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Blog 3: Do you know about TeachingBooks???

 

Hi, readers!

It’s me again!

I am here this week to share a new technology tool I found on a School Library Journal Blog called Neverending Search by Joyce Valenza. Unfortunately, according to the School Library Journal this blog does not post anymore blogs (Valenza, 2020). However, I found a blog post on this blog that I feel would be beneficial to teachers that teach elementary grades (2-6) to middle school grades (6-8), or maybe even some teachers in high school. In the blog post called TeachingBooks Launches Free Chrome Extension by Joyce Valenza, Valenza discusses how TeachingBooks has an extension that can be added to Chrome to make the resources and materials that TeachingBooks has to offer more accessible to teachers and students (Valenza, 2020).



(TeachingBooks, LLC, 2001)

 

What is TeachingBooks?

 To be honest, TeachingBooks was new to me. I have never heard about TeachingBooks, but thankfully Valenza explained what TeachingBooks is and had a link provided that takes you straight the website that tells you about the resource.  For those of you that do not know what TeachingBooks is, it is online educational resource that provides “book and author resources, read-along audiobook performances, discussion questions, author interviews, video book trailers, vocabulary lists, and lesson plans” (Valenza, 2020, para. 7). The creator Nick Glass has allowed teachers and students access to the content for free (Valenza, 2020, para 3).

Why is this resource beneficial to teachers and students?

Just from looking at the website TeachingBooks.net, this resource seems to provide content that helps to teach many subjects (ELA, Science, and Social Studies) and standards that are seen classrooms today (TeachingBooks, LLC, 2001). With the Chrome extension it helps to make the access to the content of TeachingBooks very easy to use for students, teachers, and even librarians (Valenza, 2020). This database would be a great resource to meet many students’ information needs.  We have to remember that “Libraries need to meet learners where they are, and where they are is on their laptops, tablets, and phones. To remain relevant in the lives of our digitally connected students, school libraries must be both available and useful” (Boyer, 2016, para. 2).    Librarians should want to teach students and teachers about the Chrome extension for this resource because it allows students and teachers to access the content that TeachingBooks provides anywhere they go with ease. Valenza says that Nick Glass has stated  

“I’ve always said that there are connections to children’s and young adult books for most every topic, and with this extension we enable those connections right away!  Users can now simultaneously identify relevant books for their interests, and then bring those books to life with the TeachingBooks multimedia resources.

This Chrome Extension feels like a game changer because it seamlessly integrates our technologies and content right into the searching mechanism that so many of us use.” (Valenza, 2020, para.8)

How do I sign up?  Want to know how to use the Chrome Extension?

Visit the link below for the actual webpage for TeachingBooks. This link can tell you specifically what the resource offers and how to sign up! It has link for opportunities for training, too!

https://www.teachingbooks.net/

If you want to read more about the Chrome Extension and how it works, please visit the link to the blog post TeachingBooks Launches Free Chrome Extension by Joyce Valenza.  Valenza gives many links and videos on how to get the Chrome extension and how it works.

https://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2020/11/08/teachingbooks-launches-free-chrome-extension/

Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

Courtland Smith  

References

Boyer, B. (2016). Meet your learners where they are: virtualizing the school library. Internet@Schools, 23(1), 4+.

               https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A440057567/AONE?u=nysl_ca_dmvacces&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=73a967ca

TeachingBooks, LLC. (2001). TeachingBooks. TeachingBooks.
     https://www.teachingbooks.net/

Valenza, J. (2020, November 8). TeachingBooks launches free chrome extension.
     Neverending. https://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2020/11/08/
     teachingbooks-launches-free-chrome-extension/

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