4.1.5

Book Hive 4.1.5: Connect ideas to own interests and previous knowledge and experience. The sister site to Story Place, Book Hive is a children's book guide that children can contribute to, sharing their picks with the world. They also publish stories written by children, run polls where children can vote, guides to help them choose reading materials, or "Hear a Story" which uses a podcast of a person telling a tale. There is also a children's catalog, which according to work by Borgman on the SEED project uses a bookshelf metaphor effectively. In //Children's searching behavior on browsing and keyword online catalogs: The Science Library Catalog Project// (Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46, 663-684) //"//children, ages 9 through 12, responded well to the use of a bookshelf metaphor interface that was designed to correspond with the children's mental/visual imagery of a library."

As for the NETS:

1) Creativity and Innovation b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression-The "Bee an Author feature on Book Hive allows kids to create a 6 page story about Zinger the bee. This story can be viewed online, printed as a storybook, or emailed to a friend, and others' stories can be viewed online..

2) Communication and Collaboration d. contribute to project teams to produce original works-"Zinger Recommends" are book reviews for and by kids.

3) Research and Information Fluency d. Process data and share results-fun activities like Harry Potter quizzes and self-created booklists allow students to report their scores or their favorite reads.

4) Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project-"Zinger Recommends" is another venue for kids to collaborate on likes a dislikes and is a very popular book forum.

5) Digital Citizenship b. exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity-Almost all features on Book Hive encourages children to work together to learn and share information.

6) Technology Operations and Concepts a. Understand and use technology systems-Catalogs, forums, storytelling, and more teach participants to use a variety of technology programs.

Multiple Intelligences:

Kinesthetic learners will appreciate all of the opportunities this website offers to build projects. Interpersonal learners will love all of the collaborative features. Verbal-Linguistic will like writing their own stories and as well as contributing their ideas to book reviews and forums. Logical learners will like the investigative aspect of Harry Potter quizzes and other reasoning activities. Intrapersonal can use the book list feature to compile their own favorites. Musical learners will like the auditory stimulation that the podcast provides.

Meaningful Learning

Active-there is so much for participants to manipulate on this website that it actively will engage students.

Constructive-compiling booklists will help learners reflect on what they have done and can establish goals from that point.

Intentional-"Zinger Recommends" provides more goal direction as does others' contributions to the forum. Using technology to plan helps students learn intentionally.

Authentic-All of the children's contributions to the website are based in real-world tasks that are useful and meaningful to the participants.

Cooperative-Collaboration is essential to the workings of this tool. Students can collaborate in a myriad of different ways depending on what suits them best. Also, having numerous ways of collaborating always keeps the activities and the learning fresh and the understanding real.