Printed Books vs Screen Reading

Hooray!

Time to celebrate: after some resistance, I’ve finally finished reading my first digital book and am reading a second one already!

For me it’s definitely an improvement, a step forward, which has taken place because I had no more physical books to read and love reading in bed. It was, therefore, a kind of last resort but, ok, I’m glad it happened and now I feel it was just a question of time. Besides it wasn’t that bad really.

As you all know, I am a huge fan of Gutenberg and his invention and am going to let him down. I don’t even own an e-reader (and don’t plan to buy one!) and the digital reading I’ve been doing is free. I’m not ready to pay for a digital file, a “book”, I can’t actually touch – at least not yet. What I did was therefore look for public domain ebooks across different platforms (some tips and links here and here from slide 34 onwards), chose the format and downloaded 2 ebooks I've been meaning to read for ages. Right now, I'm proud to "announce" that I've managed to read The Secret Garden from cover to cover, and am reading Room with a View .

I can't deny I' enjoying it. I am! At night, when when my eyes feel strained, I change to font size 36, the brightness of the monitor and / or lettering and keep reading for some more time. What about you, have you had a similar experience?

Though much has already been said about screen and paper reading, I’d like to butt in too once I’ve just had the experience. Quite clearly, both have advantages and disadvantages and ultimately it’s up to each one of us to evaluate our needs and decide.

Here is what I’ve come up with. I’m sure I haven’t covered all aspects and that’s exactly why I would like to ask for your contributions with comments. 

Please consider audiobooks, for example, from here, this link, and/or a recent publication by UNESCO "Reading in the mobile era" you can download  http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002274/227436e.pdf 

Thank you!
Happy holidays and happy readings, too.

4th July, US Independence Day

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

 After an exhausting school year and still recovering, a surprise arrives by traditional mail: an invite for a reception at the US Embassy Lisbon to celebrate the 4th of July.

4th of July is Independence Day in the USA, now over 200 years old! The aforementioned invite and its background have prompted this post but just to introduce some info on the topic once only in September will we be back at school. Besides, it is also a local holiday and if needed be, both can be used for lessons on Citizenship, on Celebrations, History...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(Trumbull)

For history stuff, History.com is, for me, the most comprehensive and trustworthy site and it's no exception in what concerns the events that led to the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain in 1776. It includes several videos and lots of info also on Thomas Jefferson, a draftsman of the Declaration of Independence.

In biography.com, another great site, there is more info on the The Founding Fathers, the men behind the Declaration of Independence.

The US Declares Independence is one of the amazing videos shared by history.com and here you have in-depth all you need concerning the topic.

 

To finish off the best way possible, here's John Green's Crash Course on 4th of July - with his usual humour and irony. Delightful!!!

Happy Independence Day, Happy 4th July - whether in Coimbra or anywhere else :)

ThingLink for Interactive Books

#1 What is ThingLink?
ThingLink is a free user-friendly digital tool that allows us to create and share interactive images. All can be done effortlessly and quickly and one can turn any static image into a multimedia rich interactive graphic by adding video, other images, audio, links to different sources...
In addition to the coloured dots / nubbins, ThingLink now has more graphic icons - we can therefore choose the one that best suits our purpose when tagging images.

#2 ThingLink in the Classroom
Its uses in the classroom are limitless. We can use it for any subject, any grade! Depending on our goals, we can tag the information ourselves or use it as a collaborative tool and ask our students to add /tag info. I've used it before with maps, with famous paintings as you can read here; I've used it with students for introductions as well as to introduce myself.

#3 Using ThingLink for Reading Suggestions
An interesting way of using this innovative and flexible tool in the classroom is also for Reading recommendations and suggestions. Bring books to life by collecting resources, challenging students / potential readers with questions, highlighting important info, presenting the author!
"Gone Girl" is a book I've finished reading recently and absolutely loved it. By then I wrote a short review here (please scroll down as there are already over 100 books!) and once the movie is going to premiere in the beginning of October, I thought about recommending it beforehand :) Here it is:

I'd be very glad to hear from you! Thanks :)
Many thanks to Susan Oxnevad for the #TLChallenge