"The Fall" a Small Moment Example

We are inquiring into small moment stories now in the writer's workshop, and it just so happens that something happened to me that is a small moment. So I wrote about it.

Click the above image to access the book.

Using Book Creator to Convert a Paper Book to a Movie

*Another unfinished post I am just now publishing.

The Grade 1 teacher came to me with a project to digitize the books the students had written. Since our Grade 1 classes are on Seesaw, we decided it would be best to make them publishable to there. I have a natural inclination to movies vs books when it comes to student work, so Bookcreator was a natural fit because books can be exported as video files.

We did this project last year, so I knew it would be great. Last year I looked at this project through the lens of tech integration. This year, I was looking at it through the lens of the new ISTE Standards for Students. Specifically, under the standard for Creative Communicator, there is a substandard that reads:

Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.

Book Creator is an easy way for students to narrate a video. It also gives them the option of different sizes for their books.

Using BookCreator to publish stories

A photo posted by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 22, 2016 at 6:37pm PST

Students use Book Creator to make their books. When you publish them, you can publish directly to YouTube so the books become a video. Any voice annotations in the book will also be annotations in the video.

Publish to a Wider Audience

Recently a teacher asked me to look into different options for publishing ebooks.

Publishing digitally to an audience covers the 4 C's of 21st Century learning, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, and Communication. This project also covers a fifth C, choice. 

Critical Thinking

Collaboration

Creativity

Communication
Choice

My mind immediately came to the conclusion of an actual ebook, one with pages that turn. For that, I had the following ideas:

"Book" Options

PDF -

Saving as a PDF is the Swiss Army Knife of publishing since they can be opened on any device. Students could write their story in Google Docs and download their doc as a PDF.

Issuu -

Issuu allows you to make an animated version of your PDF where you can turn the pages. Students would do the above and upload the PDF to Issuu. Then embed the Issuu PDF in their blog.

iAuthor - 

Apple has a good tool with iAuthor. It is a little challenging and awkward for me, but I cannot argue with the beautiful results. I am thinking it would be interesting to make some sort of unit book using iAuthor.

Book Creator -

This summer (2017) Book Creator will come out with a web version of their app. Until then you need an iPad or Windows computer to use this great tool. Books created with Book Creator can be exported as a movie, so embedded movies and recordings will automatically play.

Google Slides - 

Google Slides is an extremely useful tool outside of presentations. In class, I use Google Slides for my own resume and have used Google Slides for students to publish infographics and ebooks.


Make yourself a copy of this resume

Other Options

Lucid Press

Lucid Press is the "Google version of MS Publisher". While not a product made by Google, it was created for the GSuite environment. I don't use it much, but it is very flexible.

GSuite Apps as Webpage

Google Docs, et. all has the ability to embed links. So, in theory, you can create a site with any Google product as long as visitors are available to view the content. In this case, I like to use Bit.ly to create a unique short URL.

Google Sites - 

Google Sites is pretty cool and the new version is very easy to use. One idea I would like to try is a site for a unit where each student has their own page to act as either a digital scrapbook or a summative project.

Book Creator Chat

Since I discovered it, I have spread the news about Book Creator to whoever will listen. So when I saw that Book Creator was looking for ambassadors, I thought I might as well have a title for what I am doing anyway.

Then late this spring the Book Creator team sent out an email asking for help with the chat series they were going to have over the summer. Thinking I would have nothing to do, I signed up for the chat on June 29th. But as the chat drew closer, things my schedule started getting tighter. I am staying with my in-laws this summer and in addition to the work to do around the house, I am volunteering at a local school and looking for a place to live for next year across the country.

I am glad I went through with it but there are a few things to watch out for when hosting a Twitter Chat.

• time differences - do you know the exact time the chat will happen?
• international collaboration - how engaged are you? do you have a plan?
• chat timing - what else is going on?
• questioning - do you have questions that will engage everyone joining?

See below for the full chat. Or click here if it is not showing up.