Hello everyone thank you so much for joining us for today's thirty minute session Sora essentials the reader experience
We're so glad to be here with all of you today
To start us off my name is Lisa and a member of the training team here at OverDrive
And I am joined today by my fabulous colleague Gabby who will be in the background responding to anything that comes in through the Q&A so be sure to get your questions in there
Thanks for being here today Gabby
Let's take a brief overview of what we're going to cover today we're going to start by introducing Sora including what it is and how to sign in
Then will provide a live walk through a finding and borrowing a title in Sora we'll highlight some exciting features that are available in the app and then before we wrap up we'll talk a bit about some resources and next steps to help you on your Sora journey
Before we move on I'd love to do a quick poll this will help us gauge everyone's current understanding of Sora so I'm going to go ahead and launch that poll for us now
Okay for our poll let us know on a scale of one to five how familiar are you with Sora one being a not sure what Sora is to five being I used Sora often
So if you're seeing that poll popping up on your screen
Take a moment and select the option that best represents your experience
To let this go for just about
Ten more seconds
And I'll close it in five
Four
There
Two
And one
Fantastic we have representation all across the board here ranging from not sure what Sora is yet to all way to some of us using it often and it looks like the majority of us are
Right in that middle there we signed in once or twice we have some knowledge which is wonderful thank you so much for participating
So we're going to start with the basics what Sora
Sora is a student reading app and it's been designed specifically for K12 schools the Sora provides students with one tap access to ebooks audiobooks read alongs and more from your school's digital library and you can sign into Sora on virtually any advice twenty four hours a day
To get started
Simply download Sora from the Apple app store or Google Play store
Or you can visit soraapp.com to you Sora in your web browser
No matter how you access Sora the experience is the same across devices
And your titles will sync between them
Making it easy to pick up where you left off the next time that you sign in
And students and educators
Have access to all of the same great features within the app
Now when getting to know Sora you might hear mention of OverDrive or Marketplace
OverDrive is the name of our company it's leading distributor of digital ebooks and audiobooks for libraries and schools worldwide
As we just learned Sora is the student reading app
Students and staff can login to Sora to browse borrow and enjoy digital titles
OverDrive Marketplace is a shopping and administrative portal that's for staff only
This is the back and educator experience where you can purchase assign titles and curate collections for Sora
Our session today will focus on that reader experience in Sora if you are interested in purchasing or assigning titles
Please check out our Marketplace Essentials webinar which is also available on demand
To get started you'll open your Sora of or visit soraapp.com in your web browser
And signing in starts with finding your school or district's digital collection
And you can choose the method that works best for you and your students
Such as searching
Entering a set up code
Or following a direct link
Once you found your school sign in page you'll be prompted to sign into Sora with your school credentials
With Sora there's no new credentials to learn you're using what you're already familiar with
Typically these are going to be the same credentials students are already using to log in at school
You might need to choose your school name from a list
Or you may be taken to a separate page to finish signing into Sora
So please reach out to your Account Manager with any questions you may have on your specific login process
Or submit your questions in the Q&A and we'll help connect you
Okay so now that we've reviewed how to access and sign into Sora we're gonna dive into our live demo and remember you will receive a recording of this session for your reference
I've signed into Sora on my life browser and I'm going to turn off my video camera just for this portion
As I do have it
On a separate monitor
There we go
Now you heard me just mention that I login on my web browser before we begin I want to point out that the experience is the same no matter what device you use to access Sora so you and your students have access to all of the same great features in the app
I'd like to bring your eyes to the bottom of the screen
And we see that Sora is laid out in four main tabs
Home
Explore
Shelf
And Me
Wie'll begin here on the explore tab
Because this is where your school's digital library lives
So we could choose to
Browse through collections that we see
We can even search for a title
Using this search
Feature up at the top of the screen
That
And today I think I'm going to search for its title
I've heard out and have not yet had a chance to really explore
Red Queen
I'm going to
Tap enter to complete my search
Okay and now I'm seen my results
And right away I can see that some titles here are an ebook format
I also have that audiobook format available for me as well and I can tell right away by that headphone icon
Let's start with
The ebook
Now I could
Sorry before I do that
I could borrow right away from my search results here
But I'm gonna choose to tap on my
Jacket cover just show a bit more information on the title details page
So here
We are seeing
A brief synopsis of the book
You can even share a link
To a specific title or even a collection of books to help guide student discovery in the app so I could copy and paste this link for students to access
Now I'm want to choose to borrow this title today
If all of the copies were currently in use I would simply be prompted to place a hold
I'm going to borrow
One tap my book opens and because I am connected to wifi it's downloading in the background for me and
I forgot that I actually did open this book
You see I didn't get very far
But Sora remember that I did so it opened right back till where I left off
Let's take a look here going to tap in this center
To dismiss that
The controls along the bottom
First as look at simply turning pages
I am clicking or tapping
On the right side to move forward
And then on the left side to go backwards
Turn back pages
There's many different ways that I can actually interact with my text
One of these ways is going to be to define a word I'm looking on having vocabulary words I can actually go ahead and
Let's say smirks I'm going to tap and hold until I see the blue
Release
And I can choose define
So now an in-app dictionary pops up for me and I've increased my reading comprehension without having have extra resources available
Now
I'd like to show one more
Feature that you might have noticed
I'm going to
Just highlight
This sentence
This is new to Sora this read to me feature
Be tap on this for a second
(article narrator) Sometimes I forget you have the legs of a child (article narrator ends)
So you can have
Sentences or words read for you and this is great for
Working on pronunciation of words as well
So very neat
Now you might have noticed when I was turning the pages
You may have seen a yellow highlight
And
We can actually highlight text that is in
Our
We can actually highlight the text
We want to take a note for example
I'm going to tap and hold I'm going to highlight a little bit
Now I'm going to choose a color if I wanted a different color I'm gonna go with yellow today
And
Save
And there we go
I'm going to tap in the center you see where I've now added some highlights
A way to interact with my text
One more great way to interact with my text is to adjust my reading settings and provide my optimal reading experience
We're going to focus on this letter A today
For appearance and here you'll see that I can adjust my text scale
Larger or smaller I can even toggle on accessibility sizes
Providing a large print book for example if I needed to
I can adjust my lighting scheme
And I can adjust my book design
The book design or font
I can scroll through and just find something that is comfortable
For my eyes to look at
Just give these a quick
Reset here
There we go
I'll simply tap on hide
And I'm ready to continue
Let's move now
Onto an audiobook so to get out of this I'm simply going to tap on close
I'm going to tap back one more time I had mentioned we can see there was audiobooks available to me as well so go ahead and open an audiobook
Stick with the same title this time I'm going to do the audiobook version
I'm going to borrow it
Okay and right away you're seeing some differences I've got a play button here instead of my
Which I did not have on the ebook I should say
And I'm going to
Be pressing play for just a second so that you can hear
(Music) (article narrator) Harper (article narrator ends)
So audiobooks fully narrated lots of them have great musical scores in the background as you just heard
The simple one tap to play one tap to pause I could also move forward and backward
In fifteen second increments
And at the top just like the book I have my controls and what would like to focus on today is just the narration speed the little speaker icon that can really slow down or speed up my narration
Little bit back to normal maybe I'm wanting to comprehend something a little bit more or I want to hear pronunciation I need to hear it slowed down lots of different ways to incorporate this great feature
Again I'll just simply tap on hide
And I am going to now close this book
I do want to mention that just like with the ebook that audiobook because I'm connected to wifi it was downloading in the background and it's all set for me to take offline and enjoy
I'd like to now move to our shelf
Icon
So
You'll see here we're on explore
Going to move now to shelf
And here's where can find my borrowed titles
I can track any books that I might have placed on hold
So we see here that
I have
A title that is assigned to me I have titles that are self selected I can see when the titles are due as well as the progress that I've made within the titles
Take a look at holds
I don't have any holds right now
So here's where I would see all of my holds if I had any and the great thing is I would be notified right within my Sora app
By a little bringing bell icon if I have a hold that is ready so that I can choose to borrow it
I do want to take a jump back very briefly and on the home tab I spent to show you really neat new feature
Now I've got my assignments I have my self selected titles I see my recent notes and highlights and what a pause real quickly on these recently defined words
See this little icon here
Smirk
Agriculture
So I can hear those vocabulary words that I have defined I can hear them pronounced for me
It is a great new feature
The last place that I would like us to stop today is our main menu
And this is going to be in the upper right hand corner
And here I can
Adjust my app settings I can
Slow down a bit here I can get
Sora help
And I can sign out which is very important
If you're using a shared device
All right
With that
I am going to
Bring us back
Ok
Perfect
Advance at once
Okay
But there's more there's more to see you
We just walked through briefly how you and your students can find a book borrow begin reading or listening right in Sora
But
There's more
Sora has a game changing features to support you and your students whether you're reading a title for class or just for fun
When you create a note and highlight in Sora it's going to be stored in your account
Even after the book is returned
You can access your personal notes and highlights any time on the home tab
And here you can access your personal notes and highlights on the home tab and then you can export
To use your annotations outside of Sora
So once they're explored your notes and highlights can be saved or printed or shared so for example students my email their annotations to a teacher for a homework assignment
When you sign into Sora you'll be connected to your school's digital library
Did you know that you can also access your public library's digital collection in Sora?
With the add a library feature you and your students can borrow age appropriate titles from your local library's digital collection and expanding your access to high quality digital books
Now the first time that you go to borrow or place a hold on a title from the public library you'll be prompted to sign in with your library card information
But Sora will remember you for next time
If your school has Public Library Connect
You won't need a library card
You and your students can sign into the public library
Using your school credentials
The same information that you use to first login to Sora
Now as we learned earlier digital books do return automatically and they return automatically on the due date in Sora
You can manage your loans at any time on the shelf tab
So options here include returning a title early reviewing it if it is due in three days or less and another student isn't waiting
Or marking a title as done
When you mark a title as done it gets added to your completed
Or done
List of titles on the shelf tab
You'll find under lists and marketing a title as done helps you earn those subjects specific achievements in Sora
On the me tab you'll find individual reading stats like your number of
Books opened total time read and as data can be filtered by date range or you can choose to see your stats for all time
Reading stats are private to each Sora user's account but they could be shared for example during a one on one meeting or with a screenshot
Access to personal reading stats can be an opportunity for students to self monitor or to even track their progress towards goals
In addition to tracking your stats you and your students can earn achievement badges for performing a variety of tasks in Sora
On the me tab
You'll see which badges you've already earned and which achievements you have yet to earn
Achievement badges really add a level of gamification to that sort of experience and can help students engage in the reading process
The first time that you sign in you learn your very first achievement the blast off badge
And now let's go ahead and wrap up with some next steps and some resources
There we go
This webinar is just the beginning of your Sora journey
I encourage you to take the next step by trying out Sora's features for yourself
And sharing them with a colleague or students
So we really encourage you to set aside a few minutes
After today's session to open up the app and try our five steps or a challenge
Which you see here
As you think ahead you might be wondering about how to spread the word about Sora to your colleague students or other members of your school community
The OverDrive resource center
Contains free resources for you to support you throughout your entire Sora journey
Can find promotional materials to spread the word classroom activities lesson plan ideas for implementation and training materials like how to videos to help everyone feel confident using Sora
Check back often because there's always something new to discover on the resource center
Our summer reading program Sora sweet reads
Kicked off this week on May thirteen
This no cost program will bring over one hundred free simultaneous use ebooks and select audiobooks to your students
So all sweet reads titles will be available in Sora from May thirteen
Until August twenty six
And I'm going to chat out a link here
We'll chat out a link
To have some more information on Sora sweet reads
I will get that link for you I want you thank you for joining us today for Sora Essentials I hope you found this session to be beneficial
We'd love to hear what you thought about today's webinar so we have a post webinar survey
Only take you a minute or two to complete and you can follow the link in chat to complete it now
Thank you Gabby for sharing that Sora sweet reads link for us
I appreciate it
And there goes our link for the
Feedback
But as a reminder you're going to receive an email in Zoom it's gonna come tomorrow about this same time it's going to have a link to this recorded session as well as a pdf of the presentation and a link to that survey in case you don't have time to get to it today
In about a week's time you're going to receive an optional self assessment to check your understanding and reflect upon your learning
This does conclude our presentation for today we're gonna so logged into the webinar a few minutes here just to make sure that we answer any final questions that you might have
We'd like to thank you once again for joining us for Sora Essentials
Happy reading everyone!
Bye