BIBLIOBOARD: FREE EBOOKS FOR YOUR CLASSES

When I first heard about BiblioBoard, I thought, “Well. That’s a fun word to say.”

What an understatement.

Barb and I recently dug into the open source program with our rep from RAILS (Reaching Across Illinois Library System) and learned it is a powerful resource for our teachers. BiblioBoard is a free digital library containing ebooks, media, and collections for an assortment of categories, including science, literary criticism, technology and engineering, political science, mathematics, business and economics, and cooking — something for all of the students and teachers in District 117.

Teachers might appreciate BiblioBoard not only because it is free, but also because it offers unlimited, multi-user access to the content. That means your entire class could read The Federalist Papers or The Scarlet Letter or Don Quixote or The Phantom of the Opera at the same time. If you use iPads in your classroom or allow students to use their personal devices, they can read using the BiblioBoard app.

Some of the BiblioBoard curations are timely and, therefore, available for a limited period, such as their current “The Olympic Games” and “I Have a Dream” curations. Others are available indefinitely, including their Open Educational Resources and Recovering the Classics curations.

Other perks of BiblioBoard:

• Build a profile to save your bookmarks and annotations.
• Refine your search by publication year, publication type, category, and more.
• Enjoy the Pinterest-y interface.

Talk to Kellie (kellie.piekutowski@chsd117.org) or Barb (barbara.mason@chsd117.org) for more information about this resource, which you can access under the Research tab of lakesilc.weebly.com or achsilc.weebly.com.