What is Epic?
Epic is an online library for kids books and videos. Students can read books on their own time, complete reading assignments, or do assessments on the app. Students can build their own collection of books, rate books, and report back on what they like. Teachers can assign a theme of books they want their student's to read/assign a specific book. Teachers can assess students and check their progress through the dashboard. Books can be presented on the board as well. Other activities are also provided at the end like plot, theme, and character development.
Relevant Lesson Ideas with Epic:
- Introduce a lesson with putting a read aloud of an Epic book up on the board
- Assign students a book on a relevant topic for homework and have them take a quiz after to make sure they comprehended what they read
- During quiet reading time, have students pick book options from their reading level and let them read to themselves or use the read aloud feature with their headphones
- Have students research a particular figure and/or figures, such as The Pilgrims, and use Epic to find books about that figure
Epic helps children with their literacy levels and engages them at the same time. The badges and educational content are extremely appealing to children and they love reading on Epic. The read aloud features and dictionary really help student learn and educate themselves. Additionally, the many genres and reading levels allow students to read at their own pace and pick what they like to read best. -Annabelle i.
Relevant Standards:
ISTE Standards for Educators
- Learner 2.1a: Set professional learning goals to explore and apply pedagogical approaches made possible by technology and reflect on their effectiveness.
- Leader 2.2a: Shape, advance and accelerate a shared vision for empowered learning with technology by engaging with education stakeholders.
- Leader 2.2b: Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.
- Citizen 2.3b: Establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency.
- Designer 2.5.a: Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.
- Facilitator 2.6.b: Manage the use of technology and student learning strategies in digital platforms, virtual environments, hands-on makerspaces or in the field.
- Facilitator 2.6.d: Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or connections.
- Analyst 2.7.b: Use technology to design and implement a variety of formative and summative assessments that accommodate learner needs, provide timely feedback to students and inform instruction.
ISTE Standards for Students
- Empowered Learner 1.1.d: Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
- Digital Citizen 1.2.b: Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
- Knowledge Constructor 1.3.d: Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
- Computational Thinker 1.5.c: Students break problems into component parts, extract key information, and develop descriptive models to understand complex systems or facilitate problem-solving.
- Creative Communicator 1.6.a: Students choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of their creation or communication.
CCSS Standards for ELA:
- 2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
- 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.
- 9. Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
- 10. Students whose first language is not English make use of their first language to develop competency in the English language arts and to develop understanding of content across the curriculum.
- 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
PROS:
- Plethora of books and genre options (including popular and well known books)
- Ability to assess student progress after reading the book
- Books can be read aloud to students or students can read them independently
- Non-traditional and more interactive way of learning to read or practice
- Community of teachers and students on Epic
- Epic overs different language options for books including Spanish, bilingual Spanish/English books, Chinese and bilingual Chinese/English books, and French
CONS:
- "Freemium" membership (only allows full access during school hours for students)
- Not all books have the "read-aloud" feature
- Each student must have their own device in school for the program to be the most effective
Alternate Technologies:
Works Cited:
Epic! Creations. “Epic Books.” Epic, https://www.getepic.com/.
“Epic! - Kids' Books and Videos Review for Teachers.” Common Sense Education, https://www.commonsense.org/education/reviews/epic-kids-books-and-videos.
“NCTE / IRA Standards for the English Language Arts.” NCTE, 17 Oct. 2017, https://ncte.org/resources/standards/ncte-ira-standards-for-the-english-language-arts/.
Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/.
“We Are Iste.” ISTE, https://www.iste.org/.
Credits:
Created with images by dglimages - "Computer Lesson At School" • WavebreakmediaMicro - "Teacher giving lesson to her students with technology" • Idanupong - "group of preschool kindergarten are in class, cheerfully in the subject teaching by the teacher" • Drazen - "Elementary students writing dictation during class in the classroom." • tirachard - "Row of multiethnic elementary students reading book in classroom. Vintage effect style pictures."