eBooks and Games Journal Entry

The sign-up for this was very easy. Everything seemed pretty straightforward to me. The book? Was awful. I tried taking notes about my thoughts on everything, and it just wound up being a rant about everything that I thought was wrong with it. However, rather than ranting here, I will try to focus and talk about things besides plot that I liked and disliked.

Likes: It seems like a good way to engage with kids about the material they are reading. To a degree, you get this with AR (that's a whole different rant), but at least this one is taken while reading. So for children who don't have the best reading comprehension or memory, they can refer to the book right then. Also - the fact that they have to type in an answer is better as far as comprehension goes (to me). Multiple choice is fine, and I understand the *best* answer is the one that's right, but this keeps kids from choosing the wrong answer (that is still a really good one), and shows what they actually know/can infer. I also liked that vocabulary words were highlighted, and you could click on it for the definition.

Dislikes: For the first highlighted word, terraformed, there was no definition given. Also - I felt like there were a lot more words that probably should have been highlighted and defined, depending on the intended audience. I don't know if it was the style of writing or if it was for the sake of keeping the preview brief, but it felt like I kept missing pages. I would check the page numbers, and it would be correct - it just felt like there were paragraphs taken out.

There were some features I wasn't sure about - and I don't know if I had access to them. I saw the avatar and was able to change it. But there were the silver and gold coins next to the avatar that I have *no* idea what those had to do with anything. Points for finishing a book? For right answers?

Overall, I could see this being a great tool for teachers, and I imagine students would like it too. After reading the preview book though, I would want to know that the books on that platform were of a much higher quality than that book. If there weren't books by well-known authors or publishers, then I would need an extended preview of their library to see what the quality of the other books is like, and if I wanted to invest money into that system.