I have chosen to review Audible, an audiobook service which has a wide range of texts that you can choose from. This service gives the user one free audiobook in a 30-day free trial, after that paying $16.45 per month and gaining one Audible credit each month which can then be used to purchase audiobooks. These audiobooks can be re-listened to, as much as the user desires once the purchase is made. The user can download an Audible original book for free each month without impacting on the credits accrued and the user can also purchase an audiobook using a credit card as well as purchasing more Audible credits. The user keeps the audiobook within their library, regardless of whether they continue to use the service or not. Users can return the audiobooks that they are not happy with, however, I did not look in-depth into this function of the service. Users can also review the audiobooks and in the case of the one I chose to listen to, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban written by J.K. Rowling has 4.9/5 stars with 2, 907 ratings as of 20th of August 2019. The user can also listen to the audiobooks across their mobile apps as well as through their website and the speed at which the audiobook is listened to can be changed up to 3x the normal pace.
While listening to the audiobook, I was able to bookmark where I was on my laptop and then resume listening from that point on my Android mobile phone. While Apple does have its own book store and the ability to purchase audiobooks off that platform, it is difficult to use those Apple-purchased audiobooks on an Android mobile phone. However, Audible is a standalone app, available on iOS, Android and Windows devices and therefore makes moving between devices easy and simple.
Within the curriculum, Audible could be used as a resource for English texts or for accessing non-fiction texts for research purposes in other subject areas. During practicums, I had students studying Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in a Year Eight or Year Nine class so this text, in particular, could be chosen as a classroom text but it is also commonly found in school libraries as a popular choice for pleasure reading. I chose to look at this book in particular as I could then focus on Audible as a whole rather than doing an in-depth text analysis of an audiobook.
I found that listening to the book fairly soothing, however, it was easy for me to zone out and stop paying attention to the text. Whether that be because of my own tendency to listen to music while studying, or whether it is because I treated it as ‘background noise’ or my own knowledge of the text having read it numerous times prior; I am unsure. If students like having music or some form of ‘background noise’ while studying, audiobooks could pose a problem within a class as they may not pay proper attention to what is occurring and thus not being able to analyse the texts adequately. Going along with this, playing an audiobook aloud in class could be beneficial as the narrator could provide additional points to focus on due to tone or inflections on certain sentences or words. However, like listening to an audiobook on your own, it can be easy for students to zone out and stop paying attention to the text and this impact can be doubled when in a class with peers. Listening to an audiobook (especially one that is an original) for research can be difficult because of referencing the content in assignments. When using audiobooks for pleasure reading, it can be jarring hearing another persons interpretation of series or book specific words considering what we interpret them to be when reading from a physical book or e-book.
When looking at using audiobooks for students with learning disabilities or specific needs, they can be beneficial but as with any student, there is still a risk of how much they are absorbing from the text. Audiobooks can be beneficial for students with speaking or general literacy skills as it gives them a different resource that they can use; especially as they could potentially repeat what the narrator says. Audiobooks can also provide access to the written word that they would otherwise be excluded from.
Overall, would Audible and audiobooks be beneficial within a classroom or as a resource in a school library? Ultimately it would come back to demand within the school, if there is enough demand for it, it could become feasible within the long term. Short term though, there would be a costly monetary outlay as many schools could not justify purchasing one book a month with the Audible credits that are provided as part of the purchase. Could it be beneficial for classroom teachers to have as a resource that they could play within the class when needed and use on a ‘case-by-case’ basis? Definitely. As for me, I would use Audible within a classroom setting as needed but on a whole, I would encourage e-books or physical books in the first instance. On a personal level, I am sticking with my physical books for pleasure reading.