OverDrive Education’s Sora app reached record highs in 2019, letting students anywhere read e-books and audiobooks from local public libraries as well as from their school’s digital collections. Additional tools enable teachers to help students improve comprehension while assisting in student accountability. All of these factors led to TIME Magazine awarding Sora a place among their 100 Best Inventions of 2019.
In order to make this list, Sora had to outscore other global TIME solicited nominations in key categories like originality, influence, ambition, and effectiveness. TIME’s assessment of Sora shows that it’s more than a simple reading app, allowing students to, “…make notes as they read, and share those notes with their teacher or classmates.” It also allows teachers to monitor how much time students spend reading, but most important it is inspiring students to read more books.
“Sora is fantastic for its ease of use, 24/7 accessibility, and option to seamlessly connect with public library collections,” said Beaverton School District (Oregon) District Librarian, Jenny Takeda. “With our district’s instructional mobile device program and the offline reading option, Sora enhances the choice reading component of our Language Arts curriculum and breaks down the walls of the physical library so all our students have access to current, engaging, and high-quality ebooks and audiobooks.”
The app also received the 2019 Academics’ Choice Smart Media Award, granting it worldwide recognition as a genuinely effective learning tool. All this recognition isn’t the first time Rakuten OverDrive, OverDrive Education’s parent company, made headlines. They’ve also received awards for their Libby app in 2018, with TIME selecting it among their Best iPhone and Android Apps for that year.
