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Textbooks - eTextbooks

 Was just talking to a friend in China about how her classes were working out during COVID-19. One issue that she said that she was having dealt with the students' textbooks. When they were sent home before the next semester they didn't have their textbooks for their new classes, and what with Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) there, all her students were online. The problem was that package delivery had been paused. Very different from here where Amazon broke sales records, and I saw their prime trucks everyday. To help her students she uploaded ebooks into their distance learning environment in order to help her students get their textbooks and keep up with the course instruction. 

So if you are teaching ERT you might want to consider adding some public domain texts or ones that have been released under the Creative Commons license and get some books to your students. 

book cover to Florida Science
I have three that you are welcome to use. I wrote a textbook titled Florida Science: The Science that makes Florida Different, this book is about science in Florida, it focuses on the concrete science that students can see here. When teaching science or any subject it’s important to remember to begin with the concrete and then move to the abstract. I have found that it has helped my students when I begin by teaching science concepts in a concrete manner and expand from there. I was a science teacher in Middle and High School for a long time and except for Hurricanes, Florida was hardly mentioned. So this book turns that around to just Flordia Stuff. This book is to support concrete teaching as it involves and applies facts and descriptions about tangible objects and actions that can be found in Florida, ones that they have likely seen, or applies to them and their surroundings.

book cover to the secret garden


The other two are kind of "textbooks", they are for students and teachers to use this text to assist students needing extra guidance with their purposeful reading strategies or just as an instructional or practice resource. The first book, The Secret Garden: Annotated with Reading Strategies  for upper elementary and middle school readers contains an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic "The Secret Garden" but has been enhanced with over 125 reading strategy experiences. 

The second book, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Annotated with Reading Strategies, is for Middle and High School (and even College) students and contains an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyles' classic book with over 100 reading strategy experiences embedded throughout the text. Both books guide readers with BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER reading strategies that students can practice with and help students Read with Purpose. Each chapter has multiple strategies embedded in the chapter to assist readers to read with purpose and become an active reader. Additional resources such as links to free audio versions and online tools are also provided along with suggestions on how to use your electronic book reader to improve your reading experience and access to information. 



So go read a book, and enjoy it. 




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