The world of educational resources and materials is shifting away from print stuff towards digital stuff. One of the reasons for this shift is the ease of creating and sharing digital stuff.
ePUBS and tablets and apps like iBooks are merging into a mini-Perfect Storm event that supports and encourages the use of digital content. As social studies teachers, we need to take advantage of these sorts of tools.
And I just ran across an incredibly easy to use online tool called Readlists that lets you create an ePUB book from resources that you find on the web. Imagine being able to create a digital book that has a variety of articles, data, and multimedia.
The process is simple:
- Go to Readlists
- Paste URLs of articles or websites that you want to share with others
- Give your list a description and a title
- Send the book to the device of your choice (Kindle, iOS, Readmill, email, or download to desktop)
- If desired, you can share your ePUb via social media like Twitter and Facebook or on websites.
You can also create an editable list that allows other users to add additional content to the list.
My example? An eBook of social studies and Common Core resources via an ePUB format or website. You could use Readlists to create course packets, collections of primary source documents, and reading assignments.
The beauty of all of this, of course, is that you can create content for your kids to use that becomes mobile – anywhere and anytime. Kids can access this on eReaders, cell phone browsers, or iBooks. But it’s not just you pushing content out to kids. It could be kids pushing content back to you as part their assignments, research, and projects.
Very cool stuff indeed!