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Making The Most of Books With Popplet

literacy, Popplets in Education / By

As the digital classroom becomes an everyday reality, Popplet is proud to be part of the Education Technology progression. Bringing together ideas and information from many sources, through Popplet’s intuitive but powerful features: text, images, videos, colors, and combining this with the capacity to collaborate, all adds up to an enhanced visual learning experience, much favored by educators of all disciplines.

Popplet is already highly thought of in the literacy classroom: a workhorse in reading and writing activities, Popplet is a big fan of books. Or more correctly, educators often employ Popplet to open and excite the minds of young learners to the life-long rewards of becoming active book readers. For the teacher, this carries with it the added benefit of achieving certain Common Core Standards in the process.

Popplet’s strong community of learners, educators and librarians do great work with books. Let’s take a look a closer look at some of what they are doing with books and Popplet.

Brainstorming Books
There are a lot of books out there, and since time is limited, it’s good to have someone on hand to help us choose which books to read – enter the librarian! Along with teachers and parents, they are trusted to provide the reading material which will best help their students grow. How amazing it is to open the minds of the young to the tremendous potential of books. One way to begin doing this is by letting them share what they already know about reading, writers, and genres. That’s what future librarian Alyssa Taft did with her students:

Look what they did!

Popplets About Authors

Books don’t write themselves, and as reading skills and knowledge develop, it is natural for readers to start to wonder about the men and women who penned the pages that find their way to their desks, bags and bedroom tables. Understanding the historical context of a novel, and the personal circumstances of its author, are often vital to obtaining a deeper understanding of its content. Popplet is perfect for presentations about writers. The creator of the following Popplet about hugely influential English author Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, shared anonymously – how Orwellian!

If your students aren’t quite ready for Orwell, then Popplet is just as amenable to children’s writers. Here is a 1st-grade class Popplet on the books of Jan Brett:

We also like Jane Ferguson’s class’ investigations into the work of poet and novelist Gary Soto:

No matter the age or ability of the reader, a knowledge of the author, will always add value to the reading experience.

Popplets About Books

How to assess that students have read and understood all of the significant lessons a book has to offer? Well, they could write reports, talk about the book in class, collaborate on assignments, write lengthy essays, and make popplets! Popplet’s capacity for visual presentation and the potential to add limitless information to a popplet board make recording facts about books a rich and enjoyable task. Especially, when students collaborate on their work.

A whole book project can be planned using Popplet. Check out this project for John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, from Glogster:

4th-Grade teacher Allie Pennington pupils recently used Popplet in their book reading group:

And this informative report on Gabriel García Márquez’s, One Hundred Years of Solitude, generously shared by Demetra in Public Popplets:

Popplets about Stories and Characters
Books of fiction, are stories made up of characters and plot. Analyzing these different facets: comparing and contrasting, looking at cause and effect, and eventually studying historical and social context, can provide rich learning opportunities. These opportunities develop intelligence, communication and critical thinking skills. Popplet is a platform where students can record and refer to their ideas on the differing aspects their reading.

See the marvelous simplicity with which Erika has rendered the popular Folk Tale Cinderella into its pertinent parts on a single popplet:

Here are Jennifer Nelson’s 1st-graders are hard at work getting to grips with investigating the characters during their reading lesson

A Tale Unfolds, who are committed to “radically improving literacy by empowering pupils to work with purpose while improving their digital skills”, are a group whose work we often see on Popplet. As their name suggests, they appreciate the learning potential of stories and literature:

We asked them why they used Popplet:

We love recommending Popplet to our schools when they are looking for a way to generate ideas around storytelling. Being able to collaborate using Popplet provides such a rich variety of ideas for the students to work with.

You can find out more about A Tale Unfolds on their website.

The Changing Face of Books

The times they are a changing, someone once said. When he said it, he couldn’t possibly have known exactly how much things would change in his lifetime. Even the familiar paper form of the humble, noble book – possibly the greatest advancement in human terms since our ability to harness fire – is being digitalized, with many advantages. However, for the nostalgic; those whose memories will always favor the tactile, we thought we would leave you with this final popplet on the subject: Cuadro Cronológico de Libros (A Chronological Table of Books). A reminder of how far we’ve come – maybe.

Are you a student, teacher or librarian who is using Popplet? We would love to hear from you! You can connect with us and share your work with our community on Twitter, and on our Facebook page.

Popplet is available on the web, and new users receive ten popplet boards when they sign up for a free account. If you find you need more than ten popplet boards, you can simply delete existing ones, or you can sign up for the full version of Popplet at the iTunes store. Be sure to check out Popplet’s reduced rates for School and Class group subscriptions.