If you’re an educator looking to make storytime more engaging and interactive for your students, then Novel Effect is the perfect tool for you. Novel Effect is an innovative edtech platform that uses voice recognition technology to enhance storytelling by adding sound effects, music, and character voices to the reading experience. This immersive audio experience brings stories to life and captivates young learners, making it a favorite among educators and students alike. Listeners of all ages are immersed in magical soundscapes, bringing giggles, awe and smiles that dramatically enhance the read-aloud experience!
Novel Effect has gained immense popularity in classrooms for several reasons. First and foremost, it transforms traditional read-aloud sessions into multisensory experiences that stimulate children’s imagination and foster a deeper connection with the story. By immersing students in an audio-enhanced environment, Novel Effect keeps them engaged, focused, and excited about reading.
If you’ve never tried or experienced Novel Effect, you’re about to be delighted! The app itself is free and you get five free reads a month, so you can give it a try right away. Once you’re hooked, which you undeniably will be, it’s only $39 a year for educators, and that gives you unlimited access to every single title and all of the thousands of pages of activity plans that you’ll read about below. If you’re a super-savvy educator (and I know you are), you’ll convince a school administrator to purchase it for every single teacher in your school (no matter how many there are) for only $799 for the year…and you will be the celebrated hero of the entire school! Oh, and there’s no “professional development” (PD) needed for Novel Effect – just show all the educators in the school this 34-second video (and maybe show them this bonus blog post) and they’ll be all set!
Whether you’re new to Novel Effect or you’ve been a fan for years, below you’ll find five fabulous things you may not know about Novel Effect!
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🔵 There is a Massive, Growing Collection of Diverse and Beloved Books
Many educators don’t realize that Novel Effect provides educators with a vast library of over 1200 diverse books and continues to expand its collection. Click here to go to a Google doc that lists every single title that’s currently available in Novel Effect! (This doc is updated weekly with new titles.) You’re bound to be impressed when you see many of the books that you already have in your classroom, library, or even at home. This extensive selection ensures that teachers can find books that align with their curriculum and cater to the diverse interests and backgrounds of their students. With a growing collection, Novel Effect ensures that there’s always a captivating story available for every classroom.
🔵 Edtech Partnerships and Integration
Novel Effect has formed partnerships with various prominent edtech platforms, including Flip, Wakelet, Quizizz, Empatico, iPevo document cameras, StickTogether, Book Creator (coming soon), Capstone (eBooks and more), and more are in the works! These collaborations allow educators to seamlessly integrate Novel Effect into their existing teaching practices and tools. Whether you’re using Flip to create interactive lessons or Quizizz for engaging quizzes, Novel Effect’s integration makes it effortless to incorporate immersive storytelling into your classroom routine. These are all great resources for appsmashing enthusiasts who love to offer a digital smorgasbord to accompany their read-alouds! If you’re a fan of any of these particular partnerships, Novel Effect also has webinars that feature these dynamic integrations, so be sure to check out the webinar page on their website.
🔵 There are eBooks in the App
In addition to its extensive library of physical books, Novel Effect also offers a collection of ebooks within the app. This feature expands the accessibility of the platform, allowing educators and students to access a range of captivating stories digitally. Whether you have limited physical resources or want to provide students with a digital reading experience, Novel Effect’s eBook collection is a valuable asset for every classroom. Want to try it right now? My favorite book to demo is “The Tale of Peter Rabbit“. Just open the app, use the search feature to find the book, and tap the EBOOK button. The book will open right in the app so you can flip through the pages. Once you hear the start-up chime, just begin reading aloud. Novel Effect can hear the words you read and you’ll soon hear sounds of nature, a squeaky door, Peter munching on garden goodies, suspenseful music, and more! It’s such a fun reading experience! I like to use the eBooks for on-the-go demos when I don’t have a physical book, and also for screen-mirroring to my interactive whiteboard.
🔵 Thousands of Book-Related Activity Pages
To complement the reading experience and extend learning beyond the story, Novel Effect provides hundreds of book-related activity pages on its website, NovelEffect.com. At this time, the resources are not yet available in the app, so I love to surprise and delight educators by pointing them to the Resources section with Book Activities on the website! These activity pages include discussion questions, creative writing prompts, arts and crafts activities (craftivities), and much more. They are standards-aligned and there are activity pages for various subjects. What’s more – they are professionally created and visually stunning! You’ll be blown away by the quality and the selection. I can’t say enough about these and how brilliant they are as read-aloud enhancers. This morning I opened the Activity Set for the beloved book “Owl Moon“, and found that the set for just this one book has 28 pages of options that are differentiated for learners from K-5! Without a subscription, you’ll always be able to find some of these activity sets that are free to use, but anyone with a subscription has full access to the thousands and thousands of ready-to-go pages that complement the books beautifully. By utilizing these resources, educators can turn a simple storytime session into a comprehensive lesson that promotes critical thinking, creativity, and engagement.
🔵 It’s Available on Chromebooks
Recognizing the importance of technology in modern classrooms, Novel Effect has made its platform compatible with Chromebooks. Now, educators can easily access Novel Effect’s immersive storytelling experience using Chromebooks, ensuring that students can enjoy the benefits of this innovative tool regardless of the devices available in their school. (And stay tuned, because I happen to know that Novel Effect will also be available for you Windows users soon, too…a web version is currently in development!)
There is no doubt that Novel Effect is revolutionizing the way stories are told in elementary classrooms. One by one, teachers have been discovering it on their own for years and spreading the word…as great teachers do. Now it’s being embraced by whole schools, entire school districts, and Novel Effect has even gained global popularity in many other countries! With its diverse book collection, partnerships with leading edtech platforms, inclusion of eBooks, thousands of book-related standards-aligned activity pages, and compatibility with Chromebooks, Novel Effect empowers educators to create dynamic and interactive reading experiences that captivate students’ imaginations and foster a love for literature. By embracing Novel Effect, educators can unlock the full potential of storytelling and provide their students with an unforgettable storytime magic!
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