Monday 10 June 2013

Motherboard Books, Lets make a web page - TOS review


Phyllis Wheeler is the Computer lady behind Motherboard Books where she has created a number of products all designed to teach kids real computing skills. Her aim is to encourage computer literacy in every homeschool.

I was offered the opportunity to review Let's make a web page which is a project based ebook that makes building a web page simple and engaging. It introduces your child to programming in a fun way and encourages basic skills including how to add sounds and animations.


Once I had downloaded the ebook I printed it out for ease of use, I thought it would be simpler for the Lilly and Sunflower (8 & 10) to have paper instructions rather than looking at a split screen, however I think older children would be fine looking at a split screen.

I next used their link to download a free 30 day trail of the Coffeecup software (a drag and drop software compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and later (not Mac)) which took about 15 mins and we were ready to start.
The concept behind Let's make a web page, is to interview someone and design a web page about them - the girls decided to do a mock interview of Thomasina (our chicken) about hatching and raising her chicks. They came up with some questions and researched what they thought her answers would be as well as taking photos to use on the web page.
Once that was done it was time to jump on the computer and get to work.


I did expect to have a lot of involvement in this but was pleasantly surprised to find the girls could do most of it without me : )

I loved her style of writing and we found the explanations simple and easy to follow. I liked that she imparted some Internet wisdom throughout the ebook (safe online navigation and explaining the proper use of other’s work etc.) 

The girls had great fun with this and I am sure they will be making many more web pages over the next few weeks.


Let's make a web page is aimed at 8-12 year olds and is available for $19.95.

You can see what my crew mates thought about this and other Motherboard products over at the TOS blog.





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