Even educators are often unaware of the important role librarians play in schools, says Melissa Jacobs. 

“A school librarian is a teacher,” says Jacobs, director of library services for New York City’s Department of Education. As such, school librarians are an integral part of any education team, dedicated to providing students with the tools that are necessary for critical inquiry. “A library is about ideas and about thinking,” Jacobs says. 

Today the boundaries of the library extend far beyond the physical school building. During the COVID shutdown, Jacobs led a program that allowed students and staff 24/7 access to ebooks, audiobooks, read-alongs, and other digital materials. Her efforts to date have resulted in more than 2 million digital books being delivered to DOE students and staff. 

Thanks to this success, Jacobs was honored with the Best Overall Implementation of Technology  at the Tech & Learning Innovative Leadership Awards in New Jersey. This initiative and the vital role library access plays in equity, access, and overall educational achievement for students, is of vital importance to her. 

The Need for Library Access 

Jacobs has been a librarian for more than twenty years, the last five of which have been in her current role. During her career, she’s learned firsthand just how important school librarians are to each student’s education. Libraries foster critical thinking that helps students develop a passion for different subjects and learn who they want to be. “That’s the spark that I want this to ignite in our kids,” she says.

However, there are communities in the U.S. that do not have public libraries, resulting in underserved students who struggle with the transition to post-secondary institutions. Jacobs says having access is critical so students arrive at college prepared to function and have the skill sets for information literacy. School librarians need to actively promote that equity. 

“Take advantage of every grant, every program, every conference, and every opportunity to encourage users’ access,” she says. “Purchase titles kids want to read in addition to titles that kids must read. Practice logging in, logging out, and taking advantage of the digital tools embedded in the platform. Help students individualize the experience for themselves as a reader.”

Literacy and The Library 

Only one out of three elementary students in the fourth and fifth grade demonstrate reading proficiency according to recent research. 

One highlight of Jacobs’ career is the digital collection that she initiated, which serves over a million students across more than 1,600 schools. At that scale, providing digital content has been a real challenge, however, Jacobs and her team have built a sustainable online collection using OverDrive and the Sora app. That accessibility is especially important for students who may experience housing insecurity or other economic or financial hardships. “Any DOE student, any New York City public school student, can access this. And to me, that's equity,” Jacobs says.

Jacobs’ additional advice for managing digital collections is simple. “Remember, a library has a librarian,” she says. “That notion remains true for a digital library. Use the skill sets of school librarians to curate collections and procure titles. Have policies and procedures in place for selection and be transparent about the process with the community. The digital platform also makes a difference and there should be a focus on equitable access, the user experience, and discoverability.”

Opening Up the World  

So far, more than 1.4 million books have been circulated to New York City students this calendar year. In addition to books in multiple languages, Jacobs is especially proud of the distinctive cultural content. “This is a collection that's representative of the diversity of New York,” she says. 

That diversity also encompasses different learning styles. For example, some students are auditory learners, so there’s an extensive audiobook collection. “I think that the Citywide Digital Library on Sora is even more essential in our kids’ lives because this platform is providing different mediums for them to focus on,” Jacobs says. 

Students sometimes read words on the page but have difficulty keeping focused. Interpreting, synthesizing, and analyzing texts can be hard work. Students need every tool at their disposal to ensure that they have sound educational experiences. “They can go to the digital library and access the ebook, which has accessibility features, or the audiobook, or both, or access it in another language,” Jacobs says. 

Educators should encourage students to engage with books and stress the different formats available. “Audiobooks and read-alongs have a much higher comprehension level than just print, which many kids struggle with decoding text,” she says. “Help students identify ways and formats they enjoy reading and engage with text.”

A book can be life-changing for a young person. If a child develops a love for reading, that child goes on to be a lifelong reader and learner. “Books teach you to think,” Jacobs says. “They open up the world. They give you opportunities. And once you build that knowledge, no one could take that away from you.” 

• How to Get Students to Read for Fun
• Listen Without Guilt: Audiobooks Offer Similar Comprehension As Reading

ReadingIQ

Great looking, free library has a reasonable diversity of titles

Pros: The collection consists of high-quality, recognizable books and covers lots of topics.

Cons: Some of the most commonly found features of digital libraries are missing.

Bottom Line: This is a reading app that focuses primarily -- and successfully -- on the reading; don't expect many bells and whistles though.

Read more 

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

Age of Learning today announced the launch of Reading Level Assessments and other enhancements to its digital library and literacy platform ReadingIQ®, helping match children 12 and under with the right books for their level and interests from nearly 10,000 curated titles.

Developed by Age of Learning assessment experts in cooperation with leading education and assessment research organization SRI International, Reading Level Assessments provide children age-appropriate passages and accompanying comprehension questions. The assessments adjust their degree of difficulty in response to each child’s performance. ReadingIQ then recommends books at the appropriate level for the child. As children use ReadingIQ and improve their reading skills, the platform periodically prompts them to retake Reading Level Assessments to adjust their recommended level. Reading Level Assessments are currently available for ReadingIQ families and will be available for ReadingIQ teachers well before the upcoming school year.

ReadingIQ now includes three widely used book leveling systems, Accelerated Reader®, Lexile®, and Guided Reading.

Age of Learning also announced the launch of ReadingIQ Show What You Know quizzes, a new listening and reading comprehension feature. Show What You Know quizzes provide engaging, voiced questions at the end of ReadingIQ books, helping pre-readers and readers build their comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Age of Learning also announced the recent launch of PlayCrewTM, a group consisting of a wide range of educators, parents, and children who test the company’s products and provide direct feedback to inform product design and development. 

Available on computers, tablets, and smartphones, ReadingIQ offers nearly 10,000 curated titles from leading publishers. To help strengthen the school-home connection around reading, Age of Learning provides the entire ReadingIQ platform at no cost to teachers, with the ability to assign books to their students. ReadingIQ is available at ReadingIQ.com and can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets through the Apple App Store or Google Play. For additional information about PlayCrew, including how to become a member, visitAgeofLearning.com/PlayCrew.   

Digital Public Library of America

Organized digital library features piles of useful primary resources 

Pros: Makes centuries of American artifacts and media accessible with helpful filtering and topical collections.

Cons: Students need parameters and guidance to prevent searches from being wide but not deep. More closed-captioning and transcripts would be helpful.

Bottom Line: DPLA is at the top of the list of high-grade, online primary source collections if teachers make effective use of what's on offer. 

Read more here.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

Digital books are a powerful educational tool, providing students with the opportunity to improve their literacy and learn anytime, anywhere. Now eight million students from 17,000 districts and schools have the opportunity to access digital books through Sora, the new student reading app from OverDrive Education.

OverDrive Education and Sora support Texas' Proclamation 2019, which calls for instructional materials to promote English language arts curriculum adoptions for grades K-8 across the state for the 2019-2020 school year. Schools can choose from a balanced and diverse digital catalog of supplemental and student choice reading titles for use in the Sora app on any device or computer. More information found here.

Sessions at this week’s Texas Computer Education Association Convention & Exposition (TCEA) at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio (Booth #1239) will demonstrate how Sora and digital books contributed to the growth by serving the changing needs of students and educators (complete schedule here). OverDrive Education, digital reading platform for K-12, will also share best practices and highlights, such as the lists below.

The top five ebooks for K-12 students in 2018: 

1. Wonder, R. J. Palacio
2. The Maze Runner, James Dashner
3. Big Nate Makes a Splash, Lincoln Peirce
4.  Big Nate Makes the Grade, Lincoln Peirce
5. The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas

The top five audiobooks for K-12 students in 2018:

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling
2. A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'engle
3. The Lightning Thief, Lincoln Peirce
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling  

Visit TCEA Booth # 1239 from February 5-7 to hear educators share how they are using their digital reading platform and Sora to improve reading engagement and education:

• Choosing & Promoting a Digital Reading Service -– Tuesday at 5pm
• Sora Helps You Make the Most of Your Digital Library – Wednesday at 11am
• From Research to Funding to Engagement: The Life Cycle of Your Digital Library – Wednesday at 1pm
• Digital Reading Gets Students Ready for College – Wednesday at 3:45pm
• Sora is Your School's Secret to Reading Engagement – Thursday at 11am & 2pm

For more information about OverDrive’s service for schools, visit overdrive.com/schools and TCEA Booth #1239.

NASA has a huge image, video and audio file library that you can do public search, download or embed the out-of-this-world files. We can do the search using keywords across more than 60 collections with a treasure trove of more than 140,000 files. We can also embed the content to your blog, lms or website. It is a living website, where new and archival images, video and audio files continually are being added. The students can also display the metadata associated with images.

[Mystery Animal Game By Google]

If you are planning on a lesson about aeronautics, astrophysics, Earth science, human spaceflight, and more, this is a great resource that we can use or recommend our students to check.

cross-posted at ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org

Özge Karaoglu is an English teacher and educational consultant in teaching young learners and teaching with web-based technologies. She is the author of Minigon ELT book series, which aims to teach English to young learners through stories. Read more of her ideas about teaching English through technology and Web-based tools at ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org.

myon.com■Retail Price: $5,000—$10,000 for concurrent and unlimited access, based upon number of titles.

Quality and Effectiveness: MyON is a digital library with multiple assessment tools that track and encourage reading. In just a few steps, myON 3.0 inventories students’ interests, assesses reading levels, and encourages students to choose from the extensive library of titles and to engage with these texts through writing. MyON also inspires students to keep reading. MyON provides solutions to perennial problems in education, including how to engage all students in the reading process, how to track progress, and how to help improve reading growth and comprehension. This personalized literacy environment offers materials, tools, and support for classroom projects, homework, and more, as well as helpful reporting tools for classroom, grade level, school, and district use.

Ease of Use: The myON Web site is cleanly designed, user-friendly, and loads quickly. A return-to-top banner is always available for those exploring the wide-ranging library of titles. The titles are arranged under various categories. Social Studies, for example, includes science, math, literature, graphic novels, and—always an attention grabber—“Scary & Gross.” A help guide on the navigation bar is always visible. Faculty can manage different classes, projects, and groups from the sleek teacher’s dashboard. Online professional development on various topics, including how to create assignments and how to generate reports, rounds out the solid myON offerings for educators.

Creative Use of Technology: A creatively designed student dashboard makes each visit pleasurable. All the tools are visually intuitive, and descriptive alt tags quickly clear up any confusion that might occur as students begin to use the resource. Students can quickly check their reading goals. Activity icons are also easy to understand. For quick reference, completed books are outlined in green, unread books in red. There are multiple ways for students to demonstrate what they learned from the reading, including answering multiple-choice questions and highlighting words and passages. With the newest tools, students can write a sentence or a paragraph in sticky notes or a personal journal. Five-question quizzes at the end of each book share answers immediately to enrich content comprehension.

Suitability for Use in a School Environment: Teachers can smoothly integrate myON 3.0 into any existing curriculum, and it can be implemented in one school or an entire district. The broad reading categories are contemporary and targeted to K–12. The varied and colorful reading choices in areas tailored to their interests will engage students. Implementation levels include independent reading, connected curriculum, actionable data, and systemic adoption with full lessons. Teachers can start slowly but will soon appreciate the easy functionality and rich features of myON 3.0.

OVERALL RATING:

With an intuitive and colorful Web site that’s easy to navigate, extensive pedagogical tools for both teachers and students, and an online library of over 10,000 titles geared to K–12 readers, myON 3.0 encourages and supports reading growth and comprehension in the classroom and beyond.

TOP FEATURES

● Extensive library—MyON 3.0 provides an extensive digital library of beautifully illustrated K–12 books that students can highlight, annotate, and reflect upon in individual journals.
● Audio—Students can turn on the audio version for all MyON 3.0 books.
● Dashboard—MyON 3.0’s dashboard for teachers or administrators, together with real-time data tracking and reporting tools, strongly support educational efforts to help students progress and demonstrate their literacy growth.