Creating Your Own Living Breathing Textbook


Are you frustrated with the limitations of textbooks and textbook companies? First of all, it's expensive. Secondly, you may only be able to buy new textbooks every five to ten years. Thirdly, by the time you get your hard copy textbook, its out of date.

What if you want to customize your student's learning experience?Maybe you want your students to have up-to-date information and access to current events. What do you do? Head to the copy machine. What if there was a better way? A way to customize your student's learning experiences, embed current event articles, and show YouTube videos.

Well, there is in fact and it's been around in awhile. It's called Livebinder.

What is Livebinder?

It's a self-proclaimed "3-Ring Binder of the Web," allowing you to organize information in Tabs and Subtabs. You can add PDF Word documents, PDF PowerPoints, embed websites, embed YouTube videos, and pictures. It allows you the opportunity to create a living and breathing textbook! One of the best reasons to check it out....it's free!

Check out some of the samples on Livebinder.

How Does this Relate to UDL?

Livebinder is an excellent tool to use when Universally Designing your lesson plans. It's a great way to customize materials, providing a way to provide multiple ways of representing material in the form of PowerPoint, YouTube videos, etc.

My Experiences

I have been using Livebinder for about two months now and I absolutely love the capabilities. There are some things that I've had to get used to. For instance, you have to create PDF copies of PowerPoints and Word documents to upload them into your binder.

Yet, it is so easy to do. It's even easier to customize your binder and allow your students to receive a customized learning experience. I love the fact that you can set up your binder so that it's private. It's worth a shot whether you are a teacher, coach, or administrator.

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