First commenter wins a Playaway audiobook!

Happy end of the school year! To help you celebrate, we are giving away a FREE Recorded Books Playaway audiobook and matching print book to the very first person to leave a comment for this post! Just leave us your email, and we’ll contact you. In the post, let us know what title you’d like to have on Playaway and how you plan to use it in your classroom. Choose from our unparalleled K-12 collection of Recorded Books on Playaway.

Pairing Recorded Books Playaways with print books is a great way to motivate readers. Jennifer Cord and Laurie McGrath of White Marsh Elementary have told us that their students love checking out the Playaways and even take them to listen and read at home.

And even if you’re too late to win, still let us know what you like about audiobooks and Playaways from Recorded Books! We are always looking for motivated educators to feature, and we hope you continue to check back with us for great new ideas over the summer. Try subscribing to our RSS feed for updates.

Also - please note that today, as of 1pm (EST), downloads of Joyful Noise have been disabled. But you can still listen/play the audio from online! Scroll down or click on the “Free Audiobook Lesson Guides” category in the sidebar for access to the guides and audio.

Contest Rules and Regulations

Win audiobooks for your school!

We are excited to announce the start of two contests that could win your school free audiobooks! Details and entry forms for both contests appear in our Spring 2008 catalog, but we encourage you to enter via the banners on this blog. We want to hear your innovative ideas!

CONTEST 1: When teachers and librarians collaborate, good things happen!
We want to hear your best idea for teacher/librarian collaboration using audiobooks. We know that when teachers and librarians work together, they are a powerful and inspiring team for students. Do you work together to explore a certain book or certain theme? Does the library help expand on ideas learned in the classroom? Perhaps a history teacher will collaborate with the librarian on a project about slavery instead of a
particular book, or a drama teacher might go after acting skills. Let us know how you work together, and you could win a free custom Recorded Books collection consisting of 10 Recorded Books on CD or cassette plus matching print books, plus 2 Recorded Books on Playaway with matching print books. Enter here or click on the red banner.

CONTEST 2: Guest host a Recorded Books teaching blog!
Do you have a good lesson that incorporates audio? Share it with other educators! We’ll give you the audio and print book needed for your lesson. Send us your lesson plan here (or click on the blue banner) for introducing an author or theme, or just getting students interested in reading. We’ll post your lesson plans and material for other educators to use on our blog—we’ll even include the downloadable audiobook!

We know that educators who use audiobooks are innovators, so show us your stuff! Send in entries for both contests by May 1, 2008 June 30, 2008 for your chance to win!

Also, check out this EdNews interview with Recorded Books’ school marketing manager for her perspective on why audiobook support is great and how educators can use it.