First of all we decided to verify whether the pupils have indeed problems with reading school literature books and if yes, whether such solution as interactive book which would have more interactive content would be an interesting option for them at all.
Therefore, we made a questionnaire which was given to approx. 130 pupils. In the first part we asked them two questions:
1. What books you do not like to read - almost 90% of students pointed out obligatory school literature books.
2. If these books would be presented in interactive form, would this might encourage you to read the books - almost 100% pupils said "yes".
Consequently, we asked the pupils about the key elements / key features that would make the application interesting for them if they would use them to read the book "Around the world in eighty days". The result was that:
a) in general the kids expect to be more rewarded for the reading of the books. Consequently, they asked for implementing a reward system. The more popular propositions of the children was to give them after the end of each chapter:
a puzzle or apart of the map which will at the end create one picture,
virtual money that could be used to e.g. furnish the virtual house of Phileas Fogg,
wallpapers or other virtual elements which can be used to decorate tablet/computer.
We also asked whether it would be helpful for them if:
a) there will be a quiz at the end of the chapter to verify if they understood what they were reading - almost 100% yes,
b) the book includes questions / activities relating to different subjects - 90% yes,
c) the kids would like the teacher will supervise the reading process - 80% yes. This was a surprise for us:)
Bearing in mind the above, we have prepared some questions/quiz and rewards and we observed children's reactions. We asked the above mentioned 130 children to read first few chapters of the book and we asked the following questions:
1. What were the reasons that Phileas Fogg became the member of the "Reform Club". In the book it is written "Nobody knows". The children were supposed to give/invent their own reasons.
2. Plan the day of Phileas Fogg - in the book there are information what Mr Fogg is doing, at what part of the day, how much he sleeps etc.,
3. 50 thousand GBP was stolen from the bank of England. Calculate how much it is in PLN, knowing that the exchange rate is 5.58 GBP/PLN.
4. Write on the map the way that Mr Fogg travelled according to the information from the book.
5. After Mr Fogg left London, the newspapers wrote notes about him. Write the similar note.
For the successful answer the children received stamps or stickers with smiling faces in their notebooks.
The general result
a) The children were very interesting in solving the questions.
b) The children said that including such questions/activities made the book more interesting/absorbing/fun.
c) Rewarding was very successful - the children were very happy and they really wanted to received the next reward (in the book it would be after the end of the chapter).
d) During the whole review the children were very active and enjoyed the activities. It seemed they had a really good time.
e) To sum up they told us that because of all the additional material they are definitely more motivated to read the whole book. The book in such form is cool:)
At the same time, during the review, the children pointed out few additional elements that shall be in application:
a) extra tips if they have problems with questions,
b) different difficulty levels, because for some of the children the questions were too easy.
At the end we also wrote about the project of Inter-book on the blog:
http://mojebandyzsarabandy.blogspot.com/2014/11/inter-book.html
Children gave us propositions of some other questions, rewards, games etc.
To sum up in our opinion our riskiest assumption that "the students would read books if they were "more cool"/appealing/attractive to students, i.e. interactive, colorful, having some games, extra photos and extra interesting information" was validated positively.