Meet Candy Carter
I'm an AP Language and Comp teacher at McQueen HS in Reno, NV. My students lead very busy lives: they're in sports, band, choir, journalism, debate...and on and on. They also do not necessarily live close to one another. In past years, I had had nonfiction book groups in which students chose books from a list and completed projects and presentations on their reading. Over the years, it seems to have become increasingly difficult to find time for them to confer, and the presentations in class took too long. I needed to come up with a way for them to share their ideas in a different way, and I needed to have a way to hold them accountable for their work. I also was aware of the increasing importance of social networking sites in my students' lives.
Candy's Perspective
I had been introduced to Tapped In at a teacher workshop two or three years ago but had never made the time to really explore it. I was also a bit concerned that some their parents would object to them being online so I wanted to come up with an anonymous way for them to participate so that parents would not worry that their children's names were "out there" online. I hit on the idea of using Class ID numbers (which my students already use for peer reviews to ensure writers' anonymity). I was able to get all three of my classes into the system. I set up a calendar so groups could discuss online without bumping into other groups.
Overall, this turned out to be a successful way for kids to share ideas about books. They enjoyed the novelty and talked about their reading in kid-speak, not just so they could impress their English teacher. Except for some technical snags (some kids are not as computer-savvy as others; they also needed to have Java on their computers, which turned out to be a problem for a few of them), this was relatively easy to monitor and manage. I loved reading what they said online--very authentic.
This site offers free reading promotion contests. Over 150 authors for YA and children's books have created trivia sheets on their books to encourage and reward students for reading.
Over 2,100 publicly-available ebooks from the University of Virginia Library's Etext Center, including classic British and American fiction, major authors, children's literature, American history, Shakespeare, African-American documents, the Bible, and much more.
Each text on this list can be accessed in HTML (web version) for online viewing, and can be downloaded as both a MS Reader E-book for the Microsoft Reader and a Palm-readable text for the Palm Reader. Each text on this list can be accessed in HTML (web version) for online viewing, and can be downloaded as both a MS Reader E-book for the Microsoft Reader and a Palm-readable text for the Palm Reader.
It is an interesting programme which is trying to investigate how children actually use digital books. It is hoped that the research will help school librarians and teachers to adjust to the way in which pupils use E-books.With lots of resources, information, tips and news, this is an interesting site to peruse.