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I like the workflow these authors used to create a student handout book for readers response.

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The 2 Techie Teachers share their insight into making digital interactive notebooks, which they claim has revolutionised workflow and engagement in their classroom.

If there is one digital tool that's become our go-to this school year, it's been Book Creator. Last summer we were researching ways to incorporate digital interactive notebooks into our literacy blocks. All of our research kept pointing us back to Book Creator!

@iPadTeachers In love with @BookCreatorApp Planning to use it for interactive notebooks this year!

- Tiffany (@MrsCoppleSES) June 30, 2014

Originally we relied upon graphic organizers as our sole source of material for these notebooks, but the ways in which they have evolved has been amazing. With traditional interactive notebooks, students create hands-on pieces that involve a lot of coloring, cutting, and gluing.

The purpose is that their work becomes not only three dimensional in look and feel, but that the learning itself goes deeper. That's exactly what we wanted to achieve with our digital versions. Simply annotating graphic organizers was not enough for us or our students.

As the year has progressed, we began to incorporate more and more into our weekly notebooks. Students often inspired these additions as well as discovery of new apps to utilize. Students are now including photographs, images, etc. from KidRex, recording video of themselves completing fluency tasks, photographing station work, incorporating ChatterKid images, and much more.
This is what a student page may look like before: Any time students can find or take real-time photos, it connects themselves to the text in a meaningful way.
So how do we build these interactive notebooks? How do the students receive them? How do we check their work?

Building the notebook

We choose to build our notebooks from our laptops using Keynote, but whatever you may use ( PowerPoint, Photoshop, etc.) will certainly work!

We build each slide using a variety of graphics that make the page pleasing to the student. Sometimes we choose to go full color, and other times we leave a little more white space for creation. This really depends on the project as well as the time limits we are working with!

Many of our pages are created from scratch at this point, but we also incorporate quality work we may find elsewhere such as Teachers Pay Teachers. Teaching is all about cheating, as they say... if someone has already done it well... why reinvent the wheel?

Each week we incorporate a variety of literacy tasks including, but not limited to:

Fluency (have students read a passage while recording themselves)

Comprehension (graphic organizers that utilize photographs, drawings, text, etc.)

Vocabulary

Text-to-self / world connections

Station work

Once we have built the slides we want to add to their digital notebooks, we export the slides as images.

This is easily done by going to File then Export to... Select Images. This will prompt you to save your images.

In order to begin the next step, you will need to save your image files to a storage system easily accessible on your iPad. We like Google Drive, but you may also like other cloud-based apps like Dropbox.

You will need to open and save these image files to your Camera Roll on your iPad before beginning the next step.

Building the Book Creator book

1. From your iPad, open the Book Creator app and select New Book.

2. We prefer the Landscape format as it seems to fit our Keynote slide images perfectly.

3. From here, creation is easy. On each page, click the + sign and choose camera roll. Select the image you would like the students to work on for each page of their notebook.

4. Resizing is easily accomplished by dragging one corner of the image to fit the screen.

Once you have added all of your images, you are ready to share the book with your students!

Workflow

Tap the "share box" (as we call it - the box with the arrow shooting out of the top) to export.

You should see what you typically use to share, expedite, or "push" files to students. Again, we use eBackpack. Note that iBooks is an option. This is great if you ever want students to publish their work for parents or beyond!

Book Creator will automatically save your creation as an .epub file. Note that size may become an issue if you have loaded your ebook with video files. Sometimes we incorporate learning videos from BrainPop or other sources for students to view.

Students will open the file from your workflow app of choice (Google Drive, eBackpack, etc.) directly into Book Creator. When they have completed their work for the week, they will simply follow the same procedures you did above to send it back to you! We love the ease of checking their work quickly at week's end by flipping through their digital notebooks!

Student creation

We utilize these digital interactive notebooks throughout the literacy block.

Sometimes students add along as we create a class anchor chart (they can even take a photo and annotate with you!), use them during stations (anytime they can record themselves, it's instant engagement), document fluency, and so much more!

As you use them more and more, you will discover new and exciting ways to engage your students in literacy tasks.

We hope that this post has inspired you to take a new look at the possibilities technology can bring to your literacy block through digital interactive notebooks. These have truly revolutionized both the workflow and engagement in our classrooms!

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Digital interactive notebooks with Book Creator - Book Creator app

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The 2 Techie Teachers share their insight into making digital interactive notebooks, which they claim has revolutionised workflow and engagement in their classroom. If there is one digital tool that's become our go-to this school year, it's been Book Creator. Last summer we were researching ways to incorporate digital interactive notebooks into our literacy blocks.

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Minecraft as a storytelling tool by Cormac Cahill

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Minecraft as a storytelling tool by Cormac Cahill

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Minecraft as a Story Telling Tool by Cormac Cahill on iBooks

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Read a free sample or buy Minecraft as a Story Telling Tool by Cormac Cahill. You can read this book with iBooks on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Mac.

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Check out the latest info from the Book Creator Blog!

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News, views, case studies and ideas to help you along in the world of edtech. Keep up with the latest from Book Creator. Page 1

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Version 5.1 brings publishing digital texts to the web! Read this article detailing the steps.

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With Book Creator 5.1, teachers can publish books online. You'll get a unique link for your book which you can share so others can read your book on the web, on any device. How to publish your book...

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Check out Book Creator's Facebook feed for the latest events, examples, and updates to this app.

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Book Creator. 10,286 likes · 81 talking about this. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.

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Each month, a Book Creator Ambassador demonstrates how to use the app for learning in the classroom covering a variety of topics.

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Getting started with Book Creator

This webinar is designed for teachers who are just getting started with Book Creator. It is an interactive webinar covering all the basics of using the app, plus ideas on how to introduce the app to the classroom.

These webinars are free, 1 hour in length and include an opportunity for questions. You are encouraged to have your Book Creator app open and ready to explore during this webinar series. Teachers will receive a certificate of completion.

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Book Creator webinars - Book Creator app

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This webinar is designed for teachers who are just getting started with Book Creator. It is an interactive webinar covering all the basics of using the app, plus ideas on how to introduce the app to the classroom. These webinars are free, 1 hour in length and include an opportunity for questions.

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Check out this tutorial web page that gives how-to instructions for each component available in Book Creator.

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Book Creator for iPad - Book Creator Support

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Sharing content to Book Creator from other apps

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Check this Pinterest page for all kinds of books created by student authors.

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A showcase of some of the 20 million books already created in Book Creator.

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Check out the ever evolving videos exploring creative ways Book Creator is being used in conjunction with curricula.

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This resource is the brain-child of Apple Distinguished Educator and Book Creator Ambassador Paul Hamilton.

Find out more, and subscribe at ipadmonthly.com, and view the archive of Book Creator content below.

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Some information about the iPad Monthly subscription and a list of Book Creator resources created by Paul Hamilton.

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Search Twitter for #BookCreator and you'll find a ton of ideas from other educators who use the app regularly!

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#BookCreator Twitter chat - Book Creator app

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BookCreator chat offers a way for teachers to connect with each other and learn new ways to use Book Creator in the classroom.

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Looking for other creative ways to use Book Creator? Check out these lesson ideas curated on Common Sense Media.

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Common Sense Education provides educators and students with the resources they need to harness the power of technology for learning and life. Find a free K-12 Digital Citizenship curriculum, reviews of popular EdTech apps, and resources for protecting student privacy.

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*bold text = Public Domain or Creative Commons Zero

Open Clipart: https://openclipart.org
Pexels: https://www.pexels.com
Pixabay: https://pixabay.com
Unsplash: https://unsplash.com
Pexels: https://www.pexels.com

Noun Project: https://thenounproject.com

MorgueFile: http://www.morguefile.com

Photos for Class: http://www.photosforclass.com

SoundBible: http://soundbible.com

Videezy: http://www.videezy.com