CESI 2022 Presentation

Examples of books made by teachers in Book Creator.

Teacher-created books

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Once you have set up an account for yourself you have a number of different options that you can turn on or off depending on what you want the children to be able to do. 

I usually allow them to have access to the image search and the ability to be able to edit their own books and read others but these can also be turned off depending on how you want to use your library.

I also have the option for the children to turn on collaboration but I tend to turn this off as I like to have control over this option myself. Once you've turned on the options you like you then name name your libraryand you're up and running.

The next step is to invite the children to join the library. Here you have a few options. You can choose to give a unique a QR code to the children 

which they can scan using the camera on the device they will be using or you can send them a direct link to the library. I also print off the QR codes in school. When we are using the iPads in school the

children scan the code using the camera and they can work on books they've created at home while they're in school.

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At the top of the page there are some sections like Discover where you can see some examples of books created by children from around the world in various class levels.

A new feature that has been added recently is Books to Remix and I'll  talk about this little later. If you scroll down here, 

there are some very helpful guide with lots of ideas for using book creator in the classroom and further

down or some other ideas for different subject areas. Also at the top are sections called Learn which has links to lots of different features. I just won't be able to go through them all here with you today. 

But when you get stuck on something the answer you're seeking is probably in here. A new section is Certification. This is a 1-hour guided training session that shows how to

do pretty much everything in Book Creator and probably far better than I can. When you have completed the course you can call yourself a Certified Author. I learned lots myself doing this. 

The section on Accessibility is particularly amazing. If you're using Book Creator at all, then I would highly recommend you take this. This could also be something you do with the children themselves. 

The Apps section has only been launched in the past few weeks.  This allows you to link to outside apps directly in Book Creator. For example if you're a user of Bitmoji or Canva you can now link directly through book creator. I will readily admit I'm only still

exploring some of these myself. The great thing here is that you can choose which ones you give the children access to. I currently have my class using the animated emojis and 3D model ones and

I can turn these on and off depending on what they get up to with them. Over the next few weeks I plan on introducing them to Canva. 

From a teacher viewpoint I know I have lots of resources stored in Google Drive. I can now allow access to this from my library which means I can access files, videos, forms and more directly from my drive.

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But it's when a child starts to create a project on something they are passionate about that Book Creator really comes alive. There are so many tools for them to use and rather than just creating another PowerPoint

or keynote they get to become authors of their own books which we can publish and share with the world. I currently have a dinosaur obsessed girl sharing her vast knowledge of the subject with us. 

I have a skateboard Fanatic with profound Dyslexia using the speech to text tool to create something he can be truly proud of. 

And not forgetting my birdwatcher whose knowledge of anything that flies is simply amazing. Best of all is that many of these projects will be used as teaching resources by me for many years to come. I love making resources

myself in Book Creator, but it is very handy having a small army of creators working for me too. 

I too love to create resources for the kids. I find a lot of the books they have

contain chapters that just don't tell them enough of the story on a particular topic. For years I created lots and lots of presentations but sharing them with the kids was difficult. Now I have

a library of books that I have created that I can use for years to come and edit and add to them as I want. Recently Book Creator added an Analytics tool, so I can now see how

many times and where in the world my books have been read. For the children this is a wonderful addition. Not only are they publishing their books and sharing them with the world but now they can also see that their

books really do have a worldwide audience.

I won't be able to go through all of the possible tools available in Book Creator, but I would like to highlight a few

that we use regularly and the easiest way to do that is to show you how we go about creating a book.

The first step is to go to the add new book option. There are a variety of different shapes to choose from here, but we tend to stick with the comic landscape option.

This gives us all of the options available in the standard landscape book but with a few other features that just make our books look better.

The first page is your cover and of course is a blank page.

To add something go to the + symbol in the top right hand. This is where most of the tools you will be using are found. The first option here is

to add an image. When I click on this I can see a search window. Below this is the option to add images you may have stored on your device. The search bar allows you to search for images using

a Creative Commons licence. I think this is a fantastic thing to teach children from a very young age.  When you have found the image you want to. Simply tap on the Add button

and the images are added to your page. You can move the image and resize it. The second option under the Plus button opens the camera on the device so if you want the children to add

videos of themselves speaking they would use this. Under this is the pen tool. There are the usual variety of different brushes, but the Autodraw one is one I want

to show you. Every class has a child that tells you they cannot draw.  Using this tool you start to draw what you want to add. Book Creator makes guesses as to what you

are trying to draw and offers suggestions at the top of the page. When you see the one you want you tap on it and it is added to your page. Even my badly drawn bicycle

is recognised. Next in the list is the text tool. The reason we choose the Comic option is that not only does it allow us to use the standard text tool but

it also allows us to create cool headings and captions. Once you have typed your text you have a few more options available. You will notice that there is a blue box around

the text. When something is highlighted and you click the "i" button next to the Plus button you get more options for whatever is within that box. For text we can

change the size of the text. There are lots and lots of different fonts to choose from too. I can also change the colour of the text. When an image is

selected you get options for that image. I particularly love the Hyperlink option. When I have a few more pages added to the book I'll show you how I use

this option. The next option is the record option and this allows you to record a narration or sound effect or music for your page. Once you've recorded yourself it places

a small icon that when pressed will play your recording. The kids particularly love recording themselves reading their books. 

"This is a T-Rex " When I go back up to the Plus button, you will see an option for shapes and this is another one of those new tools we love. Very often the children want to

add some images to their books, but can't find what they're looking for. You can see that there are some standard shapes here, but if you type in what you're looking for you will find loads more. We  have searched

for lots of different things and we've yet to fail finding an image. Again when the image is selected and you tap the "i" button you can change the colour and again the option to

create a hyperlink is shown. If you are very fussy about your colours you can even input the Hex Code for the colour you want. 

Again pressing the + button you will see at the bottom of the screen some options to add comic panels, speech bubbles, thought Bubbles and some cool stickers.  The Comic panels one

gives you lots of options but these can also be edited to suit your requirements. Tapping on a panel will bring up the image search option. I showed the

new apps option earlier in the presentation. I have Animated Emojis and 3D models one activated for my class but if you have others activated these will appear here. These

make for some fantastic additions to our books though a few of mine have gone a little crazy with the Emojis option. I've mentioned that when an image is selected the "i" button gives

you further options for these. If nothing on the page is selected you get options for the page itself. There are lots of options here to take that blank white look from your book including

some useful maths pages and lots of borders, patterns and designs. They really help to make the page come alive. I'm just going to add one

more page to show how I like to use the hyperlink option.I'll add one of the amazing 3D models we now have access to first and then head back to the first page.

Here I'm going to select the image of the T-Rex and tap the "i" button. If I add a website address here it means that if someone taps the image they will be taken to that site, but

if I add a page number it means that they would be taken to that page. I can also add a hyperlink to a text box and this is a great way to create a table of contents for your book.

When someone taps on the name of the Chapter they are taken to that chapter. I often add one of the shapes to the chapters too to bring the reader back to the contents page. You can't quite flip

through a digital book like you can a real book. So what do you do when you have your book finished? Back in the library there are some icons under the book that I'll run

through quickly for you. I have options here to import books. I often use this for importing a book I have created on my iPad to my online library. I can move books

between libraries if I have a few on the go. I can copy a book if I want to make a few changes to it, but still want to keep the original.  This is a great way for adapting books to suit

a particular class or even a child within a class. We use the combined option when the class create individual chapters, which we want to combine into a single book. To

the right of these options is the one to publish your book online. There are also options here to download the book, print the book and the option to turn on collaboration.

Publishing is very simple. You simply tap the publish button and add a name for your book and maybe a brief description.You can have the book public or private. You can also choose to allow

remixes of the book which I showed earlier. Then you just tap publish and copy the link to share with whoever you want.

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So, I know I’ve run through these features very quickly but I would highly recommend taking the one hour Guided Training session. I believe there will be a second set of training videos available in the future showcasing some of the newer features.

As I said at the beginning Book Creator is  the one resource I’ve found that has consistently adapted without getting overly complicated. And if we’ve learnt anything from the past few years it’s that

we all want our technology options to just work for us without requiring vast amounts of I.T. knowledge.

So that’s my overview of how we have been using Book Creator Online in my classroom. Like I’ve said a few times there are just too many features to go through. One I haven’t mentioned are the captions on each of the videos which were all generated within Book Creator Online.

Earning your Certified Author Badge will teach you many of these tricks. The rest you will find by simply exploring all of the options available and the kids will find most of these for you. I have always been blown away by how children use Book Creator and I am sure you will too.

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When the children first access the library they are asked to pick an avatar for themselves. To help the children get started 

I usually have a book ready in the library that talks them through the steps

involved in creating a book. So the first thing I ask the class to do is to go through my book which introduces them to all of the tools that are available, 

though most have no problem exploring these tools themselves.

Once the children have looked through my book they are ready to create a book and start adding the content they want. This year I have given the children a lot of freedom to simply use

Book Creator to create projects of their own. I'll go through some of the different tools in a while and show you some examples of their work, 

but I just want to highlight a few other features you can access from within the teacher dashboard that are very useful.

While the children are working on books of their own I can also add books where they can collaborate together. 

For example if some of the children come to me with an idea for a group project I can set the book up

so the only members of that group can work on that particular book or I can have the whole class work on a project together 

and we love doing this. We recently created collaborative books

where the children created personal crests for themselves. We've also created a book where we shared our favourite music with the children's parents

 in a few weeks time we hope to turn the tables and have the parents share their favourite pieces of music with us

 and I'm really hoping that the parents have better taste in music than their children. We also used one of the tools within Book Creator to create this

book about what they would like to be when they grow up.

My name is Cormac Cahill and I’m a teacher at Carrigaline Educate Together National School in Cork. Today I’m talking about Book Creator Online. Over the past 10 years I have been a huge fan of the app version for the Apple iPad 

and it’s something I have been using in my classroom on a regular basis. But like so many other things over the past few years, the various Lockdowns brought about some changes to the way I used it

 including creating this presentation which is actually a book created using Book creator Online.

I’ve lost count of the number of apps I have downloaded over the years only to use them for a short while and then move on and forget about them. Book Creator is the one app I keep returning to year after year in my classroom. 

The simple reason being that it is one of the few apps that lets me create something useful to use in my classroom. It’s also the one app that lets the children in my class create things that they too can be proud of. 

And it’s the one app that has consistently adapted and added to the features available within it while never getting too complicated.

But for the most part I have been using the iPad version despite there also being an online version for the past few years. While I used the online version myself at home to create resources I stuck with the iPad version at school simply because we had iPads to hand.

We had been really enjoying Book Creator in the class and then along came Lockdown and I was forced into a rethink. Using the Book Creator app was not going to be a runner as many of the children

would not have access to an iPad at home. So that first week of lockdown I rolled up my sleeves and got the kids set up on the Book Creator Online site.

Thankfully the online version is very much designed to look and act like the iPad version but with the added bonus that all of the children could access it from home using different devices. 

It also has the added bonus of having some extra features not available on the iPad version. And in the past few weeks there have been even more amazing features added which I will go into a little later in the presentation.

Joining is Free but there are also paid for versions depending on what and how much you are planning to do with it.

This is the Book Creator Book version of the presentation I made at the CESI 2022 Conference on using book Creator Online.

Because the session was limited in time I know I have run through the details of this wonderful resource very quickly.   Being from Cork meant I probably spoke even faster.

I'm currently working on a version of this book where I will go through all of the tools in a little more detail (and a lot more slowly). It will probably be at some stage over the summer but I will post the links on Twitter once it is completed.

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When a book is finished, we can choose to publish the book online. This generates a  link which we can share with the parents or with the wider world. You can also choose to make the book publicly visible so

that it appears in a Google search. You can also allow the children to publish the book themselves but I prefer to have control over this feature and wait until they have completed the book.

Another recent addition is the ability to be able to Remix books. If someone has enabled this on a book they have published online then I can download this book and edit it. This is a wonderful addition saving

me lots of time. If I find a book I like and I think it would benefit my class I can download it to my library and edit it to suit my own particular class and with the amount of

books been regularly published to Book Creator your bound to find one that will help you get started. While I have always loved that Book Creator is essentially a blank canvas they

have recently added some handy templates that can be downloaded as well. I love making books but I'm probably not the most design conscious person. Having a template I can edit and adapt has made some of my

books look a lot more professional. For the time being I'm keeping this one a secret from my own gang so they can develop their own books from scratch, but eventually I will let them in on the secret.

For the time being I enjoy the oohs and aaahs from the children as they marvel at my wonderful design and presentation skills.

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