Thing 44: Social reading and book stuff

I love to read, but historically, I've been a bad social reader. I'm trying to be better about that. I'm great as a social reader in person; after all, I was a K-12 librarian for over 8 years, and even in my new role away from a traditional library, I'm constantly booktalking books to anyone who will listen to me. But using online platforms is an area where I struggle, though I'm trying. I've tried Shelfari. I've tried LibraryThing. I recently got back into GoodReads...a little. I'm dipping my toe in. I do enjoy reading other people's posts on GoodReads. Often, when I'm trying to determine the audience for a book that I recommend, I consult a variety of sources, including GoodReads. I'm just not great at sharing my own posts yet, though I absolutely see the value in that.

In the meantime, I do like to explore lots of different ways to look at books. My first master's degree was in special education, so I'm always looking for platforms that are not only visually pleasing, but that will provide other ways for students to access books, particularly if the original, printed book stymies them in one way or another. I highly encourage e-books when I can (I read books on my Kindle at home, as well as on my Overdrive app), and sometimes I have takers (especially teachers). One app that I really enjoyed exploring last week was Sora, a new app by Overdrive. It is fantastic! It blows old Overdrive apps out of the water, and I hope it might be the game changer that some students and teachers need to embrace Overdrive e-books and audiobooks as a viable method of reading.

Sora has a web-based app (at soraapp.com) which is beautiful, modern, and has lots of features. It also has mobile apps that look virtually identical to the web app, which is a plus. Logging in is a teeny bit cumbersome in WSWHE right now, but there are plans to streamline that over the summer. Once you log in to the app, you can connect both school and public library accounts to the app, choose an avatar for yourself (limited selection right now, but they're cute), choose your e-book settings (they have a dyslexic font!), and it has reward "achievements" that you can earn for doing a variety of things, and it rewards you whether you are a marathon reader, or like to crack open your book for five minute intervals while at the supermarket checkout. The whole thing is slick, easy to figure out in terms of reader functions, and there are other educational functions in there as well that I hope to delve into and and explore so that I can show teachers in the fall.

Comments

  1. pollyalidaJune 26, 2018 at 10:41 AM

    Oh cool, the Sora app sounds intriguing! You answered my main question, linking public library account and school account. Nice! Of course I can't even look at it since I don't have a login for a school library. :(

    ReplyDelete

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