Tuesday, October 8, 2013

On The Road to Reading with Ebooks: Hatch Webinar


On The Road to Reading with Ebooks from Jeremy Brueck

Presentation Links

Three Little Pigs HD - Created by Chocolapps - $3.99
Bats: Furry Fliers of the Night - Created by Bookerella and Story Worldwide - $2.99
The Kissing Hand - Created by Oceanhouse Media - $3.99

Digital Storytime - Reviews of Children's Picture Book Apps for iPad
#StoryAppChat - Weekly Twitter meeting for those interested in creating storybook apps and ebooks for kids.

Shared Book Reading 3.0

Saturday, September 28, 2013

#eel13 Participant NOW WHAT? Challenge

With the Ebooks in Early Literacy event in the books, we really would like to carry the conversations beyond the conference itself. That's where our participants can help. Based on our rich discussions and dynamic presentations we want to know, what are your NOW WHAT? plans? Please consider taking some time to reflect on all you learned over our two days together. Once you've gathered your thoughts and downloaded all the new apps you discovered, we challenge you to take a few minutes to write down your plans for action post-conference. Publish them on your blog and share the link via Twitter and the #eel13 hashtag. If you're not a blogger, email them as a Word document to centerforliteracy.ua@gmail.com and we will publish them on the conference blog. Whatever your preference, please take time to complete this critical piece, so we can continue to share and grow together well past our two days together!

#eel13 Day One in Tweets

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

How to Take Advantage of the Conference Backchannel


With Ebooks in Early Literacy: Science, Design, Decision kicking off this Friday, attendees should be planning to maximize the learning potential of the event. One thing that should be part of the plan is participating in the conference’s backchannel.

Wondering what a backchannel is? In The Backchannel, Cliff Atkinson defines a backchannel as:
…a line of communication created by people in an audience to connect with others inside or outside the room, with or without the knowledge of the speaker at the front of the room. Usually facilitated by Internet technologies, it is spontaneous, self-directed, and limited in time to the duration of a live event.
Derek Bruff, assistant director at the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and senior lecturer in mathematics at Vanderbilt explains the importance of a backchannel in a post on The Chronicle of Higher Education,
A Twitter backchannel at a conference can provide participants a way to share ideas and resources from the sessions they attend, connect people who might not have connected otherwise, and broaden the conference discussion to include those not physically present.

Ebook Reading in Classroom Expected to Rise

Monday, August 12, 2013

Monday, August 5, 2013

Speaker Feature: Cen Campbell


Presentation Title
Storytime has gone digital!

Description
Traditional early literacy programming supports the development of early literacy skills, fosters caregiver-child engagement and provides professional recommendations for high-quality, age-appropriate content.  Now that books and other literacy-supporting media are available digitally, children’s librarians are applying time-honored librarian skills like curation, evaluation and recommendation to the digital realm.


Monday, July 29, 2013

Speaker Feature: Warren Buckleitner, Ph.D.


Presentation Title
Thinking Outside the Page With Children's eBooks

Description

What is "the best children's ebook in the world?" The answer involves a fascinating exploration of digital media. Sometimes it's magic; other times dust. Let's look at examples of both.

Speaker Feature: Kathleen Roskos, Ph.D.


Presentation Title
The Digital Primer: Implications for Early Literacy Instruction 

Description

The shift from print to digital reading devices is changing the early literacy instructional landscape, but we are not quite sure what it all means just yet.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Speaker Feature: Azin Mehrnoosh


Presentation Title
The Data Within Ebooks and Apps

Description
An exploration of bringing data out of ebooks and apps used in classrooms, and making it accessible to educators to improve outcomes.

Speaker Feature: Jessica Wollman


Presentation Title
Storia Enriched eBooks:  Pedagogy and Goals

Description
For more than 90 years, Scholastic has been helping children learn and love to read. The commitment to this mission guided the development of Storia, which unites books and technology to inspire and inform a new generation of readers. Storia’s enriched eBooks service the primary goal of supporting a child’s literacy development by offering a young reader a deeper level of engagement with eBooks. All enrichment activities were designed and tested with input from teachers and kids, as well as internal and external educational advisors.

Speaker Feature: Cynthia Chiong, Ph.D.


Presentation Title
Print books vs. e-books: Comparing parent-child co-reading on print, basic, and enhanced e-book platforms

Description
Our research explores parent-child interactions as they read print and digital books together. We will present findings and discuss implications for e-book design and usage.

Speaker Feature: Linda D. Labbo, Ph.D.


Presentation Title
Young Children Reading and Writing e-books: How Design Matters for Emerging Literacy

Description
Research on reading and writing ebooks suggests that the screen environment can serve as a 3rd literacy teacher for young children - under certain conditions.

Speaker Feature: Ofra Korat, Ph.D.



Presentation Title
Designing and researching e-books as a support for young children’s language and literacy
Description
We researched the efficacy of e-books we designed for supporting young children’s language and literacy. Children from different levels and in diverse contexts improved their abilities. 

Speaker Feature: Jackie Marsh, Ph.D.


Presentation Title
Tablets for toddlers: E-books and their very young readers

Description

This talk will consider the design features of tablet-based e-books/story apps aimed at the youngest readers, aged from birth to three.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Speaker Feature: Adriana Bus, Ph.D.



Presentation Title
Evaluating Picture Story-eBooks: is it Time to Dispense with Paper Books?


Description
App designers came to me complaining of providers who only accept apps when they offer maximal interactivity. Downsides of this common standard may easily overrule the positive sides.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Save the Date

The Southwest Institute for Families is proud to announce our upcoming conference, "Ebooks in Early Literacy: Science, Design, Decision" to be held in Phoenix, AZ on September 27-28, 2013. The conference will focus on what we currently know from research about ebooks in early literacy teaching/learning and how that information may be applied to ebook design in publishing and decision-making in early childhood programs and classrooms. Please mark your calendars now to reserve the date! For more information, contact Dr. Karen Burstein.