Recently, I attended an open house event for OHDELA (Ohio Distance and Electronic Learning Academy), along with a few colleagues. At the event, parents and students met their teachers, learned about a variety of academic resources offered by the school, and also participated in a “scavenger hunt” for OHDELA’s OverDrive digital library. Students that completed the interactive worksheet, along with other activities at the open house, were entered to win a Kindle eReader.

eBook-ExplorationSince OHDELA supports students in grades K-12, OverDrive provided 3 levels of the “scavenger hunt” handout, each with age-appropriate activities designed to lead a student from signing into the digital library, to browsing/searching, and then borrowing and reading a title in OverDrive Read’s browser-based format.

Circulation jumped over 500% from the previous month after their event and usage of the digital library has continued to show steady growth. Some other event highlights include:

• Teachers showing students how to search for content by his or her Lexile level.
• Parents discovering the wide variety of digital content available through OverDrive from OHDELA.
• Students browsing through OverDrive Read eBooks and learning how to highlight, take notes, and use the dictionary.

OHDELA used OverDrive’s Simple Login to allow a group of students to log in to their School Digital Library and access OverDrive Read eBooks using one easy to remember User ID. Titles borrowed with a Simple Login are returned after 2 hours, thus making it the perfect resource for open house events, training, or short-term usage of digital content in the classroom.

You can host an event like this, too! eBook Exploration handouts are now available to download in the Marketing & Outreach section of the Partner Portal. Look for this new activity idea in the Best of K-12 Marketing Materials folder and under Programming & Events.

Are you interested in learning more about OverDrive Simple Login for your school? Check out the OverDrive Simple Login PDF in the “Best of K-12 Marketing Materials” folder and contact your Account Specialist today for more information.

Melissa Higey is an Account Specialist on the School Partner Services team at OverDrive.