Good Reads

I have been wanting to blog about this for a bit, but haven't had the time until today. I have used it a bunch and found it to be very useful. It has a social-networking aspect, which some may not like, but it does allow you to view what others have done and there is a section specifically for Librarians. Like many other new Web 2.0 tools it allows you to create a widget that is exportable.

Online Literacy

Teaching with technology isn't just about creating great websites and interactives often it is about creating better learning for students and increasing accessibility.  When students struggle with reading educators often suggest having the audio version of the book available for them.  Lit2Go has made that easier

I love finding great sources of free literature online. I just had a colleague show me this one. It is available through iTunes, but the direct link is: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

Lit2Go is a clearinghouse of free mp3 files of books that are considered classics. They are all searchable, and available as chapters. Best of all they are free and have no expiration.

More online literature

I love finding great sources of free literature online. I just had a colleague show me this one. It is available through iTunes, but the direct link is: http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

Lit2Go is a clearinghouse of free mp3 files of books that are considered classics.  They are all searchable, and available as chapters. Best of all they are free and have no expiration.

Literacy- Old school???

Jared suggested that I am pretty animated about the literature resources on the web and that I ought to blog about them here. So if you like this I need to thank Jared for the suggestion, if you don't then it's Jared's fault and blame him. But, seriously. There are some really phenomenal web resources for bibliophiles out there. I want to highlight just one. It is multi-media in the way we usually think of it, but it does use multiple mediums. Many books that are no longer covered by copyright, ie: public domain, are now being digitized by multiple entities and in mutliple ways. One of those is Project Gutenburg, named after the famous inventor of the printing press. You can look up literally thousands and thousands of books and read them on your computer or with just a small learning curve and a portable device you can take them with you to read anywhere you go. Visit Project Gutenburg here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Audio Books! Listen to your favorite book

There are lot of great ways to enhance learning. I remember very fondly Mrs. Marcum reading Raold Dahl's BFG out loud in 5th grade. She skipped the chapter about Body noises. It wasn't the book that was so great, I hardly remember the plot. Really the biggest impact it had on me was that I had to go find the book and read the chapter about bodily noises because she told us she was skipping a chapter. What was valuable was hearing an effective and animated reader read.

My Grandmother was a Drama Coach and taught my mother how to do "Readings" I learned from her and to this day I believe being read to is valuable and reading out loud to children is priceless.

To help enhance the Audio learning there are some great products available beyond the already widely available book on tape and book on CD.

NetLibrary

A commercial venture that does allow subscription accounts for libraries. The files are specifically intended to be downloaded and used by multiple users. The state of Utah has an agreement in place so that all Utah public libraries have access to a NetLibrary collection and patrons can download and check out an audio file for 3 weeks. This is my personal favorite of the bunch because they are free. And if I ever want to listen to a book again (or it takes longer than 3 weeks for me to finish) I simply renew it just like a library book.

Playaways

Playaways are a new format of audio book. They are essentially a pre-loaded MP3 player that can be checked out to students. Since they are pre-loaded and the content can't be changed I think there is not much more chance of a library having them stolen than of any popular book.

Audible.com

Audible.com is a commercial venture that allows you to either buy books, or subscribe to a monthly plan. These monthly plans then allow you to download audio books and play them on an iPod or other MP3 player. Great service, but pricey and doesn't allow you to redistribute the files as you would in a library.



Consider some of these sources for your audio learning.