Hello everyone!
Schooling and illnesses have kept us busy over the last few months. But, now that we are better, I wanted to follow up on a previous post. This post is entitled "How To" - Education with Tablets - BOOKS First, if you have not already read my post for "Tablet Safety" found HERE, please read it before continuing. Although this post is aimed more at Android tablet devices, most points here can be applied to IPads or Windows based laptops. For this post, I will focus on Books. I will follow up this post with other methods of educating with tablets. BOOKS Thousands upon thousands of free books, nonfiction and fiction, are available online. I still advocate paper personally. I love the feel of a book and finding what I want on an actual bookshelf is easier. BUT.....I can not stand looking for a library book, textbook, or spiral that has traveled with us. That missing book may hide in the car, at the doctor's office, in the classroom, back on the bookshelf, the possibilities are endless. I have paid many a late fee due to a library book playing "hide and seek" as we travel. On the contrary, the tablet is under our constant attention, is not as easily forgotten, and it can hold as many books as our "Memory" cards allow. Yet, the world of ebooks (electronic books) can be daunting and confusing to someone not very "tech savvy". My head started spinning thinking just how to explain it. I will try my best. There are 3 separate types of ebooks (electronic books) 1. EPub "Electronic Publication" for a more detailed explanation of EPubs, please see HERE 2. PDF "Portable Document Format" 3. Supplier Specific Formats "Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Library Books...yes, I said library books, etc" These are just Electronic Books (eBooks) in different formats. This does not mean anything to the everyday user other than... You need different software to read them. But, just WHAT software can you use and WHERE CAN YOU FIND THESE FREE BOOKS? 1. Software - To find EBook reading software from the Android Market, click these links for: EPub format Readers PDF format Readers Library Book Readers (from your local municipal library) Amazon Kindle Barnes & Noble Nook Kobo Book Reader Google Books Reader iStoryBooks for the little ones :) Some of the software can support many formats. My favorite FREE Readers (some have ads) are: Overdrive Media Console for the Library Books Aldiko Book Reader Amazon Kindle Nook for Android Mantanto Reader Free this one can annotate PDFs. I snagged some free PDF textbooks. "On the go schoolwork" can be completed within the book reader so spirals do not get left behind. My husband annotates blueprints. Be aware that it is supported with ads. 2. Where to find the books My mind is vastly overwhelmed by the sheer availability of free eBooks. How do I find what I am looking for among the various sites? Here are some lists. I personally snag some of the RSS Feeds (more on that down below) to keep up with fresh content. Flexbooks are free open source textbooks that can be downloaded in EPub, PDF, or Kindle. Please be aware that some of these books may have mistakes. See reviews HERE on Amazon for the various books. I use these only to supplement our regular hardbacks while we are "out and about". Free EBooks by Project Gutenberg From the site "Project Gutenberg offers over 36,000 free ebooks to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device. Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats. We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofed them with the help of thousands of volunteers." Amazon Kindle Top Free 100 I have gotten many educational books this way. Amazon Kindle Free Collections Barnes & Noble Nook Free EBooks Google Books Free EBooks Kobo Free Ebooks eBookMall.com From the site, "If you want free eBook downloads, you've come to the right place! Many of these free eBooks are only free for a limited time as special promotions, so download them while they are available. This list is updated daily with new selections. Add these free eBooks to your shopping cart just like any other product and they will be free when you checkout -- no credit card required!" One Non Free Option that I have looked into but have not made the jump to membership: World Public Library 3. Sign Up for RSS Feeds to see fresh content Rather than checking sites frequently, I use an RSS Feed Reader for my favorite sites. What is this? Just simply a link to help notify you of new content on the site in a "FEED READER" software. My two favorite Feed Readers... Google Reader and Take a Tour Here Pulse The Amazon Top 100 Free Kindle Books Feed is Here The Gutenberg Project Free Ebooks Feed is Here Truth be told, we still use our "paper" books most of the time. But, I sure have enjoyed EBooks too. Perhaps one day I could be convinced to give up paper .. or not. I know there is still too much information in this post for someone who is just learning about the EBook world. Still, just come back here for refreshers and links as you "get the hang of it". Actually, creating these lists helps to give me a reference point for individual topics vs.my bookmarks...heehee. I hope to follow up this post soon with more on "educating with tablets". Comments are closed.
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