Friday, July 25, 2008

Week 9, Thing 22, eBooks and Audio eBooks

I went to World eBook Fair and found it easy to use. I searched for a few titles and found some and not others. I browsed some of the collections and liked that. Since the covers were pictured, it was kind of like looking through a library or book store. I was interested to see that there are books available in some of the languages my students speak, specifically Brazilian Portuguese but couldn't find a way to search for just children's titles in that collection. Personally, I liked the catalog of music scores for when one of my kids are looking for music. Even though I liked some of the things I found, I still can't get past not liking to read on my computer. Maybe some of the new technology like Kindle is easier, but what I've seen so far I haven't been impressed with.
I've played around with audio eBooks for over a year now. Last year I taught the 4th, 5th and 6th graders how to use ListenAlaska. I even had a few portable CD players that I checked out to students that needed the extra support of listening to the book and following along with the print copy. This worked well for an ELL student and a couple kids whose reading was way below proficient.
I went to LibriVox and found I couldn't search for children's titles like I wanted to. The Best Places to Get Free Books site was fun and had some of the same sites listed that I had already visited and used.

1 comment:

Ann said...

reading on the computer does give me eye strain. I bought a kindle last month and I have to say that I LOVE my kindle. if they have any sense, they will get into the textbook business quick. so much less expensive for districts. using one for a textbook would take a different version of kindle but I could really see it going.

Ann