Some Libraries You Just Have to See

Tina and I are always awestruck at the amazing binders that are assembled by the LiveBinders’ community. I know lots of teachers who search for binders first before trying to create their own lesson plans. I thought I would take a minute to showcase some of the amazing teachers, principals, educational consultants, technology coordinators, and librarians who have created whole libraries of great binders. I’m including twitter ids for the ones that I know so that you can follow them on twitter too. Please comment on any that I have missed!

I have to start with Karen Bolotin @kbkonnected who has over 75 excellent binders. She teaches at the elementary level and provides amazing resources for teachers around the world.

Toby Price is an assistant principal who has a love of Apple products. Check out his Apps for students, parents, teachers, and administrators. He also has great resources on MAPs and Autism. Follow him at @teachersharetp.

Steven Anderson is very well known in the educational technology community, follow him at @web20classroom. An expert on social media in the classroom, his binders on QR codes in Education, An Educator’s Guide to Twitter, Google+ for Educators, and Staying Safe Online are not to be missed!

Michael Fisher owns the distinction of having the most viewed binder on the site – iPads in Schools. A nationally certified teacher and instructional coach, Michael is pushing for great change in education. He has fabulous resources on student-centered learning including: The Digigogical Matrix, Curriculum Transformations, and Social Justice LIVE! are just a few of his excellent binders. Follow him at @fisher100.

Though I’ve never spoken with wisermar and don’t know her twitter name (though I suspect that it may be Mary Wiser @wisemar) I have a deep admiration for the library that she has created which includes a great binder on the U.S. Constitution, lots of US and world history resources, but also fun binders like the Halloween binder that we recently added to the featured page.

Justin Stallings’ Library is growing quickly. He has created great social studies binders including one on the 2012 Presidential Election. His other binders focus on natural disasters, including Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and Earthquakes. (Hmm, makes me wonder if there is a tie-in between the 2012 election and natural disasters.) Follow him at @justinstallings.

I’m going to mention two great librarians together here, Joquetta Johnson @accordin2jo and Carolyn Jo Starkey @carolynstarkey. Both have created great resources for their schools and resources that librarians around the world have found incredibly useful.

@2sparkley has built a library almost as large as KBConnected. She has many great resources that include both holidays and technology like Presentation Resources, Podcasting, Creative Commons, and Mother’s Day.

Ugh! Two that I forgot from my initial post: Angela Cunningham (@kyteacher). She has created a simply amazing collection of world history and social studies resources! Tia Cooper (@techwithtia) has created some of the best ed-tech resources out there with Winning Webquests, 100+ STEM Websites & Tools for Teachers, and “If It’s Not Free! It’s Not For Me!”.

I just stumbled upon another great author tonight, Shannon Long has put together some really creative binders including Angry Bird in the Classroom and the Cookie Challenge. I couldn’t find a twitter address for Shannon, but here is her blog: http://technologyrocksseriously.blogspot.com/

One more that I forgot about is Tina Holland’s Library. She has built some great science and technology binders and also has her own LiveBinder portfolio.

Ok, I stumbled across another great library tonight, Linda Kellim has also built some great science and technology binders.

Those are just a few, please let me know which great LiveBinders authors that you have found on the site!

And the winners are…

First, congratulations to all of the 29 LiveBinder entries – out of over 100,000 binders, your binders were selected as a Top 10 Contender and that’s worth mentioning!  And to our Top 10 Favorite LiveBinder winners – double Congratulations are in order!!

For Barbara and I, it was so much fun to see the good sportsmanship carried out on twitter as all of you tried to engage people to participate.  We both had a good laugh when @mfisher1000 decided to take on the 3rd graders in @mthornton’s class. Who thought it would get that heated?

I think the main point to take a way from all of this is how useful your binders have been to people.  In this day and age where the internet is getting overwhelmingly bombarded with information – its nice to have people you trust and respect sort through content in a meaningful way.  We love the polished way in which these binders were carefully created. 

To honor all of the 2011 Top 10 binders, we’ve provided badges for your home pages and mini-badges that will appear next to your binder icons on your shelves and will also appear within your binders. We will email you your website badges shortly and your mini-badges should start showing up on your shelves and binders immediately.  Below are the Top 10 Favorite Binders – Congratulations everyone! 

Tina and Barbara

The LiveBinders community recently nominated and voted for their top ten LiveBinders. Here are the winners:

1. Michael Thornton’s

Student Digital “Textbooks”

2. KB Konnected’s

Amazing Animal Webcams

3. Mike Fisher’s

iPads in Schools

4. Steven Anderson’s

An Educators Guide To Twitter

5. Christopher Stefanski’s

Free Online Resources

6. Michelle Green’s

12 Ways to eLearning

7. Marianne Griffith’s

Art Education ACING

8. Ann Marie Kennedy’s

Fun Math Resources

9. Toby Price’s

MAPS FOR STUDENTS and PARENTS

10. Steven Anderson’s

QR Codes In Education

Some of Our Favorite Binder Builders

Every day we enjoy going to the LiveBinders site too see what people have created.  More and more we are seeing great binder authors who have created entire libraries of incredibly useful content.  I wanted to take just a minute to draw your attention to some of these amazing educators:

xmath – xmath has created some amazing binders on everything from on-line calculators to binders on different holidays (including pi day!)

joquetta – joquetta is a library media specialist who has created some fabulous binders for her students, including putting her Library Media Center up there.  But her binder on Google is also one of the most popular.

robertson8686 – Another great binder builder who has created everything from math binders on the Pythagorean Theorem to Presentation tools.

kellyhines – kellyhines has created some really interesting binders including the use of Skype in schools and a binder on hurricanes.

2sparkley – 2parkley has some fabulous resources on creative commons, great blogs, presentation resources, and the list goes on and on!

mwedwards – Sometimes known as the “Livebinder Queen” because she is such an authority on LiveBinders, Melissa’s shelf includes binders on presentation resources, a binder on Google Earth, and Media 2.0.

dmantz – Dean not only has great binders, but has also done a couple of podcasts with us.  Great binders on Digital Storytelling, Website Creation, and Virtual Connections.

mikefisher821 – Mike has created some wonderful binders including a Virtual Summer Camp for educators and Evidence of Learning.  But every time we go to his shelf we see something new and fascinating.

TheresaMcGee – Theresa has created some great art binders.  Her Online Art Games binder is one of the most popular, but she has also created resources on Leonardo da Vinci and Jacob Lawrence.

loakvik – loakvik has created one of the most popular binders in the past month – Mobile Apps for Education but her binder on Student Motivation Research is also worth checking out.

sroseman – sroseman’s great library includes in-depth teacher resources on twitter and the best of ISTE10.

teachagiftedkid – teachagiftedkid has created some great resources on math for elementary grade students, but her binders extend well beyond math.

librarybecky – librarybecky only has a few binders, but they are amazing resources on Civil War Biographies and Web 2.0 projects created by her students.

dj345 – dj345 created a great binder this summer on summer reading.  But she also has binders on Earth Day, reindeer, and snow!

scheeler - scheeler has created couple of great binders including his incredibly popular Ed Tech Tools, but also one of my favorites – Edgar Allan Poe.

s1mpl1fy – These are some amazing math binders on everything from Writing Equations to Polygons, to Solving Systems by Graphing.

vmizner – It is amazing when someone builds a many great binders all in one day.  These are some great high-school chemistry resources.

swimtchr – swimtchr has created a diverse set of binders with everything from Note Taking Tools to Principal Leadership.

lthurber@mac.com – With over 31 public binders, it is hard to know where to start.  You might find some of her more unusual binders most interesting including Robot Research, Renewable Energy, and Great Apes, but she also has some great history binders on Ancient Rome and Japan.

colleen young – Colleen has some impressive binders on Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, Equations, and Wordle

evmaiden – evmaiden has a very complete SMART resources binder as well a great binder on Promethean Resources.

ezzellk – For younger grade teachers, ezzellk has a binder on Pre-K resources and one on Iceland.

Lesley – Lesley’s Web 2.0 Tools binder is very popular, but she also has great binders on Reference Sites and History Topics

chanbliss – Here are some wonderful binders in the art discipline including Art Edu Sites and a really interesting binder on a Fifth Grade Quilting project.

There are so many more great authors, we will have to do several more posts to cover them all.  If you discover one you like, just click on their name in LiveBinders to see their public shelf.  Then add it to the comments on this post so that everyone can see their great binders.

10 More Great ways Educators are using LiveBinders

Everyday Barbara and I enjoy checking out the ‘recent’ Featured shelf on our website and continue to find so many interesting and creative ways in which educators are organizing their resources.  We thought it was time to highlight another 10 great binders for you to enjoy.

Virtual Summer Camp

User ‘mikefisher821′ – created the Virtual Summer Camp binder for teachers who are looking to improve their Web 2.0 skills, and look for inspiring online lectures and resources for teaching.  He also created a comprehensive web 2.0 resource binder called ‘Evidence of Learning 2.0′.  It is a fabulous collection of web 2.o applications broken down by category.

Virtual Summer Camp

Evidence of Learning 2.0

Mrs. Knight’s English Binder

Our user ‘bknight’ created a 9th grade English class binder for both students and parents.  She uses googledocs to create a syllabus and surveys.  When she updates her googledocs syllabus, it will automatically update in her livebinder.  The combination of googledocs with livebinders provides flexibility for the teacher who wants a collection of documents organized by context, and yet accessible anytime for editing without having to worry about re-uploading documents.

Mrs. Knight~S9GS

Sailing Camp LiveBinder

User ‘rlaffey’ put a complete course of information for his summer camp sailing program.  Students are able to access information online at anytime during the course instruction.  ‘Rlaffey’ organized videos and handouts throughout the binder.

AYC Sail Camp

MCA Orientation Binder

Our user ‘mcalibrary’ created an excellent resource binder for staff members who are relocating to Taiwan.  They put together a comprehensive resource on local transportation, english language support networks, television stations, tourist sites, language resources and a history of Taiwan.

MCA – Orientation Binder

Learning History by creating a Travel Binder

Speaking of travel guide, teacher ‘MrsB’ created a fantastic binder course for 1st – 5th graders where they were to team up with partners and plan a trip to a particular country.  The idea is to get them to create a scenario where they have to travel to this country and then document what they visited.  In her binder below, she provided guidelines, handouts and resources that help the students with their projects.  I’ve included her binder below plus one of the student example binders.

Book_a_Trip_Reading_Passport

Travel to India

Conference Presentation Binder

‘Dmantz7′ used livebinders as a way to present conference material in an organized format in the binder.  He addresses unique 21st century issues with examples of tools that teachers can use for their classroom.  He also provides guidelines on how to use some of the web 2.0 tools he highlights.  Its a great resource for teachers and also another example of how to use livebinders as a presentation tool.

iCiL 2010 “Simplify Virtually” preso

Everyday Barbara and I enjoy checking out the ‘recent’ Featured livebinders shelf on our website and continue to find so many interesting and creative ways in which educators are organizing their resources.  We thought it was time to highlight some of those binders to you.

User mikefisher821 – created the Virtual Summer Camp binder for teachers who are looking to improve their Web 2.0 skills, look for online lectures and resources for teaching. He’s collected a great number of video resources, online lectures and websites that caters to teachers wanting to freshen up on their skills.  It is basically a virtual summer camp at your fingertips.

Virtual Summer Camp
<div style=”width:75px;height:78px;background-image:url(‘http://www.livebinders.com/images/binder_straightened.gif&#8217;);border:0;margin-top:4px;background-repeat:no-repeat;”>    <a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=17616″>    <img src=”http://open.thumbshots.org/image.pxf?url=http://livebinders.com/media/get/MTIzMDY5&#8243; style=”width:60px;height:60px;border:0;margin:14px 0 0 11px;padding:0;” />    </a>    </div>    <div><a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=17616″>Virtual Summer Camp</a><br /></div>

Mrs.Knight’s English Binder

Our user ‘bknight’ created a 9th grade English class binder for both students and parents.  What I like about her binder is that she incorporates the flexibility of googledocs into her binders in appropriate ways.  For example, she has a welcome letter drafted to both the parents and students as well as a tab for a google doc survey.  The nice thing about using google docs and livebinders together is that you can edit your google docs remotely so that the latest updates or edits can appear on the document even though it is already linked in the binder.  It provides great flexibility for the teacher who wants everything organized in appropriate tabs, but also allows her to update her google docs from within the binder.
Mike’s Evidence of Learning 2.0

Shelf of 2sparkley

MCA Orientation Binder

Dean Mantz’s iCiL 2010 “Simplify Virtually” presontation -
<div style=”width:75px;height:78px;background-image:url(‘http://www.livebinders.com/images/binder_straightened.gif&#8217;);border:0;margin-top:4px;background-repeat:no-repeat;”>    <a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=16713″>    <img src=”http://open.thumbshots.org/image.pxf?url=http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYJccUMtDzncZGZ2OHgyYl8yMzJmbWd4cjdjYw&amp;hl=en&#8221; style=”width:60px;height:60px;border:0;margin:14px 0 0 11px;padding:0;” />    </a>    </div>    <div><a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=16713″&gt; iCiL 2010 “Simplify Virtually” preso</a><br /></div>

Sailing binder

AYC Sail Camp

Science Links

‘Jmayo’ put together a great collection of science virtual worlds and interactive online programs in the subject of live sciences.  There are some very fun and immersive environments that students will enjoy exploring and coming away learning something about the world they live in.

Science Links

Poetry Pathfinders

User ‘arosheim’ created a lovely binder for kindergarten to 5th grade students to learn more about poetry.   Each tab is organized by grades and includes sub-tabs with links to poetry examples and exercises that are grade appropriate.

Poetry Pathfinders

LiveBinder Shelf of 2sparkley

User ’2sparkley’ has created an enormous resource of  great information for teachers in all subject areas.  Instead of focusing on one binder, we are sharing her entire library of public binders in this link to her livebinder public shelf.  Resources include useful links to math and english subjects, safety on the web, word clouds and virtual worlds.

http://www.livebinders.com/shelf/search?search=&terms=2sparkley&type=1

Here are some more examples.

A Feature for a Teacher

We have a teacher who is using LiveBinders in her class with her lesson plans and websites projected up on the screen. She asked that we create a way to show a binder without all the information around the binder that might distract her 5th grade students. So we added a ‘full screen’ mode to LiveBinders. From the shelf, click on Options > Show Full Screen and the binder will open up without toolbars or binder information.

This feature is also useful for PR people using LiveBinders who want to present the media coverage to clients.

Go here to try it out.

A Teacher’s Use of Binders

Ms. Kellogg has created a binder full of interesting sites for her 2nd grade students to explore over the summer. She put the binder up on her wonderful website. (When you look at her website, be sure to check out the great “how to” videos that her students created at the bottom of her site.)

Here is her binder:

Websites to Try this Summer