Exploring a New Web 2.0/Digital Tool

Let me provide you a little background before I begin: I am a math person. I love everything math. I love patterns, I love the simplicity and yet the complexity of a math problem. I love to problem-solve, I love to organize my work, I love things clean cut. I love math and often say that it is my "heart."

When I initially left the classroom four years ago it was to be our district's K-8 Math Curriculum Specialist. I.LOVED.IT. I could go into detail of all the reasons why, but I will save you from it. 😉However, like many things in education, that role was phased out and replaced with "Instructional Support Staff." And if you read really closely, you wont see the word math in there. Trust me - I wove it in when I could. When working with elementary teachers, I often kept our focus to still be on math. It was easy to do - I knew the curriculum, knew the strategies, knew how engage students into loving math. And I needed to keep my heart alive!

This year I was blessed with the opportunity to be placed solely at the middle school - my school; the school where I began. I am ecstatic to be back. But now I am forced out my my math shell as I work with other departments outside of math.

One of the departments that I am working with this year is what I like to say is the exact opposite of math - something messy, "up in the clouds," and not cut-and-dry... ELA. If there is anything that is keeping me on my toes and challenging my way of thinking it is ELA - and I am learning a LOT!

One of the goals that the ELA department has this year is to improve students' reading engagement level by using an assessment based off of their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. They also have a goal of every student reading 20 books throughout the year. I, of course, have brought in my love of math and have compiled and analyzed their data.

At this current moment our students have read 3,679 books - an average of 5 books a student. While the average should be at 6 books right now to keep on pace for the goal, I do believe it is a statistic to celebrate! Yet when sharing this with the ELA teachers, you could start to see the panic come across them: Thanksgiving and Winter Break is quickly approaching. How do we encourage the students to continue to keep reading outside of school? How do we establish the reading culture at home?

Image Source: StoryShares.org

It is no wonder then why StoryShares caught my attention when investigating new Web 2.0 tools to explore. It is something completely out of my wheelhouse that could help fill a need that we have at the current moment (yes! I can bring problem-solving into ELA! 😉).

StoryShares is a digital library of over 500 books of various genres that can be filtered by lexile, Fountas and Pinnell, and even grade level - all free, and all at a students' fingertips. It started out as a Kickstarter campaign and is completely funded off of donations - please keep that in mind as you navigate the site. The stories may not be as well-known, or they could be written from users themselves. 

Image Source: Story Shares Relevant Reads

It seemed too good to be true: free, enabled with ReadSpeaker to read the book aloud to the reader, as well as Wordsmyth to look up words in the text. The opportunity for users to rate and review the text, allowing for peer recommendations. A promised teacher dashboard that allows you to track your student's progress in a book so that you can read along with them. And the icing on the cake? Students are invited and encouraged to use the site to write and publish their own stories. 

... unfortunately ...

I am not sure if the organization is still working in the way that it intended or if funding has run out. I e-mailed them and received no response. I checked their Twitter account, Facebook page, blogs, and as many articles I could find and it has been months - if not years - since anything has been written. It broke me. I was so excited to learn more about this! However, it propelled me into searching for a similar tool which is how I found:

Image Source: www.getepic.com

Epic for educators is a much larger database of books available with many more popular titles than StoryShares offered. With over 35,000 books, the possibilities are endless. Here are a few highlights of what I captured from Epic! For Educators:

Pro’s	Con’s	Possible Ways to Use
- Reluctant readers may be more open to reading as they are assigned books to their level and interest - Students are empowered to choose their own books - Can be used in all areas of curriculum due to the wide range of books and genres - New books are added each week to keep the library fresh - Free for teachers - Includes thousands of Read-to-Me books - Can be accessed on a computer, tablet, or phone - Includes educational videos - Can search by level - Engaging for students	- Costs for parents ($4.75 - $8 a month) to use and to extend the learning at home. - Some titles have inappropriate content and images for younger ages - If a student open and closes the book it counts toward their total books read - People state that cancelling their subscription is incredibly difficult to do	- Use for the "Listening" portion of Daily 5 using Read-to-Me and Audiobooks - Project onto your interactive whiteboard to teach a specific skill or strategy to the whole class - Use non-fiction books for research projects, such as reports on animals or weather - Use for Read Aloud, Shared Reading, and Independent Reading time - Have students create book reviews and recommendations for their classmates - Expose students to different expressions and intonations using Read-to-Me books - Use the STEM books to perform experiments - Compare two books by the same author

If you would like to find out more about Epic! For Educators, please consider watching the video below as I highlight some of the features and tools that I found beneficial. 

In what others ways have you found success in increasing a child's reading engagement level and/or amount of books read? I'd love to hear more!

Resources Used:

Anderson, D. (2016, February 3). Parent reviews for Epic! - Unlimited Books for Kids: Common Sense Media. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/epic-unlimited-books-for-kids/user-reviews/adult.

Back-to-School Night Presentation. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14olHmli8KDEz33RXEadGjA-xdaG7pDBcuarn3NpwUwg/edit#slide=id.p.

Creations Inc. (n.d.). Instantly access 35,000 high-quality books for kids. Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://www.getepic.com/educators.

Epic for Educators Presentation Fall 2018. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UTgLBlwyCX3iZsLK0k4anAXEp46Z-3UerV1F6DFkhdk/edit#slide=id.g3e33f7684c_0_5.

Anderson, D. (2016, February 3). Parent reviews for Epic! - Unlimited Books for Kids: Common Sense Media. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/epic-unlimited-books-for-kids/user-reviews/adult.

Back-to-School Night Presentation. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14olHmli8KDEz33RXEadGjA-xdaG7pDBcuarn3NpwUwg/edit#slide=id.p.

Creations Inc. (n.d.). Instantly access 35,000 high-quality books for kids. Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://www.getepic.com/educators.

Epic for Educators Presentation Fall 2018. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UTgLBlwyCX3iZsLK0k4anAXEp46Z-3UerV1F6DFkhdk/edit#slide=id.g3e33f7684c_0_5.

Anderson, D. (2016, February 3). Parent reviews for Epic! - Unlimited Books for Kids: Common Sense Media. Retrieved November 25, 2019, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/epic-unlimited-books-for-kids/user-reviews/adult.

Back-to-School Night Presentation. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14olHmli8KDEz33RXEadGjA-xdaG7pDBcuarn3NpwUwg/edit#slide=id.p.

Creations Inc. (n.d.). Instantly access 35,000 high-quality books for kids. Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://www.getepic.com/educators.

Epic for Educators Presentation Fall 2018. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2019, from https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UTgLBlwyCX3iZsLK0k4anAXEp46Z-3UerV1F6DFkhdk/edit#slide=id.g3e33f7684c_0_5.