Last spring we received a grant to purchase 10 Nooks (and some ebooks to go on them). We purchased two more with bookfair funds.
It's taken quite a while to get through all the red tape and district decision making. Frustrating but in the end understandable.
Lessons Learned So Far (yeah, it's only been two days!)
- Only two of the Nooks came with plugs. The other 10 were USB cords only. I had to bring them all home and charge over the weekend because we don't have any walls or a locked office where we can leave them as they are charging. Have to be out totally in the open where it's way too easy for us to be looking the other way or helping a student on the other side of our space. I SO WISH we could have some outlets INSIDE of a locked cabinet. Would that not be most awesome?
- Looking up books on Overdrive was kind of hard for the kids. They kept getting mixed up figuring out if a title was an ebook or a downloadable audiobook. I can see why. I mean, it's totally apparent to us but then again we're not in 5th grade. So I think for future book clubs I'll give them maybe 10 titles to look up and decide which ones they'd rather read from that. Too overwhelming to check out the entire catalog.
- Transferring all the files takes a while. Had to set aside a good hour. I think I'll get faster at it. Figured out to have a spreadsheet with the circ tag number, their name, their student ID numbers, and their two book choices. That will go faster next time.
- Put a second barcode on the Nook boxes. For now they are going out in a case inside a box. When the boxes fall apart? Not sure.
- The kids were SO excited to have access to different titles!
- Sometimes those new titles were confusing to them. An example was a book ... I can't remember the name but the gist was about two girls falling in love. Now I can understand the need for stories in middle and high school. But I really don't think I was censoring to say a 5th grader doesn't need that yet. Will I always have time to double check on content? And if they're looking at home? I guess it's where you teach the kiddos well, once you've started reading, if something happens that makes you uncomfortable or goes against your family beliefs then stop reading! So having access to the entire Overdrive collection was hard for them.
- They thought it was super cool that you could look up new words so easily, as well as put in bookmarks or make notes or highlight.
- They still have lots of questions. Had kiddos come in and interrupt lessons asking questions about their Nooks.
This is going to be really helpful, because I don't have any specific details, but my library has teen laptops, and they are kept in some kind of rolling cart, with lots of shelves, and outlets - the whole thing can be locked and the laptops inside get charged.
ReplyDeleteDropping by during the Comment Challenge. So far so good. But I can tell even establishing the habit will take some time. I read your post about the Nooks with interest. Re: your point about a cabinet with an outlet inside. If you have a cabinet that you can lock and an outlet relatively near by, you (or someone) could drill a small hole in the back of the cabinet large enough fit a plug through. Then put a surge protector strip inside the locker where you can plug the Nook charger(s) into and plug the other end of the surge protector into the nearby wall outlet. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteYou are braver than I am. I am waiting for the dust to settle on platforms a little bit. It's been hard enough trying to get titles for students with their own e readers. Why does Overdrive not seem to have Boolean searching? Why does so much of our job require deep breaths? (I've spent two entire days dealing with printer issues!)
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