Check Out The Ways The Kids Are Using BiblioNasium With The eBooks!

"Mrs. Miller, can we go to BiblioNasium when we are done with our project today?"  

"I asked my brother about the website he was on last night....I wanted to do it too.  Thank you for teaching me about it today, Mrs. Miller. Now we can do it together." 

"Shannon, the kids have been on BiblioNasium tonight.  What a great website for them to keep track of what they are reading.  Can I sign up as a parent too?"  

Since we started using BiblioNasium a few weeks ago, I have heard all of these things and more.  Our students, teachers and even the parents are enjoying it and finding unique ways to integrate it into their world of reading.

Last Thursday, the 3rd graders were using BiblioNasium and one boy asked me to come see what he was doing.

Donovan loves reading all of the eBooks in mackinVIA and he reads them at home often too. He has been reading the new set of eBooks about states which I placed into a special "Our State eBooks" Group within Van Meter's mackinVIA. (These are the Our Amazing States eBook series from Rosen Publishing).

On this day, he was extra excited because he was finding the state eBooks within BiblioNasium and then putting the eBooks onto his shelves, reviewing them, and marking his favorites.  For the next 15 minutes, Donovan found the state eBooks that he wanted and placed them all on his shelves.

What an AMAZING idea!  Donovan had developed a way for our eBooks to be connected within BiblioNasium!

I couldn't wait to show my son Hagan what he had done.  Hagan also loves the eBooks and keeps them all organized within his mackinVIA Backpack.  But now he would also be able to review, recommend, and favorite the eBooks he was reading too, not just the fiction and nonfiction print books that he has adding to his BiblioNasium.

We went into his mackinVIA Backpack so we could see the titles, covers and authors.  We wanted to make sure they were the right one.

Hagan would then type in the title on BiblioNasium and waited for the books to pop up so he could add it to his shelves.

Hagan is very proud of what his different shelves look within his BiblioNasium.  It is easy for him to go to the site and update the titles when he needs to.

Tonight, Hagan also earned two badges for reading which made him VERY excited!  He wanted to know how to get more.  I showed him the "Reading Log" and "Challenges" pages.  This was two ways he could earn badges.  

Hagan decided he wanted to create his very own Challenge.  He called it the "mackinVIA eBook Challenge."  He added 7 of the eBooks from his mackinVIA Backpack to the Challenge.  He has read one so far.  At the bottom of the page it shows Hagan that he has read 1 out of 7 so far.

I am really excited about this connection between the eBooks and BiblioNasium!  This will be a place that our students can write reviews, log their reading, recommend eBooks to one another, and set up Challenges like the one Hagan did....That is something that I am going to do for each grade level.  Since I am the one who set up all of the students accounts, I can set up a special "mackinVIA eBook Challenge" for each grade level and it push it out to each student.  The eBooks could change throughout the year and there could be different eBook Challenges too.

Wouldn't this be a great place for the students to connect and read over Thanksgiving, Christmas and summer break....I am definitely going to set up Challenges within BiblioNasium and mackinVIA for these!

I encourage everyone to check out BiblioNasium.  I cannot wait to hear the ways that you and your students are using it too!