Supporting Students During School Closures

[Jessy Haugh]

Where educators can post tips and share resources and ideas during closures!

[Alice Jaffurs]

I am wondering if I can use this resource during COVID19 closure for students without disabilities

[Jessy Haugh]

We are eager to do all that we can to support educators, students, and families at this crucial time. Under current U.S. Copyright Law, Bookshare membership is only available to people who are certified by competent authorities as having qualifying reading barriers, such as blindness or low vision, learning disabilities, or physical disabilities that make it difficult or impossible to read standard print. 

We encourage you to sign up all students who meet these criteria.In these extraordinary times, we are in conversations with legal and educational authorities to explore any possible options for increasing access to the Bookshare library. 

We have created a resource page that includes e-learning resources available from publishers and other vendors that can benefit a broader population. We will update this information as we learn more. The Bookshare library does include nearly 10,000 "Freely Available” books that can be downloaded by anyone, without restriction. Check out the full list of Freely Available titles as well as these tips to refine the list by criteria such as copyright date, topic, and grade level.

[Jennifer Morrison]

Can you please provide a link to: The Bookshare library does include nearly 10,000 "Freely Available” books that can be downloaded by anyone, without restriction. Check out the full list of Freely Available titles as well as these tips to refine the list by criteria such as copyright date, topic, and grade level.

[Mary Corker]

For students who already have access to Bookshare, but they do NOT have internet, how can we help them access audio offline? Is there a way to download the book and play the audio offline? Our students are getting Chromebooks with materials downloaded to them which they may access offline, but we can't figure out the audio. 

[Heather Collins]

Hello Jennifer,

In answer to your question, here is a link to a page on our website that explains how to access the freely available collection: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/search-freely-available?

[Stephen]

The Internet Archive has created a National Emergency Library that includes more than a million volumes - http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/.

Internet Archive books don't have the same uniform quality of Bookshare books - there are errors of formatting and scanning - but they are a valuable resource nonetheless and might prove useful.