eBook experience - "B"

For our computers in education course, we had an assignment to observe a student reading/listening to an eBook on the Tumblebooks website. I have three younger sisters, so it was easy to have my youngest sister, Jaclyn be my student. I chose two books for her to read; Bintou’s Braids and Wild League on Ice. She read the eBooks on the automatic mode, which means the computer does all of the reading and changes pages on its own. There is also a manual mode, where the reader can move at his/her own pace. Jaclyn did stop two times to click on words that she didn’t know. The eBook program sounded out and repeated the word for her. After she was done I asked her what she thought of the eBooks. She thought it was a fun website and said that Miss Miller (her teacher) should use it during their center time.
I thought that the whole eBook experience was great, because before I let Jaclyn read the books, I read them by myself. I thought the narrators spoke well and I enjoyed the animated transitions in the stories. I learned that eBooks is another way for young students to read, because it is a program that allows the students to work independently. I also recognized that eBooks would be a great tool for struggling ESOL students, because the eBooks allows the students to hear the words being read. There really weren’t any challenges in this experience, but I think that some of the books had too much animation, which might distract the readers from listening. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about Jaclyn being distracted, because the books I chose didn’t have lots of animation. After this eBook experience, I learned that I should research and explore the Internet for other useful programs. I was amazed that the Tumblebooks website had such a great variety of books. I also learned that I do value the opinions of younger students, because they are the ones using the technology.