MackinVIA Brings All Our Digital Content Together....Including Websites, Videos & Even Student Created Content Into Our Collections!

I am so excited to share some big news from Mackin Educational Resources!  

You all know how much I love using MackinVIA with students, teachers, and school communities to share eResources such as eBooks, databases, and audio books.  This FREE platform is not only the perfect platform to bring together all of these eResources, students can also personalize MackinVIA with their own Backpack and additions they can make through Highlighting, Note Taking, Citation Creation with EasyBib, and the Dictionary. 

When we brought MackinVIA to our school it made such a difference.

Now Mackin has done something really awesome with MackinVIA!  

We can now Add and Edit Resources within MackinVIA and this is going to truly change and enhance the experience for everyone within our libraries and schools.  

As we have always been able to add any eBooks, database, or audiobook to MackinVIA, we can now add Links from the internet and Videos.  

As many digital tools and resources that we all use from the internet, just think how much this will bring to our library collections and libraries. 

And it is very easy to start building these resources with MackinVIA too.  

Here is how I added and edited within my MackinVIA. 

You will need to log into your school MackinVIA through the administrator side.

Go to the top under Manage and then to Groups.  I created a few new Groups within mine for Makerspace eBooks and Resources, 1st Grade PBL Project, and Digital Tools.  

I will use the Digital Tools Group to show you how to add and edit too.

 Go to the right hand side of the Group and click on Manage Resources.  

If you want to change anything about the title, description, etc.... within any Group, then you would click on Edit. 

 Once you are in the Group, you can click on Add New Resources.....

to open this window.  The first thing you will need to do is choose what Resource Type you are adding.

 You have the choice to add Databases, eBooks, Audiobooks, Videos, and Links.  

For the Digital Tools Group, I clicked on Links to add different digital or Web 2.0 tools to this group.

You will need to add the title, author or company, and website to create a new entry within MackinVIA.  The other fields are optional.

Once you have added these items, click on Save Changes. 

You will then need to click on Active at the top to make this new entry Active.  If you ever want to limit access, click on that again to make it Inactive. 

At the bottom of the entry you also have other options including Additional Details, Index Terms, Classification, and Resource Image. 

For all of the digital tools within the Digital Tools Group I added that to the Classification to make them easier to locate.

Next, you can add a Resource Image to each entry at the very bottom of this page.  I just took little screen shots of each digital tool logo and uploaded them into the record.

After the entry is added, go back to the Manage Resources page for the particiular Group you want to add resources to.  You will need to find that new entry and click on Add to add it to the Group. 

I found the digital tool I just added, Videonot.es, and added it to the Digital Tools Group.  

To make sure Videonot.es and all of the other digital tools are added to the Digital Tools Group, I went to my MackinVIA to double check.

And here it is!  

When you click on Open Now it takes you right into VideoNot.es.

I am very excited about using the new updated MackinVIA for bringing together resources for projects, classes and units....especially with PBL projects!

Over the last few years I have been using Smore and other digital tools as pathfinders in bringing all of the resources together for certain projects, grade levels, and events.

When our 1st graders did their Safety PBL Project last year, I created the Safety Safety Safety Smore, a digital pathfinder, to share all of the eBooks, Capstone's PebbleGO, and various websites.

Now, I can create these pathfinders right in MackinVIA!  I love this.

It was very easy to do.  I first created the 1st Grade Safety PBL Project Group within my MackinVIA.

Then I added Links, eBooks, Databases (PebbleGO), and Videos. 

I included a link to the Safety Safety Safety Smore....

One to the 1st Grade Symbaloo where all of their resources for the year are located....

Two eBooks included within my MackinVIA....

I even added an easy way to get to the books in the library collection by adding a link to Destiny.This will take the 1st grades directly to the print books as well.

Two free online eBooks from Scholastic as Links....

And several safety websites for children as Links. 

One of the digital tools the first graders used to create their projects was TuxPaint.  I included this as a Link within the MackinVIA Group.

I also included a Video that two of the first graders created demonstrating using TuxPaint.

This is a great way to tie Flipped Learning right into MackinVIA and your library.

At the end of the Safety PBL Project, all of the children created videos to showcase their projects.  I put these together in a Symbaloo.   

With the updated MackinVIA I can also add these to the Group within MackinVIA cataloging student work right into our digital collection.  Just think about the ownership that this will give our young people.  And so easy to share with classmates, parents, and others.

As you can see, MackinVIA brings it all together for us within our libraries and schools making a difference for everyone.  I can't wait to see how all of you use MackinVIA and make a difference too.