Make Reading Social. Students can Create List, Share Favorites, Give Reviews

Submitted 8 years ago

Community Review for Shelfari

Kealiʻi A.
Kealiʻi A.
My Rating
Pedagogy
Supports

My Take

The social aspect of the website allows students the feel of social media through friending and following but it can take the focus away from the reading, reviewing capabilities of the website. I like to share my reading lists with students to give them a starting place to begin to use creditable resources for social studies in the area of Hawaiian studies. How do I get students to want to actively share and reflect upon their reading more using the program. The ability for students to leave reviews and edit summary information about the book if its most appealing features to me. I feel it will help students to share their voice as well as leaving a positive digital foot print. I would like to see more teacher connected ways to help better connect teacher and students with in the website.

How I Use It

Students are able to create reading list of books they have read, are reading, or plan to read. Then students can rate each book and their classmates can view their ratings and reviews. Students can add or change reviews. Students can add classmates for peer interaction. Students can upload list files of books that they will be reading throughout the year and view reviews from students in previous years.

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Kellie A.
Kellie A.
November 5, 2014

Engaging site for students to review and discuss books

If having online discussions is an important part of a teaching practice, this is a good tool. It can give students a chance to write critically, read what a review looks like, and learn about the pros and cons to user-generated and user-edited content. I liked the ease of setting up the group and the options for members, although having to email invitations could be a downside for those schools/districts where students aren't given an email address (this would also be problematic for account set-up). It would be nice if you could also invite students to a group via code or group key. Because it's browser-based, that opens up some opportunities for access from anywhere, along with read-aloud supports if using Chrome.
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Tracy B.
Tracy B.
April 3, 2014

Students 13 or older can add to a book's information, ask questions or be part of a book club.

Be sure to have students go to their account settings and check on these. There are also groups that you can join as an online book club or create on for your class to have online discussions. Teacher does not have much control over where students will go in this site.
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