Virtual Book Talk

Let's Discover Cold-blooded Animals

          To create my virtual book talk I used the tool VoiceThreads. This a simple tool to use. All you have to do is add pictures then you can speak and add your voice, or add comments to show texts. You can also draw on the pictures are you are speaking to point things out and make it easier to see. VoceThreads can also be used as a collaborative lesson, because anyone can comment on the VoiceThread if they have a username and multiple people can be on it at the same time. I would definitely use this tool in my future classroom to do another book talk or have students work in groups to do a project.

     The book I chose to do my book talk on is, Let's Discover Cold-blooded Animals by RainTree Publishers. This is a non-fiction informational reference book that explains how cold-blooded animals interact with the environment and other animals to survive. Although, that may sound boring reading it was actually really engaging learning knew facts. I loved the set up of the book because it was divided into different sections and sub-topics based on the types of animals. This made the book easy to follow. Also, there is a glossary of all scientific terms that are bolded throughout the back that you can look back at when you don't understand a word. This also made it easy for me to follow. The pictures were very engaging and lively which made reading and looking through the pictures entertaining. I really liked how in the back of the book it gives you questions that you can answer by looking though the book. However, it also gives you questions that you can look up the answers yourself. I like this because it allows readers to explore and do further research on their own. It shows us that everything we learn leads to questions which leads to different discoveries.

     After presenting my book talk to the class I realized that some things worked well, but some things needed to be adjusted. The tool I used was good and my voice and pictures were clear. However, a book talk is supposed to have a hook to grab peoples attention to make them want to read it. In my book talk I did not use every page from the book, I just used the pages that were relevant to my lesson and things I liked about the book. However, I gave a lot of the information away. Why would people want to read the book, if I already gave all the information away? For future book talks I will ask questions instead of giving information away so that they have to read it to find out the answer. I believe that my book talk would be good for informing teachers if they want to teach this topic or any one who is interested about cold-blooded animals. This book could also be used to  engage and introduce students to learning a new topic.  I could also have students answer the questions in the back to check their knowledge for understanding and do further investigations. I would definitely use this in my future classroom.
Here is a link of my Book Talk Template
Here is a link of my Virtual Book Talk