Book Builder Reflection

Kelly Rodriguez, Carrie Allen, & Jodie Allex -

Experimenting with UDL Book Builder

The purpose of part 3 was to investigate the planning process for developing student-centered learning activities with technology. Each of us created an eBook using a free website available to teachers, parents, and students at http://bookbuilder.cast.org/ . Before we began creating our own books, Kelly looked at several eBooks that already been created to give us the direction that would most effectively get the information across to our students. Through the use of coaches, media, and reader prompts we were able to make my book more engaging.

The website itself was very easy to navigate through. The directions were clearly marked and through trial and error we had made our title page and the first content page. There were several template options to choose from which made creating your pages easy. Once we had finished those two pages the process became easier and we were each able to continue with ease. Adding and deleting text and pictures were stress-free because the buttons were clearly marked. Using the Google search colorful pictures were added to increase the effectiveness of the book. Having the space to add the source of the pictures made citing sources even easier.

The coach feature was the last thing added to some of our books. The characters and voices were fun and will add to the usefulness of this tool. You could hide the coach as well so students would have to read on their own if prompted to. Carrie had the coaches giving extra information so the advanced students could add to the depth of their knowledge.

Jodie discovered after she had already finished her book she could have enabled the student response area on each page and readers can write right into the book. Once all the students have finished the teacher would be able to click on the button that says “view my responses”and it would open a document where all the responses were collected. This would be a great way to ensure that all readers were actively participating and understanding the purpose of the lesson.

We can see great benefit to using eBooks in our classroom. There are numerous ways that it could be implemented into any classroom but having the students make their own eBooks would be a great learning and assessment tool that we would like to try. Having the students create their own electronic book would cover several technology standards.

This reflection was created through collaboration during Facetime and converted to text by Kelly Rodriguez.