RLS 513 Research Tool:Wowio.com is an online book store where students can view books online for freeand purchase their own PDF copies at a reasonable price. There are a number of reasons why students don’t check out books from the library, but one of them isthat they don’t know
what
to check out. This Website gives students access to amultitude of books, and they can preview them for free. Once they find abook/genre/author they like, library visits will be more pleasant and productive.Also, if a teacher wants his/her students to read just a passage of a book, this site isan excellent tool for that, as it’s easily accessible and a money-saver for the kids.
(Note: I teach at a private school where all kids have computers and they purchaseall their own novels for English classes.)
At this Website, students can find full-text copies of books (and thousands areavailable!), as well as recommendations for new books, featured books, and the topbooks others people are viewing. Once a student chooses a book to view, the siteoffers recommendations for other books similar to this one (either by the sameauthor or in the same genre). The site also gives a short description of the book,which will guide students to choose the right literature.
Lesson Plan
(Note: Here is a brief description of how I’d introduce this tool to my faculty, all of whom also have computers.)
1.Attention getter: How many teachers in here ask our students to readsomething during class? How many teachers in here have our students readbooks/novels both inside and outside the classroom? How many teachers inhere sometimes only want our students to read a chapter or passage from abook? How many teachers in here get frustrated when our students don’tshow up with the book/novel they need for class? How many teachers in herehave students who get done early with everything and are always looking formore to read? Here’s a possible solution for you!2.Please open your Tablet PCs and visit the sitewww.Wowio.com. Someone giveme the title of a book you’re currently teaching … thanks. Let’s all look upthat title together on this site; type in the title of the book at the top leftunder “Search.” Everyone there?3.This site offers full-text books for our students and us to download. Next timeyou just want to use a portion of a book, ask our students to get it from thissite, as they’ll all be able to do it together like we did. If a student forgothis/her book/novel, a one-day quick-fix could be to download the piece of work from this site. Or if you have students who love to read, recommend thissite so they can find more titles/authors/genres to get into.
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