LIS 568 - Kassidy Schad - BookBreak
This week I explored the educational webtool BookBreak. BookBreak is a virtual K-12 author talk program that connects students with best-selling authors once a month via recorded livestream. Each month, a new author talk will be geared toward each grade level in cohorts such as K-2nd, 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, and 9th-12th. The program asserts it's commitment to featuring authors with a wide variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences.
The webtool features a heavy focus on cultivating a school-wide reading culture. In the fall, the platform plans to build on this and introduce new features with tools and resources to support students, teachers, and parents.
This is a tool I can easily see becoming a part of my library curriculum. Since recordings of the livestreams are available on the platform, it would be easy to implement by dedicating one class period each month to watching the author talk and exploring the author with the accompanying mini-lessons. This would be a great opportunity to introduce students to new viewpoints and voices, as well as engaging new readers who may have not be previously interested.
Rating: 5/5
Would I implement this? Yes!!
Virtual Author Talks for Schools | PBC Guru. (n.d.). Bookbreaks.org. https://bookbreaks.org/