Goodreads.com: One of the Best Classroom Appropriate Social Media Sites Out There

Goodreads.com is essentially a social media website that is all about books. What makes this site so great is that you can create private groups, have discussions, quizzes, groups, polls, etc. I've used it for the last four years with different degrees of success. Last year, I didn't really get it off the ground due to prior technology commitments in my reading class. In the previous two years, I had great success with Goodreads. Students used it to keep an online log of the books they had read, full with a rating of each book and a review. I had expectations laid out that everyone in my reading class would log in at least once every two weeks (I called these Goodreads windows), then update their account with newest books, and comment on the progress of their classmates.

I have included Goodreads in various teacher trainings, and it always seems quite popular with the other teachers. I get many questions about getting a Goodreads account off the ground. So a few years ago, I made some how to videos on Youtube. There are two videos, and if you're interested in starting up on Goodreads, go ahead and follow those instructions and you'll be going in no time.

If your district has a block on Goodreads, it's probably something you could successfully get over turned. I had to get the block taken off of it in my district. It's classified as social media in a lot of blocking software.

If you decide to sign up on Goodreads, look me up and add me as a friend so I can help you out.

Here are the two how to videos on setting up a Goodreads account and starting a classroom group.

Part 1

Part 2