Friday, August 13, 2010

Thing #22: Audiobooks and ebooks

I have looked online for ebooks before.  In the past though, I had limited my search to mostly free books for my Kindle.  I wasn't very successful so I had a rather negative opinion of ebooks.  I understand where they are very useful with students, especially ESL students.  I just haven't had much luck finding free downloads that I though my students would be interested in reading.
For this "Thing," first I searched in the Gutenburg Project.  I had a hard time narrowing down my search.  I tried to use the Advanced Search option but didn't have much success.  When I finally found a book I thought my students would like, Black Beauty, I tried to download it but I chosse not to buy a year subscription so ... no luck there.
I found Librovox easier to use but still had little luck finding titles to download.  When I searched and found Black Beauty in that catalog it appeared to me that I had to download a chapter or section at a time. 
I do encourage the use of audiobooks with my students.  In the past in our library, we have had an large section of books on cassette tape.  However, that seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur.  We are getting ready to use audiobooks next year in the form of playaways available from Follette Library resources.  I am anxious to share these with my students.  In the meantime, I will continue to look for good free or reasonably priced ebooks to use.

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