Guest Tech PD Post ~ Just Right Classroom Library Center

By:  Heather Gilding

I am excited about iBooks!  I recently read the Apple book, One Best Thing - Just-Right Books at Their Fingertips: Authoring for Primary Readers.   It got me really thinking about how to enhance the Library Corner in my classroom.  The reading center or library center is a comfortable, quiet place where students can read.  What I have found is that even though the students are “armed” with a bucket of books that they can and have read, they are easily disengaged in this center.  After reading this book, I am motivated to create many interactive iBooks for the iPads in my classroom.  Each book will provide an interactive learning experience for the students that will keep them engaged and help them learn new vocabulary and content at their own pace.  I am working on incorporating some assessment into the learning through exit slips and widgets embedded in the books.   I have made “just right” books for 4-6 year olds on the topics of: rhyming, colors, vehicles, frogs, superheroes, Sesame Street, and apples.  I plan to make about 2-3 more before the summer is over and continue to make books as I learn the interests of my students for the upcoming year.  These books will have embedded videos, audio, and interactive features along with text at the reading level of the students.  

This One Best Thing book has really broadened my idea of what the library center can be.  It will almost be like mini virtual field trips into the worlds created by these different iBooks.  I can’t wait to see how they work!