Discovery2.0

Big Universe  is an amazing site which parents and teachers will love, because you can read whole picture books online – hundreds of fiction and non-fiction titles to choose from. Teachers or students can read books, create their own books and upload them, as well as creating a virtual bookshelf and finding other friends who like similar stories.

These are a couple of great examples of:  a non-fiction book   Don’t Squash That Bug   and a f iction book  One Potato

You’ll enjoy this site so much you could spend hours here looking at books, however there are limitations. You can read member-created books free, but only preview published books. You can create online bookshelves and interact with other members free, but you can only create one e-book and it will cost a small amoun t to upload it to Big Universe. (Individual and school prices are availble here:  https://www.biguniverse.com/accountyou)

Wes Fryer, author of  Moving at the Speed of Creativity, says on the site, “This is a WONDERFUL site for teachers and students to utilise, not only to read and access mutimedia versions of picture books, but also to PUBLISH original books.  I highly recommend Big Universe and encourage you to give the site a try.”

Here is a link to an article written by Judy O’Connell, a very active and inspiring role-model who incorporates Web 2.0 and ICTs in her everyday professional life.  Hmm – rather challenging, especially the sentence at the end where she says “Now it’s your turn to be a Web 2.0 Teacher Librarian!!”   (Judy’s blog is called HeyJude.)

A Week in the Life of a New Media Teacher Librarian

When I was at NECC last year I was challenged listening to Anita Beaman speak about using Web 2.0 tools to promote reading.

Buffy Hamilton – The Unquiet Librarian - has taken this further, and has put together an impressive and extensive list of links showing how YA literature publishers and authors are using Web 2.0 to reach teen readers where they are today:

http://theunquietlibrarian.wikispaces.com/yalit2oh

YA Lit 2.0

Check out her links about: