Learn from Home Toolkit

By Gwen Mak, Education Experience Specialist on 10/13/2020 • ( 0 )

[SPONSORED CONTENT]

This school year, it feels like we’re learning to teach all over again. Whether you’re a seasoned educator or a parent who never thought they’d be a classroom teacher at home, we can all use a little extra help, time, and encouragement. Here are a few ideas you can use right now.

Learning at a Distance

Worldwide, schools are rethinking their teaching strategies to teach students safely. Many are incorporating new digital tools to connect students and educators. Entire communities have shifted daily practices to stay safe and healthy. Recently, Eileen Hanning, M. Ed, discussed some of the challenges posed by distance learning and possible solutions. She stresses the need for embedded learning and points out that audiobooks provide an opportunity for parents to integrate learning into everyday activities. Learning doesn’t have to look or sound like what happens in a traditional classroom.

Virtual Bookshelf

In school or at home, a virtual bookshelf of audiobooks makes it quick and easy for students to find titles. Now on Tales2go, you can use the URLs from titles to create listening lists tailored to specific topics, grades, or interests.

To create a virtual bookshelf, log in to Tales2go on any web browser. Browse for relevant titles. When you find a title you’d like to include, copy the URL from the browser and paste it into a Word document, Google document, or onto your own webpage. Once students log into Tales2go, they can click any of your links and be taken directly to those titles. No browsing or searching the player needed! As a bonus, you can right click and copy the cover art for titles also!

Resource Equity

More than ever, ensuring that all students have equal access to school resources is a high priority. Long time digital resource enthusiast Soraya Laboy is a teacher librarian at Robison Middle School. Now that all her students are learning from home, she visits classrooms virtually, reminding everyone how their Tales2go audiobook subscription can support their literacy program. Her school has full building access, so students have always been able to listen at school and at home. While they’re at home, they can all enjoy the same content with personal bookmarks and favorites, listening at their own pace, on their own schedules. When they’re able to be back in school, their bookmarks and favorites will be seamlessly available for in-class listening.

The White Plains School District librarians have also fully embraced distance learning. They got together at the beginning of the year to coordinate their plans to use audiobooks and to do some advance troubleshooting to ensure easy access for all students. WIth their district-wide adoption, every student has access to over 10,000 titles, even if they can’t make it into the school libraries. Librarians have embraced social media, tweeting title recommendations. One librarian even created a digital library classroom, complete with her dog, Poppy listening to Tales2go!