Thing 44: Social Reading & Book Stuff

I completed this "thing" last year as well but I find it great to go over again as the world of Social reading is changing around us.
So last year I focused on Goodreads and getting my account set back up and running. I was able to get my faculty book club members using Goodreads as well so we can now track our book club books along with our free read books. Two of the women in the group love it and love to be able to share their reviews.  I like to do the reading challenge and challenge myself to more books each year. I have also created an audio book list for myself so that those books that I listen too I can also add to my Goodreads account and track my progress. Is there a platform out there to just track audio books? This would be a great idea to create in the future if there isn't one already out there.

So to listen to all of the audio books that I listen to- I use Overdrive through our public library system. I absolutely love Overdrive. I have only used it for audio books as I am not a huge ebook reader and the few ebooks that I do read I read on my Kindle app. But Overdrive has been great. My commute for most days is a 35 minute drive one way so I am able to listen to a lot of books. This years SSL conference in Long Island is featuring Steven Sheinkin whom I have not read any of his books so I immediately downloaded Abraham Lincoln's Grave Robbers and Time Twister series to listen to. I love being able to listen to nonfiction as I will admit I am a fiction reader all the way. I will read some nonfiction here and there but I definitely prefer fiction. Overdrive has been great in this aspect to let me branch out and listen to more nonfiction texts than I would read.
I also used Overdrive last year to be part of the Audiofile Sync for Teens for the summer. I have the books all on my phone and plan to start listening to them soon as the new titles for this summer will be coming out soon :-)

So Overdrive has been a huge hit for me and I cannot wait to see what else the app will bring forth.

I also did the summer reading BINGO with my students last year and I plan to do a similar summer reading challenge for my kids. I like to try new things and the BINGO went over really well last year but I think I will do something new this year. I am just trying to decide what format I will use this year. I am thinking about some type of weekly format- we use Google classroom at school and I"m thinking about setting up a Google Classroom this year to cut down on the use for paper as last year I had 26 participants.