The ABC's of Issuu

A while back I blogged about some new-to-me tools I stumbled upon when a fellow

Blogger's post led me on a birdwalk.  Over the past year, I 

Committed myself to becoming "fairly proficient" with each of these tools. 
During 2012, I frequently posted on Scoop.it! over morning coffee, and I
Found a couple of new blogs to follow through that tool, as well.  
Gathering a decent webmix for Symbaloo has taken longer than expected, but I may
Have finally created one worthy of sharing with my students.  
ISSUU is my latest and greatest victory.
January was the month grade 1 students finished an inquiry of How We Express Ourselves.
Knowing that alphabet books are one way to structure information, we  
Looked at several and read a few during library visits.  
Many of the books were a single subject (sports, princesses, animals), but some of the 
New books played with the letters in funny and strange ways.
Only after exploring a wide variety some did we attempt to make our own.

Perhaps our product could be better, but this was a first try.  Using
Quiet library voices, students brainstormed words for each letter.
Reflection tells me grade 1 students could have written full
Sentences for each letter, but I was worried we would run out of 
Time.  After each word was illustrated, the cover was designed and all the pages were
Uploaded to ISSUU.  It was
Very exciting to see the students' hard work turned into an eBook that 
Was even added to our library catalog.
NeXt time we may use an iPad app for the writing and illustrating.... but I have learned
You can't let your perfect get in the way of your good, or you will have 
Zero to share.