Another one of my students has been writing and sharing on the Kindle Kids Corner. Here's an interview she did about trends in Young Adult fiction and I agree with so much of what she's written. This is another example of how authentic projects can transform a student. This happened to come out of one of my favorite kindle book sites - Kindle Nation Daily and an email conversation I had with the author Steven Windwalker (penname.)
Some rules have changed as I've been reading up on having Kindles at schools. (Back in February I read a spate of posts mentioning that Amazon said that having 6 kindles share one account was just for "personal use" and that libraries can't do it.) But Amazon does have information on Whispercast which lets you handle distributing books. It is a "free self-service online tool" and I'm thinking that it is something we need to be using. It looks like you can also distribute many of the free ebooks onto Kindles.
I think this has a pretty good explanation between all the ebook readers. Personally, I'd go with Amazon all the way just because of the pricing and selection.
An interesting downloadable programme for creating ebooks. Design your book by dragging pictures, sounds and actions from the gallery or upload your own.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English
Website for sharing and publishing your own eBooks using the open ePUB format. Also includes a database of free children's books in the ePUB format. Perhaps a great use for iPod Touches or iPads in the classroom.
You can find a variety of books online, in many languages and reading levels (mostly Elementary). The titles are searchable just as you would in a library catalogue, and you can enlarge the text.
International Children's Library includes many ebooks that you can download onto your Kindle. The books are organized by grade level and there are over 10,000 of them. (A big hat tip to Peter Fogarty who shared this resource over at the TES forum, a place where I find a ton of great things for my classroom.)
Barnes and Noble's response to the Kindle: The Nook.
It uses the Android operating system (Google's mobile OS) and can install 3rd party Android Apps. It also has an MP3 player but does not have built in text to speech (so no UDL here) -
If you use the free wifi at Barnes and Noble you can read any ebook for free - otherwise it is something that you need to buy.
The expansion of secondary education is now the world's most pressing educational challenge. This carefully prepared and thoroughly researched book should inspire policy-makers and educational planners to explore how open schooling can expand secondary education cost-effectively in their jurisdictions.
"A fab platform for creating your own ebooks. You can even embed images and videos. There is also a huge range of published work from the community. Invite others to comment and even collaborate on your stories."
Welcome to the first November edition of my Edtech and ELT newsletter.
In this editions you can find:
A discount code for my new ebook
Some really interesting articles on how the internet is impacting on truth and fact
Some great new apps and tools to encourage students to create their own videos.
An article/ ebook on creating new learning spaces in the classroom. this one talks about the "pod room." I love the 7 spaces for learning that Ewan McIntosh wrote for us in our Choice Chapter in the Flat Classroom book - he espouses many of these same thoughts.