Widgets for the Literacy Enthusiasts

Reading Rockets had a number of very interesting reading widgets for parents and literacy enthusiasts! Check them out here.

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Audiobooks on the Go…

Over the last month and a half I’ve been to Dubai, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Amsterdam, San Juan PR, San Germán PR, Charlotte NC, NY NY, Washington DC and Fairfax County VA logging dozens of hours in planes, cars and buses, not to mention several back issues of Wired Magazine, Julie and Julia, bits of Over Promise and Over Deliver, Match Me If You Can (audio) and the beginning of The Pillars of the Earth (audio). If it weren’t for my trusted iPod and large purse (which fits my laptop plus a book), my travels to and from schools to universities to family would have been very LOOOONG!

Luckily Audible and iTunes have a wonderful selection of audiobooks that can be downloaded from just about any country or airport savvy enough to grace its customers with free wifi (I know, if I had an iPhone I wouldn’t always be on a desperate hunt for hotspots! One gadget at a time!). Regardless, if you dine on audiobooks at the rate I do, you are likely to put on a few pound in the credit department!

Fortunately, Lit2Go might be just be the audiobook lovers version of Weight Watchers–Dine on what you want, but in portions that you won’t regret later. Who could pass up a delightfully free and high quality The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn audio/text? Or, a gratis afternoon of Jane Eyre?!

The site states:

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can:

• Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
• Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
• View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
• Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.

Happy audiobook searching by author, title, keyword or reading level!

Anna

PS Thanks to Jim Moulton for point out this resources and many others in his Edutopia article, “How to Become More Tech Savvy This Summer“. The photo above was taken by Jon Rawlinson.

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Free Technology Tools for Literacy Teachers (NECC Unplugged)

This summer I’ve decided to take a mini break from Dubai’s 120 degree heat to spend some time doing technology trainings in the Caribbean and US. At the moment I am at the National Education Computing Conference in DC and with the 80 degree heat, I must say, it feels like winter!

If you are at NECC and have an interest in free literacy tools for your classroom, make sure to stop by NECC Unplugged at 11:30am EST (Wednesday, July 1). If you can’t make it to DC, you can sign into Elluminate and watch online (for more details on this, click here). I’ve posted my presentation on Slideshare and below. Feel free to take a look! Afterward, make sure to spend some time playing with FreeReading, Curriki and the other open education resources mentioned below!

Cheers,

Anna

PS To follow live coverage of NECC (through tomorrow), take a look at Curriki’s tweets with the tag #NECC09. We’ve been busy tweeting a number of links to literacy and technology tools for the classroom, as well as articles on open education.

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