Currently, this very day, I am assembling my presentation for Wednesday, May 13th: "Content Service Subscriptions: Are They Worth It?" After I present on Wednesday, I'll see how well it went. If it went fine, then I'll probably propose this for the #NWeLearn2015 conference.
The services I'm reviewing/discussing are: ScribD, PCKT, Safari Online Library, and Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Plan to present and discuss their value in terms of personal reading, research, and then working with the classroom. Hopefully that will be interesting.
Some of this work has been funded by my division, the Division of Teacher Education, by paying for initial subscriptions to PCKT and to ScribD. I've used my professional development funds to continue paying for ScribD. Safari and Kindle have come out of my own pocket.
One image I rather like is this:
I'm using it to represent orientation to the initial presentation*.
What's interesting to me is that I've been using all these tools for so long that they have become integrated in my workflow. Trying to disentangle them is a bit of a challenge for me. Having said that, I know for a doubt that if I could keep only one tool, it would be ScribD.
In terms of classroom uses, I have not found much value from the services except for ScribD.
Personal pleasure: Kindle and ScribD.
Research resources: ScribD
Professional skills, development, and consulting work: Safari, PCKT
*[Please check out Vero Villa's other original works on Flckr.]