November 1st, 2013 – Shift Your Reading Into Overdrive

I hope that everyone had a Haunting Hallowe’en!!

This week I’d like to highlight one of the new features of the UG2GO website – Overdrive Books.  This new and exciting application allows students and staff 24 hour access to e-books and audiobooks from their iPads, desktops and mobile devices.  There are over a thousand of English language e-books, 175 audiobooks and over 300 French language books, ranging from grade 2 to 12 with more being added all the time.

By visiting the UG2GO website (https://www.ugdsb.on.ca/ug2go/) and signing in using your computer log on and password, you will be taken to the UG2GO home page. Here you will find a variety of online tools and programs to use with your students.  On the left hand side, under the sub-title ‘Read’ you will see the icon for OverDrive.  When you click on the icon you will be taken to the OverDrive webpage.  In the upper right hand corner you will find a search box where you can search out books by author, title, category or keyword. Additionally you can use the dropdown menus to locate books by reading level, collection, or subject.   Once you have located a book which you would like to read, check the upper right hand corner for one of the following symbols: 

This indicates it is an e-book  , this an audio book,and when the item is grayed out like this one , it has already been checked out.

Luckily with Read&Write (see last week’s Blog post at techtidbitz.blogspot.com for more information) any text online can now become an audiobook for our students (and staff). 

Once you have located a book you would like to ‘check out’, simply click on the cover and you will be taken to the overview page which shows the book’s availability, gives a description, excerpt, ‘about the author’ and reviews.  When you click on the ‘Borrow’ button, the book will be checked out to you.  Next, you can choose to download the book by clicking on the download button and choosing the format for the download (i.e.mp3, etc.) or open the book by clicking on the cover.  When it is opened, you will be given a brief tutorial of how to turn pages, bookmark pages and look up words in the dictionary.  There will also be a menu on the right hand side of the webpage that allows you to jump to different chapters, change the size of the font, and even the background colour.   Books will remain on your ‘virtual bookshelf’ for three weeks, and then they will simply disappear, to be returned to the library. 

Books are also available on the iPad; however you will need to install the ‘OverDrive Media Console’ app from the App store.  It is a free app and can be found by using the search feature. 

Overall this new program is a great option for all of our students, whether they are struggling readers or just looking for new books and formats to read them on. 

As always, past Tech Tidbits posts can be found on the blog at  http://techtidbitz.blogspot.ca  and if you have an idea for a future blog topic, please feel free to pass it along to me.

Have a great weekend!

Stace