setting and having it being able to be pre-set so students could never accidentally load a presentation to the outside community. Pages can also be password protected which would be useful for a class page.
Zooburst would be a great tool in the classroom, however to access some of these functions requires payment. For a school this can be an issue due to budgets and funding not always being available. This also includes the Augmented Reality Mode tool that requires webcams. Although webcams are common feature on iPads and laptops, they are sold separately for computers, which means a school would also need to be webcams.
I found Zooburst to be confusing and complicated to use and would most likely not use this as a tool for my students learning or assessments. I would use it however as a teacher to enhance my students engagement when conducting modelled and shared reading within the classroom setting.
That's my thoughts for this week!
Over and Out,
Alanna
Thanks Alanna
ReplyDeleteHow do you think it would go on an IWB. The sounds and movement could be a great way to get student engagement.
Your other thoughts were excellent and your evidence of experimenting and evaluating this tool is good well done.