Mixbook

A new online digital storytelling tool has burst on the scene for teachers and students in our district. I was introduced to Mixbook in September at the Classroom2.0 conference at the Capital Area Intermediate Unit. The founders of Mixbook have done a tremendous amount of adapting their product for educational use. Mixbook is easy to use, very intuitive, and a great alternative for classroom bookmaking. One very nice feature is that Mixbook will give you a code when your book is completed so you can embed it on a web page, a wiki etc.

A couple items we’ve discovered while working with Mixbook in the classroom. Student accounts require an email address. We logged students in using the teacher’s account for them to work that day and then changed the password after we were done working for that day. Also, students in groups can only be editing one page at a time from different laptops. In other words, one student can be working on page 1 while another member of the group can be working on page 2 etc. You can also set up books ahead of time, so when students log in a book on a particular subject is already there ready to go.

Here are two Mixbook examples from an elementary classroom. Students created a Mixbook about National Symbols.

National Symbols Mixbook Example

Here are some examples of third grade students building Mixbooks about the 5 different regions of Pennsylvania.

Regions of PA Mixbook Examples

I’m hopeful this provides you with another tool to use in the classroom. If you’ve used Mixbook in the classroom, please post a link to examples for others to see or at least share your ideas about how to use this in the classroom. Thanks and happy Mixbooking!