Etwinning

Design interactive activities with LIM

The LIM tool (Libros Interactivos Multimedia [Multimedia Interactive Books]) permits the creation of educational material in the form of an interactive book, using a simple environment and achieving attractive results. LIM, which offers free use and distribution - provided that its free use and authorship is respected - integrates an activity editor  (Edilim), a visualizer and a file in XML format where the properties of the book and the pages which make it up are defined. 

To function correctly, LIM requires a flash plugin but does not need software to be installed in the user's computer as it only visualizes the contents. The LIM which are created can be published on the Internet like a web page and can be immediately accessed from any navigator. 

In the LIM environment all the pages, whether descriptive or interactive, maintain a similar appearance and present the same elements: 

Among the educational advantages of this tool we could emphasize its intuitive user-friendly environment both for students and teachers. It facilitates a large variety of exercises (identifying and classifying texts and images, filling in gaps, multiple choice, word search puzzles, etc.), to which can be added texts, images, sounds, video, links and animations. All the activities permit a self evaluation, which facilitates monitoring the student's progress. It can also be used with PDAs and Interactive Digital Boards. 

We can find in the eTwinning project Grover on tour, carried out by the students of the Vagalume Infants' School (Pontevedra) and other Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Rumanian and Maltese partners an example of the use of LIM. The project is based on the postal exchange among all the participating centres of the well known puppet Grover from Sesame Street, with which the students develop activities inside and outside of school. The teacher of the Spanish students  -Mela Rodríguez- has used LIM and all the possibilities it offers to summarise a great deal of the experience and share the activities which resulted from the project. The students have felt motivated to identify images and sounds, solve puzzles, fill in the gaps, etc. You can see the Multimedia Interactive Book of this project in: http://www.chiscos.net/xestor/chs/profemela/groverontour/groverontour.html

Given all the above mentioned characteristics of LIM, we consider that the use of this tool to create multimedia interactive books is easily applicable to the different stages and areas of the school curriculum. 

Its creator -Fran Macías- has translated the environment into 12 languages, and the different versions can be downloaded from the application's official page: http://www.educalim.com/. You can also consult the detailed process of how to create activities as well as manuals and video tutorials and you will find inspiration in the LIM library, in the numerous examples of the use of LIM as a teaching resource.