iPad Literature Circles
  • Why ?
  • How?
  • eBook Whisperer
  • Literature Circles
    • Reader Response Logs
    • Roles >
      • Discussion Director
      • Passage Master
      • Artful Artist
      • Travel Tracer
      • Summarizer
      • Vocabulary Enricher
      • Investigator
      • Connector
      • Discussion Groups
    • Presentation
    • Using the Cloud
  • Resources & Management

Investigator

This role asks the students to gather together background information pertaining to the reading and then communicate their findings to their peers. The investigator is a responsible for researching topics that may be cultural, historic, scientific, or geographical. Some of the items a student might choose to highlight during discussion group could be images of artifacts, music, primary documents, short videos, or interviews. The goal is to provide fellow students with background information that delves deeper into content discussed in the text and thus build a richer understanding the reading.

Once again, it becomes apparent that having the Internet embedded within text is a very powerful tool. Using the dictionary function within an e-book will display an option to search content on the web. Students can also "multitask" between apps and quickly switch out to reference apps. Many Reader Response Logs incorporate web clips, and allow students to upload sound files, photographs, and videos. During discussion group students can share the work in their journal through a classroom projector, cloud service or collaboration apps. Teachers will need schedule mini-lessons that demonstrate to students how to conduct an effective online search, test the reliability of a web site and think critically about the content they locate.



Linking Out

iBooks allows for immediate searches from within the app and through other apps.



Picture
Investigator/Researcher Notability notes by 4th grade student in Mimi Wallace's Class



Picture

Google Earth

Picture
Google Earth FREE
Travel to the location of events and view the world from the character's perspective
  • Locate important sites
  • View geological land forms
  • Pull up background information about towns and sites

Qwiki

Picture
Qwiki FREE
Search
  • Images, videos, and articles
  • Worldwide Map
  • Text re-aloud

Britannica

Picture
Britannica FREE for 1 month subscription $1.99
Britannica makes several book/research apps. This highlighted app is their comprehensive version.
  • Photographs, diagrams and charts
  • Artilces written by reliable sources
  • Link Map