In this example, the Autodraw feature in the Pen tool lets users choose a pre-designed illustration for their page.

5. Introduce Illustrations 

Students have a wide variety of ways to express their learning throughout the school year. Beyond traditional writing, they can use drawings or annotated images to demonstrate understanding. Just like with audio or video responses, drawings can offer valuable insights into a student's comprehension and areas where they might need additional support.

To introduce illustrations to students, show them the options in Book Creator. They can choose the type of pen they want to use along with the color of their choice. You may want students to draw a picture that represents an idea in order to demonstrate their learning. Or you may want students to snap a picture or upload a picture that they will annotate with the pen tool.

Although you may want students to draw freehand, when you introduce illustrations to students you may want to point out the AutoDraw tool. AutoDraw is built into Book Creator. It looks at what you have drawn and suggests a piece of clip art that relates to your sketch. For students who are adding illustrations to a page, this can give them a boost of confidence.

A Quick Tip

Students and teachers can use emojis on their keyboard or the emoji tool built into the Pen tool in Book Creator.

Emojis are perfect for expressing ideas and can be a valuable part of your formative assessment routine. Students can use emojis to share how they feel about a new strategy or concept, giving you insights to inform your instruction. Should you review an idea or move on to the next lesson? Student emoji responses can help you decide.

Emojis aren't just for students! They can also be useful in teacher feedback. Add an emoji to represent a specific action item within your feedback.

For example, if you ask students to reread a passage, you could include a book emoji or a swirl to reinforce the suggestion. Both you and your students can access emojis from your device's keyboard or directly through the pen tool in Book Creator.

6. Make the Most of Emojis

A Quick Tip

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7. Graphic Organizers

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Book Creator now gives educators access to graphic organizers. You can add access to graphic organizers as an app and direct students to add a page to their book. With over 100 graphic organizers to choose from, you can pick one that helps you track student understanding throughout a lesson on a wide variety of subject areas. 

Graphic organizers help students represent their thinking and give you a picture into how well they understand a new concept and where they might need support. Students can customize their graphic organizers within Book Creator using a variety of tools. They might add emojis, drawings, audio recordings, or use voice-to-text to populate their organizers. This flexibility supports diverse learners and allows them to express their understanding in the way that works best for them.

Even in classrooms with limited technology, you can still leverage the power of graphic organizers. Encourage students to complete them using paper and pencil on "low tech" days, and then simply snap pictures to add them to their ebooks. This creates a seamless record of their learning journey.

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A Quick Tip

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Students can take a screenshots, photos or use images from other apps, and add them to their books in Book Creator.

8. Integrate Favorite Tools

Book Creator is the perfect space to collect student work all in one spot. Students can easily integrate content created in other apps or websites. For example, if they use a graphic design tool like Adobe Express or Canva, they can save their collages as JPG or PNG files and directly upload them to their Book Creator pages.

Beyond images, students can also import video and audio files created with other tools, and even hyperlink text to external websites. This versatility makes Book Creator ideal for creating digital journals that showcase work from various sources. 

As you review the files or links students add to a page you can utilize the feedback tools in Book Creator and see all of their work in one place.

A Quick Tip

Students can add a transcript to any of the audio they add to their page, including recordings added to a graphic organizer.

There are so many reasons why you might want to have your students utilize the transcription and captioning options inside of Book Creator. These accessibility features are powerful and make it easier for all students to interact with ebooks as both consumers and creators. As a teacher who is reviewing student work, the use of transcripts and captions can help you efficiently review student submissions. Adding transcripts to audio recordings is simple. Students tap the Inspector button, select "Add transcript," indicate the language, and the transcript is automatically generated. They can then edit or refine the transcript as needed. Captioning videos follows a similar process. You might consider asking students to add captions and transcripts to all multimedia elements within their Book Creator projects.

In terms of formative assessment, having a transcript or captions to review can make your routine of reviewing student work quicker and more efficient. Although you might press play on student audio recordings, you can also read the transcript to monitor their progress. And if you are in a noisy environment where you review student work, having the captions for a video will ensure that you don’t miss anything a student shares.

9. Transcripts & Captions

A Quick Tip

My Science Project

Students can use the Canva app to design a cover for their progress portfolios.