Livebinders for the Social Studies – Part 1: What are Livebinders?
For over a year now, I have been guest posting a series of posts entitled “Evernote for the Social Studies” on this blog by Melissa Seideman. There are still a multitude of uses that Evernote holds for Social Studies teachers and students that I have yet to blog about, and more posts will be coming on that subject throughout the year.
Along with Evernote, I have been blogging about Livebinders and how they can further engage our students in the classroom and assist educators in the teaching process. This year, I also wanted to look at how Livebinders can be used specifically in the Social Studies classroom.
I will also be cross-posting this series on my blog, engagedwithtech.blogspot.com.
Livebinders – Your 3-ring binder for the web
Livebinders can be your one central source to collect resources, share resources, and collaborate with other educators and technology enthusiasts. You can collect and curate resources that include: web addresses, documents, photos and many other things in your Livebinder.
In today’s classroom, students and teachers use the power of the internet to gather resources for projects, resources for papers and resources to share in the classroom. According to livebinders.com, “Physical 3-ring binders used to be the easiest way to organize all your educational resources. But now so much of what you want to organize is online. LiveBinders not only replaces the old 3-ring binder, but also opens up new opportunities for collaborating, organizing, and sharing that were never possible before.”
Here are some of my favorite ideas that students can use Livebinders for:
- Collect/organize blog posts – their own or fellow classmates
- Create a “My Evernote” tab – students can insert links to certain Evernote notes
- Research – students can use the “Livebinder It” browser extension to add a website link to their binder
- Comment on fellow classmate’s binders – Livebinders allow you to add comments to a binder, which is great for peer review.
- Upload lecture notes – whether it be a Evernote note link or a MS Word doc, students and upload/insert their class lecture notes.
Why Use Livebinders?
There a multiple reasons to use Livebinders in and out of the classroom. It’s free and very easy to use. The creators of Livebiners, Tina and Barbara (@livebinders), provide the best support I’ve ever experienced with anything related to technology. They love to share other’s Livebinders and love to hear how what they created is making a difference.
The problem with physical 3-ring binders is that resources and learning that has been done and collected with them stay in the binder. Students have less of a opportunity to share what they have learned with physical binders, however, with Livebinders students can share via Twitter, Facebook, or by URL – thus giving students a multitude of ways to share with their fellow classmates.
Want more Livebinders info? Here are some more resources:
Click here for my other blog posts about Livebinders
Livebinders website: www.livebinders.com
Here is one of my Livebinders for Social Studies resources:
