Epic Week 9

        I wanted to review Epic as it is a competitor of PebbleGo which was a database I reviewed previously.  Personally, my children’s school switched from PebbleGo to Epic, so I was curious to see what the difference was.  Epic offers a free version of their site as well as a paid version.  The paid version is called Epic Plus.  The biggest difference between the two is that Epic Plus is accessible at any point in the day while Epic is only offered between 7 and 3p so teachers would not be allowed to assign articles for homework.  Students also cannot read Epic at home without the paid version.  Some advantages of Epic are that there are eBooks and audiobooks available (unlike PebbleGo which is strictly articles).  In addition, books are offered in multiple languages such as Spanish, French and Chinese which supports ELL students.  Epic produces its own books for its site and Epic is constantly coming out with new titles for kids to enjoy.   

Epic allows educators to assign books and articles to students and they can search by reading level or grade level.  After reading, students can take quizzes for assessment.  Teachers can also assign a theme such as birds or scientists.   

There are so many different ways it can be used in the library.  It is a great tool for research projects as there are so many books available.  Students can use Epic to teach keyword searching or how to browse a database based on what they are interested in. This is also a great tool for those students that prefer audiobooks for independent reading time.  As mentioned, it is a huge disadvantage that students cannot access the audiobooks at home unless they have the paid version.  Students will also be motivated to read as they earn badges the more books they read.  Therefore, it is a great tool for class-wide or school-wide reading challenges.   

Overall, I think Epic is a great tool in the classroom.  I believe PebbleGo is better to teach research skills as it does have the citation generator and seems more engaging.  However, for books (both fiction and nonfiction), Epic is a wonderful choice, and students will be sure to find something of interest to read on Epic.