Classic Lit Accessible through Schoology

Guest post written by Kathleen Hempel, BMS-Station Librarian

Many classic books are now in the Public Domain (copyright ends 70 years after creator�s death), allowing for us to release them to students as PDFs and in other formats. These books are available as ePubs through The Gutenberg Project and can be uploaded to Schoology and assigned to classes.

Audio of many of the classics have been recorded through Librivox, a great source for free public domain audiobooks. These, too, can be put in a folder in Schoology to provide students audio support for difficult and complex classic works.

In the middle school where we use the Notability app, we can merge the audio with the PDF. First, we download the PDF of the book from Gutenberg and export it to Notability. Then we download the MP3 audio files from Schoology and export them to Notability. When we open Notability, we attach the MP3 to an existing Note.

This allows for the microphone and play bar to appear while reading the book, and students to annotate the PDF in Notability. Here�s a video that walks you through the steps to merge the classics.

See your building librarian for assistance in finding resources to supplement your units.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dealing with Digital Distraction Episode 1: How Technology Amplifies Student Engagement, Accountability, and On-Task Behavior with Heather Chvojka

Image
This is the first installment in Barrington 220's Dealing with Digital Distraction series. The series will highlight how Barrington 220 teachers and students continue to learn and use strategies to manage digital distraction. Digital Distraction Strategies Heather Chvojka is a math teacher at Barrington Middle School�Station Campus. Her math lessons focus on on-demand, individualized learning experiences that offer student choice. Like many middle school classes, this class includes students who sometimes veer off task and feel attraction to apps, games, and notifications that could easily cause distractions and affect engagement during the entire class period. How does Heather deal with potential digital distractions? She highlights three key strategies for managing digital distraction: Set device expectations in advance Engage students by engaging with students Create a learning environment of freedom and mutual trust Classroom Highlights During the final full week of school du
Read more

Listed: Barrington 220 Teachers on Twitter

The 2016-17 school year has marked a dramatic increase in teachers in Barrington 220 using Twitter to connect with high-impact resources and inspirational colleagues across the world. Barrington High School teachers continue to share timely photos, videos, and tweets with their students through Twitter. Teachers from Station and Prairie use Twitter to highlight activities in their lessons for their parent community to see. Students in some of our elementary schools even handle sharing the work of the day and their personal goals through their teacher's Twitter account. Over the past few years, teachers have shared their desire to know about the exciting lessons and ideas teachers across our district practice each day. Twitter has provided a perfect solution for Barrington 220 teachers to connect across our district. Over the past couple of months, we have worked together to gather a comprehensive list of the teachers across Barrington 220 using Twitter so we can all connect. Here i
Read more

Respondus StudyMate Flash Cards and More

Image
Do your students suffer from hand cramps, Sharpie stains, or worse? For years students have painstakingly created flash cards by hand taking hours and hours of work for one test or vocabulary lesson. StudyMate is a feature that Respondus has recently bundled with LockDown Browser for K�12 educators and students. Although there are several external websites that offer similar tools to create digital study guides, StudyMate offers seamless integration with Schoology for ease of use by both teachers and students. StudyMate is more than a flashcard. There are 11 types of interactive games that students can play to learn specific content. StudyMate projects can be created by both teachers and students as an assignment or as an independent learning opportunity. Laptop/Desktop Version High School students may simply click on the StudyMate app within Schoology to create or retrieve projects. The StudyMate app will open in another window that displays options for review games and flash ca
Read more