Epic is children's book app that provides its users access to over 40,000 high quality books for children ages 12 and under. The books range from picture books to chapter books of every genre and topic. Epic can be used on computers, mobile devices, and tablets. Epic is free for teachers and librarians. However, parents do have to purchase a monthly subscription of $7.99 if they want their kids to have access to it at home. Epic was created from a single question: How do we make books more accessible to students. The cofounders had noticed that their kids had instant access to games and videos online, but the same could not been said for books, with that Epic was born.
How to use Epic
To begin using Epic you must first create an account. You can either go to Epic's webpage or download the free app. Click here to sign up for your Epic account. Setting up your account will be different depending whether or not you are a parent or a teacher. If you are a parent you can get a free month trial before you start having to pay the monthly fee. Teachers get Epic free. To set up a teacher account you will click sign up as an educator. You will then be asked for your school name, school zip code, name, email, and password. After this your account is created and you can customize your class library. You can customize your page by adding filters such as, the grade level you teach, student interest, and genres you would like to appear on your page. You can add your students to your account by clicking my students at the top right of the page, and then clicking roaster, and then add students. Once you have your students added to your page you can see how many books they have finished, and how long they have read for. The search bar allows you to be able to search for any book and the explore tab allows you to scroll through multiple genres or authors. To read a book, you simply just click on the one you want and then you can just swipe right with your finger to turn the page. Epic even offers a read to me section of books, and a section of videos for students to watch. Epic even offers badges kids can work towards to meet their year long reading goal.
Advantages
The biggest advantage to using Epic is the thousands of books students gain access too. There are books on every subject in every genre. Epic is an engaging technology tool for students to read with. Epic is also available for Apple and Android users. Another advantage is that paper is saved because the books are online. Some children have really busy parents who may have to work a lot. With the Epic app children can still have books read to them before they go to bed.
Disadvantages
The biggest disadvantage of Epic is that it is not free for parents. Many families would not be able to afford this tool for their kids outside of school. Having a computer or tablet for students may not be in the budget. To use Epic you have to have access to technology devices and Wifi.
Personal Experience
I personally have never used Epic because it was not around when I was in elementary school. I would have loved this tool though. As a student, I read many, many books and often did not have room to store them all. Since Epic is all ebooks I would have always had access to lots of books to read. I have heard teachers in my placement classes talking about using Epic and they all seemed to have positive things to say about it.
References
An Epic! Reading App. (2015, May 31). Retrieved from http://thinkonline.smarttutor.com/epic-reading-app/
Creations Inc. (n.d.). Instantly access 40,000 high-quality books for kids. Retrieved from
https://www.getepic.com/
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