Friday, March 25, 2011

Publishing Student Work

Last year I coordinated our school's use of the Student Treasure's book publishing program. We had students illustrate and write on special paper and sent the class project in to be bound and reprints made.  The end result was great; the process was a little painful.  It was  a little difficult to manage the pages- one child would illustrate the back of another's writing- mess up, rip, or smear it (and all three happened of course) and both students had to redo...  AND kindergarten handwriting can range from illegible to gorgeous, and they had to write, copy, then trace over with a marker... It was worth it, but a little challenging and most had to be done 1:1.  And I could not fathom doing it with this year's crew and no aide during writing.

So, while ordering the packets for our building, I noticed on the order form that they have an ONLINE publishing program (Beta) and immediately signed up.   So far I am very impressed with the site.  The teacher enters student names then the software assigns pages to the child as well as a logon and password (easy too- first name initial and last name- I'd be sholt) and common word passwords such as colors and other easy words.  The students can only change their page.  I, however, can see the whole book from my page.  The students will type onto the page- it saves automatically and prompts before closing- and can manipulate the text color, font and size.  Teachers can load images (I will scan student artwork and/or photos) and students can insert them or clip art.  Multiple student images can be placed.  Our second grade teacher has decided to try it too- she felt the first try, with children typing their writing up, went well.

Publishing allows them to see themselves as an author/illustrator and gives them an authentic reason to write- how amazing!

There is a referral program- if you plan to try, please send me your email- if I refer you and you end up publishing I will get a $50 card to spend on my classroom.  If you refer other schools, you'll get one too!

Here's the site:  http://www.studentreasures.com/

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