I have been trying to get a head start on our Website Analysis assignment and as I was looking through one of the elementary sites something caught my eye. The name of the website is Bookopolis (https://www.bookopolis.com/). I had never heard of it, but it looked really interesting. As I started looking at the website, I discovered that it was one of AASL's Best Websites for 2015 under the social networking heading. Even better, right?!
What is Bookopolis you ask? Well it plain words it is the kid version of Good Reads. Students create lists of books that they have read, want to read, or are currently reading. They can then write book recommendations and book reports for these books. They can also maintain a reading log on the website. Students earn points and badges for everything they do on Bookopolis. The social aspect of the website comes from the ability for students to see what their friends are reading and to be able to send them book recommendations. So this Web 2.0 tool is amazing for students, but it is even better for educators. Media specialists and teachers create a free educator account for themselves and then accounts for each of their students into different groups. As librarians, this means we can either group student accounts by homeroom, grade-level, or even by book club. Additional teachers can by then be added to these classes or groups which adds the collaboration element between the classroom teachers and the media specialist. In addition, as the teacher of the group, we can run reports to gather information such as total minutes read, total pages read, total books read, and most popular books. Teachers can also read and give feedback on reviews and book reports. Teachers could use these reviews and reports for a grade. To gain a better understanding of Bookopolis and how it works, I went to http://www.ala.org/aasl/ecollab/bookopolis and watched a 50 minute webinar that was created by the founder of the site, Kari Riedel. The following is some information about Bookopolis that I learned from the webinar. - Bookopolis is designed for 2nd – 8th grade students - All reviews are monitored by the site for bad language and personal information (It is COPPA Complaint) - You can integrate Bookopolis with Google Classroom and Edmodo accounts - It only has books designed for kids and young adults (no adult books) - It provides opportunities for Digital Citizenship lessons and discussions - There is an interactive tool on the site called Book Quest which helps students find new books to read - Everything is written in kid-friendly language - Parent accounts are available so they can see what their child is doing on the site - Bookopolis provides opportunities for students to practice opinion writing through Book Reviews - Bookopolis provides opportunities for students to practice comprehension and critical thinking through Book Reports - There is a Bookopolis App available in the Apple Store and there is a Google Chrome App I am so excited about this new tool and what it might mean to my students and teachers. I cannot wait to get started using this with them. I hope you learned something new today. To learn more about Bookopolis, you can check out one of the many tutorials that the website offers.
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