Good Reads

Sorry it has been so long! School, grades, and projects have taken the focus away from this little project. My apologies. I had to wait for something good to write about once again! 

Good Reads is an online forum to share, rate, and get recommendations for books. Book discussions can blossom on this website between the many users. Friends can be uploaded from Facebook or by email. Imagine having a classroom discussion online, classmates sharing book recommendations, and having a classroom recommendation list that is not from the teacher, but rather from the students.



I discovered Good Reads this past July, but it wasn't until one of my students added me as a friend on Good Reads that I began to think of the classroom possibilities. Because of this site, the student and I have had a much richer relationship. It helps me recommend books to her based upon the books that she has read and the kicker is SHE is now recommending books for me!

Classroom Applications
Some features that I find useful as a teacher are the updates, shelving system, and barcode scanner (available for android/apple mobile devices).

• Updates allow the viewers to see progress through a book, reflections while reading, and comment on their progress. 
• Multiple shelving systems help users to sort through the different books. The standard sorting system is read, reading now, and want-to-read, but I have added a fourth, Student Recommendations. 
• The barcode scanner for mobile devices allows users to quickly upload books. Imagine wandering through a bookstore and scanning the barcodes of any books that you would like to read, then, after uploading them to Good Reads, being able to find them in the public library without writing down a single ISBN number. Where was this when I was in college! 

I hope next year to set up accounts for all of my students in order to provide them with a real-world online book discussion!