Over the last few weeks, I’ve been introducing our students (and teachers) to a new resource we have at our school. myOn Reader <www.myon.com> is a new product from Capstone Digital. The product is a collection of hundreds of digitized books. Students can read (or have them read to them) from books on a variety of topics and levels. Teachers have the option for them taking a short comprehension quiz at the end of the book. There are also options for the text to be highlighted as the computer reads it to the students. A dictionary is available for students to use while reading as well. Beside the quiz, students can also rate and write book reviews about the titles the read, too. The collection of online books can be accessed from any computer in the building or student can login from home to read even more.
myOn has even more features. There is an interest survey where students let the computer know what it likes as well as a quiz to determine their Lexile reading level. Based on that information, the computer also recommends books to the students that meet their interests and reading level. However, students are not just limited to those books and can read any book in the database. Teachers can also create lists of books based on their theme or classroom units of study for students to read.
My role as the librarian has been to get it set-up, give student an introductory lesson, and provide support for our teachers with the program. I can also help make recommended lists for students based on their classroom curriculum and topics.
I’m a member of the Capstone Digital Advisory Board, and as soon as they showed us this product I knew I wanted to try it with our kids. We’re just scratching the surface. I’m sure once we have all the students logged in and using it, we’ll find more ways to utilize this resource. Our students seem to really enjoy it and our teachers are up for trying this new resource that is just another way to get books into students hands. There are lot of data options we can check to see how students and teachers are using the program, so we’re excited to get started with it. I’m excited to see how this new tool takes off and the potential it has.