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8 Reasons You'll Love Our New Teacher Dashboard

8 Reasons You'll Love Our New Teacher Dashboard

May 20, 2022 0 Comments

Audiobooks are a fantastic tool for widening young people’s access to literature, and for engaging students who might typically feel excluded from reading, such as those who: 

  • Have learning disabilities, dyslexia or attention deficit disorders
  • Are experiencing mental health struggles
  • Have a physical disability which makes it harder to see or hold a book
  • Spend lots of time in hospital

 

That’s why Listening Books have been proudly supporting schools with our audiobook lending service for over 20 years!

Our collection boasts thousands of fantastic audiobooks for children and teens, such as David Walliams' stories, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series and Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant books. We also offer a huge range of educational fiction and non-fiction, such as Terry Deary's Horrible Histories books, CGP Study Guides and J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls.

But did you know that we have recently improved our offer for schools? We’ve built a brand-new teacher dashboard, filled with fantastic resources to get your students listening to more stories. Read on for the best bits of what you can now achieve thanks to this exciting update. 

 

1. Easily view your students’ details and account settings

 

Now when you log in on our website and head to your School Dashboard, you’re greeted with a neatly laid-out list of all the students you currently have signed up to our service. This allows you to quickly view important information such as membership expiry dates and pupils’ login details - no more need to despair when your students forget their password for the umpteenth time!

Screenshot of an overview of two students' details in the School Dashboard. Information displayed includes students' names, usernames, age and date of birth, the date their account was created, the date their account will expire and whether they have access to newspapers and magazines through PressReader. There are also the options to edit students' accounts, delete their accounts, view their passwords and see all the books each individual has borrowed.

 

2. See which audiobooks your students have borrowed

 

This new dashboard layout also allows you to keep an eye on the titles your students are listening to from our wide range of children’s and young adult fiction, and educational Sound Learning titles. This will allow you to maximise your pupils’ use of our service by checking if they’re listening at home, and easily suggest other audiobooks they might enjoy based on their interests.

Screenshot of a list of books in a students' listening history, sorted by date added to list. The titles listed are Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner and Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas

 

3. Ensure your students only have access to age-appropriate content

 

Another brilliant function of our new dashboard is the ability to automatically limit the content that children can access based on their date of birth. Young people under the limits of 12 and 16 years of age are only able to listen to audiobooks suitable for their respective age ranges, so you can have confidence that the material your students have access to is safe and appropriate.

Screenshot of the School Dashboard overview for one student. There is a purple box around the section showing the student's age and date of birth

 

4. Give your students access to thousands of magazines, comic books and newspapers

 

Thanks to our partnership with PressReader, teachers now have the option to give pupils digital access to popular publications such as The Beano, Girls’ World, 110% Gaming Magazine, The Week Junior, and many more! This service can be reached through the Listening Books website, and allows users to listen and read along with ease.

Screenshot of some of PressReaders newspapers and magazines for kids and tweens. Titles shown are The Beano, First News, Prime Times, The Week Junior, Dream, Highlights, High Five, Woman Mini, Kids' Guide 2022, Girls' World, Wild, Kids Go Gardening, High Five, 110% Gaming and Essential Education

 

5. Change who can access the service with ease

 

If a child isn’t taking advantage of our audiobook service, leaves the school or is no longer eligible for membership, our new dashboard gives you the complete freedom to remove them from your list of logins and add another student in their place. You can do this as many times as you like over the course of your school’s membership with us. 

Screenshot of the School Dashboard overview for one student. There is a purple box around the button for deleting the student's account

 

6. Send letters out to parents and carers using our pre-made template

 

To make it as easy for you as possible to get kids using the service, we’ve also included a helpful letter template. This lets parents and carers know what their children will be able to access through our service, and gives a handy step-by-step guide to listening to audiobooks on a computer, smartphone or tablet. Simply visit School Resources, download the template, add your student’s unique username and password, and you can get your students listening at home as well as at school!

Screenshot of the Letter for Parent/Carers option in the School Resources section. Description in purple box reads: You can use this letter template to send home with the pupils so that parents can use the service with them at home. Next to the description there is a blue download button.

 

7. Award certificates to students for finishing audiobooks

 

Another fantastic feature to be found under School Resources are our lovely certificate templates, which you can give to your students for reaching listening milestones, such as the completion of their 1st, 5th, 10th and 20th audiobook. This gives pupils a goal to work towards, as well as a real sense of achievement for working on their literacy skills.

Certificate reads: Listening Books Certificate of Achievement. This is to certify that [student's name] has successfully completed the audiobook [audiobook's title]. Spaces for teacher to sign and date the certificate. Listening Books logo and purple and blue decorations at either side of the certificate

 

8. Receive extra stats on your students’ listening

 

At the end of the year, we can also provide you with overall statistics on how many audiobooks have been borrowed by your pupils in total, and which titles they have been listening to, at your request. You may find this is an excellent opportunity to set a target number of completed books which your students can work to reach as a group during the year - in this way you can be at the centre of helping your students to develop meaningful relationships with one another, based on their love for listening! 

via GIPHY

 

A Listening Books membership for your school will help your students with print disabilities to whizz through reading material, deepen comprehension and build analytical skills! To find out more about the benefits of our audiobook service for your students, please click here. 

 

Author: Emily Pye

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We currently have funding to provide free memberships to those living in Glasgow.

If you, or someone you know lives in Glasgow, has an illness, disability, learning difficulty or mental health condition that impacts on reading, and would find our membership fee a barrier to joining the service, visit the link in our bio to sign up today 💜

ID: Image shows a desktop monitor, a tablet and a phone, all showing the book Becoming by Michelle Obama on the screen. Text above reads 'Free Memberships for those in Glasgow. Join our online audiobook lending service, available for anyone in the UK with an illness, disability, learning or mental health condition that impacts on reading.' The background is purple and turquoise.

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