Virtual Book Trailers!

This month we have been talking a lot about book recommendations and how to review what we have read. Coupled with the fact that students LOVE "shopping" for books for their book boxes, we thought we would use our iPads for a project that would help us practice making good book recommendations as well as help our classmates who are looking for new books to read. In the first part of our project, we picked our favorite book and wrote down information like the author and illustrator, genre, why we like the book, and finally, to whom we would recommend the book. Next, we used the app "Splice" to create a virtual book trailer. This is a very user-friendly app and the kids got the hang of it quickly! Splice allows you to add both videos and pictures in a slideshow format and even add music, too! After the students created their virtual trailer using Splice, I was able to export it to YouTube. (Our class has an account we use for projects like this!) Lastly, we created a QR code using the website "qrhacker.com". Basically, you visit the QR generator website, copy the URL from the YouTube video, and qrhacker.com generates a special QR code that, when scanned, will bring you directly to the YouTube video. Once the QR code was generated, I printed it off. Students were then able to tape their special QR code to the back of the book they had done their review on. So, when students are looking for a new book to read, they take their iPad to our classroom library, use the QR code scanner app to scan the code, and they can see a virtual book review of that book within seconds.