Welcome to NCS-Tech!

Good morning all!

I’ve been off the grid for a few days, it’s good to be back in action, I don’t think I’ve ever gone two work days without posting! Need to get back in the swing of things!

Anyway, today’s featured site, BigUniverse.com, also comes from New Jersey techno-teacher Ann Oro (who pointed me to LookyBook.com). It’s very similar in that you can READ children’s books online easily but, even MORE fun, you can actually CREATE YOUR OWN! All for free!

The site layout is extremely pleasing and easy to navigate, with vibrant colors, logical design, friendly fonts, and a great balance of text and images. Signup is easy and free. The books are easily accessed and totally free. Here’s what the reader looks like:

The text in this case is small, but that’s because you’re looking at an actual printed book that has been digitized. It wasn’t designed for reading online, but it’s definitely still possible, again, especially if you had this running on an interactive whiteboard in your room. You can quickly preview the entire book using the arrow keys or this handy thumbnail mode:

But the big story (bad pun, sorry) is that this site lets you CREATE YOUR OWN books with a simple-to-use applet called the Big Universe Author(tm):

Yes, folks, it’s THAT easy! Drag-and-Drop, intuitive property boxes, beautiful free clip art included, or you can add your own images. What could be simpler? I can see upper elementary kids making their own books here EASILY. In fact, this gives me an idea. Students could use Fabelvision’s Stationery Studio to create a story, then use BigUniverse.com to illustrate and publish it online! How cool would THAT be?

Yes folks, this site DEFINITELY deserves space on your bookmarks list, either as an end-of-year activity or for next September. Thank you, Ann Oro! Please keep the great sites coming!

Hope this helps!

-kj-