Using ebooks in homeschooling is something practical and effective in many points. However, the ways homeschoolers organize ebooks are pretty different from just family, personal, or business digital resource organization. Here are some considerations for homeschoolers organize ebooks.
Tips for Homeschoolers to Organize eBooks
The Types of Devices Used
There are several choices for devices you can choose to use with children. It depends on the types of the digital electronic files you have. Mobi files will be suitable with Kindle eReaders. Other than Mobi files, pdf and epub files are popular as well.
Kindle eReaders
If you live in the United States or other countries that are available for kindle, I would like to recommend kindle readers to use with you and children. Here are the three top reasons
- It has various choices of contents sold in Amazon
- There isn’t any other apps so that it will have less temptation for children to “play”
- It has longer battery life compared with other devices because it is only for reading
Other Than Kindle Devices
If you don’t have access to Amazon Kindle account like me, you still can use android devices, iPad, and various Google books compatible devices to use. You just need to set them to get as less distraction as possible.
The Number of Devices
If you have one to three children with closer levels and ages, you might still able to manage one device for each child and for yourself. However, it would be harder if you have multiple ages with multiple levels of children. If you can afford to purchase one for each, that would be perfect. It is not an absolute condition. You might purchase one by one and organize the contents accordingly. There are several possibilities to organize ebooks.
One Device for a Whole Family
If you only have one device for a whole family member, parents will be the ones who have the main authority to keep and to manage the devices.
- Just install a few number of ebooks you read at once. If you have too many books, you will have more distraction. At the same time, your device will be slower. It means you need a reading list in certain period of time.
- You will need a schedule for reading so that everyone can use the single device fairly.
Several Devices
There are various ways to organize ebook devices. Here are some examples:
- Install the devices based on the level ages. One device can be for preschool to kindergarten level, while the other can be for lower elementary level, and so on.
- You might install one device for fiction and the other for nonfiction.
- You can also group your children based on the number of devices you have. They need to be responsible to keep and to maintain the devices.
The eBooks Installation
As I mentioned above, it is important to install as less number of ebooks as possible in the devices to prevent distraction and technical issues. On the other hand, you need to print and update the list of ebooks you have. You can treat the list as a library, while the readers as a pile of books they borrow from the library. Put the list in a folder that everyone can access to choose the books for certain period of time.
I provide a free sheet to manage your ebook list for your family. You can make a copy out of it. Get access to the document.
The Balance of Using Printed Books
Being paperless is great, but you need to make sure that children have access to printed books enough. They need to understand how to take care of the printed books as well and how to look up information manually.
How do you manage the use of ebooks in your homeschool?
Have you started using ebooks with children?
