Title: Storybook Weaver Deluxe
Overall Rating:
B-
Source: The Learning Company
Playing Time: At least an hour or more.
This depends on if the students is reading or composing a story.
Date: 9/19/98
Cost: $ 14.95 http://cd-rom-guide.
com/cdprod1/cdhrec/004/271.shtml
Number of Players: One
Special Equipment/Facilities Needed: CD
Rom, This can be used with either a Macintosh or with Windows on another
computer.
Subject Area: English or Spanish
Objectives: This program is designed to
help students in their writing and reading skills of a given language.
Brief Description: This program is designed
to let children ages 6-12 be creative with writing their own stories.
The children may also choose to read a story that is already established
in the program.
Entry Capabilities Required: The student
need to be able to read, work a mouse, andoperate a keyboard.
Rating: (1-5)
Relevance to objectives: 5 It does what
it sets out to do.
Provides practice of relevant skills:
3 There is an practice writing here, but without teacher assistance, the
students woud not know if they are doing anything correctly or not.
Likely to arouse/maintain interest: 4
The ability of this program would greatly vary depending on the students'
interest in learning and the teacher's enthusiasm.
Likely to be comprehended clearly: 5 Since
this would normally be used in the student's native language and has many
pictures, they should not have any problems understanding it.
Technical quality (durable, attractive):
5 The technical quality is one of the best elements of the program.
Game: Winning dependent on player actions (rather
than chance): This category is not applicable
because there is no winning or losing involved in this program.
Simulation: Validity of game model (realistic,
accurate depiction): 4
For the items that are real, there is a fairly realistic depiction.
There are also some fictional characters involved and they look nice as
well.
Evidence of effectiveness (e.g. field-test
results):
1 I was unable to find any evidence of field test results for this program
as well.
Clear directions for play: 1 This program
was very hard to load into the computer. There was only a simple
change that needed to be made, but the average computer user....especially
a child would not have been able to figure this out. The color has
to be changed from the normal amount to 256 colors.
Effectiveness of debriefing:
1
There
isn't a debriefing since this is not exactly a game. Nothing can
really be learned from this program unless there is teacher assistance
involved in the process.
Strong Points:
The technical quality and sound effects are about the only strong points
involved in this program.
Weak Points:
It does not teach the student anything. There is too much of a
requirement
for teacher assidtance for this program to be truly useful.
Reviewer: Dawn Cross
Position: Student
Date: 9/19/98
Computer System Reviewed on: Macintosh
PowerPC 6500/250, 32mb ram.