Tikatok

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Alexandra Mills

This site allows students to create and illustrate their own hard or soft cover book. They can type their stories right into the site or upload them from word. This is a great way for students to become real authors and share their works at home and among their classmates.

__Help and Tutorials__

[] This Blog helps users understand how to use the site and provides a description of the site's objectives.

[|You Tube Tutorial 1] This video features a student using the site and teaching the audience how to create and illustrate their own book using the site.

[|You Tube Tutorial 2] This is the second component and follows up where the first tutorial ends. This installment focuses more on illustrating and publishing. Both videos are great and show step by step instructions from logging into the site to publishing your book. They are very user friendly and would be perfect to show a class.

__Challenges__

One of the main challenges I discovered was that images for the books need to be scanned in to appear on the page. Users also have the option of mailing the illustration in, and Tikatok will add them to your story. This poses a challenge for students that do not have access to a scanner at home or school. Another challenge is cost. The hardcover and softcover books are $18 and $15, respectively, this may cause an issue when trying to do the assignment with an entire class. They do have a PDF option, which costs only $2.99, this way students can, at the very least, share their story through email.

__Educational Objectives__ __and Lesson Plan__

Students in my 7th Grade Language Arts class will be able to compose a short story, illustrate it and publish it through [|http://www.tikatok.com/.]

The students will have the opportunity to choose a story or narrative they have written this year and publish it using Tikatok. During the final weeks of school, students will determine the writing piece that they are choosing. They will be given time in the lab to work on their story and be given class time to create appropriate illustrations. Next, the class will scan their illustrations using the school scanner and then go back to the lab to insert their illustrations into the correct section of their book. Once students have finished the books, they will peer edit with a partner using a rubric that I will provide. Once we are ready for publication, each student will send their masterpiece and await the return of the book! Students will have to get parent permission to use the site and will need some money to purchase the book. We do have a grade level fund that could also be a possibility to help subsidize the cost. Once the books arrive, students will share their books with the class and take them home to keep. I really think the students will love this assignment; it will help them incorporate the use of technology into their writing and will give them something that I know they will love to read in future years.