Tip of the Week – LiveBinders and Social Studies

It was another great day at MACE yesterday. Learning and presenting and conversing and snacking. Perhaps one of the best conferences ever.

I had the chance to sit in a session by Curtis Allen from Spring Hill HS. Titled History Through LiveBinders, I had to go check it out.

If you haven’t messed with LiveBinders, you really need to. In a nutshell? LiveBinders is the online, virtual equivalent of the old fashioned three-ring binder that we all have cluttering up our bookshelves. You can store websites by tabs, share them, annotate them, edit them in lots of different ways. Basically, LiveBinders is a place where all of your online stuff can be stored.

The cool thing is that what you store appears in a frame below your list of stuff. This lets you view content without losing sight of your links.

According to Curtis,

It’s a one-stop shop for your students. It stores websites and annotations that’s accessible anywhere/anytime.

To get started, go to the LiveBinders site and create a free account.

What can it do?

• It has the ability to let Google “fill” a binder based on your keywords.
• You can select Present mode (full screen) that is useful for highlighting content while doing whole-group instruction.
• LiveBinders allows you to add your own documents, pdfs, and YouTube videos.
• You can create binders that allow collaboration between users.
• The tool has a bookmarklet feature that lets you add websites quickly without opening the LiveBinders website.
• You can look at the other public binders and so get ideas from other teachers.
• They have created a list of top ten public binders.
• There is a brand new iPad app that provides the chance to access binders using mobile devices.

Have fun!