Digital Library
The Digital Library
A digital library is an online collection of electronic or digital stories, books, magazines, and newspapers. Digital libraries allow readers to conveniently access a story or book by downloading it and saving it to a personal computer or mobile device such as a tablet, smartphone, or I Touch. With many school librarians losing their positions due to funding cuts in the primary and middle grades, the digital library is one of the most important resources for the development of reading and comprehension skills of our children today. Where else can parents access available stories and books on a consistent basis to read with their children on a daily basis.
Authors of children’s books and stories are now publishing story and books in eBook format. These stories and books are available for purchase and direct download from many of the online publishers and book stores. Many famous children’s books in print now are in the process of being converted into electronic form and stored on a server where they can individual educators can create digital libraries for their students on their websites.
By dedicating a web page within their website, teachers can transform that page into a digital library by posting web links to other websites that carry digital books and stories. This is an easy option to allow web resources to be made available without re-inventing the wheel. Some popular digital libraries that have been created include:
International Children’s Digital Library
http://www.childrenslibrary.org/icdl/SimpleSearchCategory?ilang=English
Children’s Books Online
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/library.htm
Big Universe
Learn English Kids
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/
Short Stories for English Learners:
Animated Short Stories with visual/audio support
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/short-stories/
Online Books and Stories read by famous actors:
http://www.storylineonline.net/
Online animated stories and poems read out loud:
Creating a digital library of your own by uploading digital stories and books that you have downloaded to your computer onto your website. There are many websites on that carry digital stories and books, and can be downloaded or accessed for FREE! Some of these websites are listed here:
Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
New York Public Library
http://kids.nypl.org/reading/index.cfm
ePub Bud
Storytime for Me
Free MP3/Audio Books
http://www.free-books.org/download/ch.php
Create a “student gallery” of storybooks. Students create their own digital storybooks with Powerpoint and they are uploaded to your website. This is a great motivator for students in that the uploaded storybooks serve as great examples for students who are learning to write their own stories, especially Kindergarten students who are now required to learn how to write simple stories. Why not have them use the computer and create multimedia versions of storybooks?
Digital Textbooks
With the advent of the eBook, textbooks have also moved in the direction of the digital library. Collections of standard-based textbooks for the core content areas of ELA, Math, Social Studies and Science are available online for free. Most of the major publishers of textbooks for school districts across the USA still do not offer the option of digital textbooks.
There are many benefits to accessing and using digital textbooks in the classroom. Some of the obvious benefits include:
*Students no longer will need to carry around 4 or more heavy books from
class to class or take them home.
*Students can access digital textbooks both in class or at home.
*Students can access their digital textbooks from a computer, tablet, smartphone, or I Touch.
*Schools will no longer have to check out or check in a physical book to
every student.
*If the digital textbooks accessed are free, then there is no cost to the
school district! Free is FREE!
To access FREE digital textbooks for the core content areas (for California)
visit the following website:
Flexbooks