I was thrilled to find so many places to download free short stories and books. Not sure if I will find a lot of what I need in my curriculum but I will search for more when I have time. I did find a lot of classic novels and short stories which will be useful connections especially in historical contexts. I liked the ebook sites and google books and will continue to research this area since reading books online is definitely in the future for these students. I found a couple of books that I have read aloud (ie Fleischman's Seedfolks) that has sections online but not the entire text. This might be helpful for close text work instead of making individual copies for students to reread and mark up.
On another note, I received a Kindle for my birthday this year and am still trying to get used to it. It's interesting to think about what our students need and how these ebooks will work for them. For example: I find it difficult to mark the text, underline and notate which is something that students need to be able to do with novels but especially for non-fiction texts. This part is a bit cumbersome when reading a Kindle (at least for me). On the other hand, I love the fact that I can adjust the text size (!), have a well lit text, download a new book as soon as I finish with the old one, define unknown words with a click and carry it easily on a plane. We'll see what the future brings because one thing I know for sure is that ebooks are here to stay and will actually be a huge equalizing factor in the near future as budget cuts continue to cause problems for schools buying textbooks. I am surprised that it hasn't happened yet, but then again, those text book companies have a lot of power especially in California.
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