Exploratorium 2012: Paulson, Sara

Table #9       ScribblePress, Book Creator for the iPad, & iBooks Author: Creating & Sharing eBooks through iTunes

 

Audience:       All

 

Presenter:       Sara Lissa Paulson                                                      

                        PS 347 The American Sign Language and English School

                        225 East 23^rd Street

New York, NY 10010                                      

Library Web site: http://ps347library.wordpress.com

E-mail: spaulsonyarovoy@schools.nyc.gov

 

Description, Goals, Intended Outcomes: 

 

My goal was to experiment in creating ebooks, as a way to digitally publish student work. I wanted a way to publish a media rich ebook with audio, video, and curling pages that could be shared with parents and caregivers at home and the entire learning community. One of my first memories of being a librarian is having a shelf of student-made books, many of which made the top 10 that year. I believe students acquire a love of reading through reading books made by their peers. I also believe in kids knowing how to create the media they consume.

 

My intended outcome would be that all books would be published in the iBookstore, but I have come to the conclusion that there are other ways to share within the learning community. I applied for an iTunes U site for my school, and hope that I can create collections of iBooks there. There is a wait time to get this established. For now, on each iPad we have a personable collection of student-made books, made using three different and wonderful apps, and I am planning to submit both Peter stories for the iBookstore. I submitted one as of now.

 

Process to Develop and Implement this Project:

 

As I was teaching the following units, I tried out several apps that didn’t make the cut: iBook Magic ($3.99 but too thin on the interactivity—no page curls), DemiBooks Composer (FREE but too complicated and couldn’t easily upload an audio file) to name a couple, before I came upon the three I chose to work with.

 

Peter stories:

Building on book making units from previous years, I created a unit for Kindergarten and 1^st grade in which the outcome was to create and illustrate a story based on Ezra Jack Keat’s character Peter in both ASL and English. Peter is one of the first African-American characters to appear in picture books. He is a creative and courageous kid. He appears in “Peter’s chair,” “Goggles,” “A Letter to Amy,” “A Snowy Day,” and “Pet Show.” We talked about character traits Peter has. Then I facilitated a language experience in which they dictated an original Peter story. They told the story and I facilitated the telling, asking pointed questions, and shaped the direction if needed, and they invented the story as I recorded their words. We then created collages to illustrate the story. We used papers and fabrics.

 

One by one, I then recorded selected students’ voices on Garage Band as they read a page from the book and shared the tracks to iTunes. The classroom teachers taught the students how to present the book in American Sign Language. They recorded the ASL on Photo Booth. I imported the ASL movies to iMovie and used the iTunes tracks as a voiceover. Then I created an iBook using iBooks Author 1.1 and submitted it to the iBookstore. For the book created on iBooks Author, I am currently in the process of sharing on the iBookstore. This is an involved process. I am waiting for their quality control process. It takes 2 weeks, at least, for iTunes Connect to approve a submission.

 

I also created a Peter story using Book Creator for the iPad. It was $4.99, but worth it for a few reasons. You do not have to use Garageband to do your voicing. There is a built-in recorder that is very easy to use. I simply uploaded the digital pictures of their collages. Again, I shared it to my iTunes account and now it is available on each iPad after synching. Again, you can share to Dropbox or even Evernote.

 

Create your own planet informational books:

Another unit was an extension to a classroom-based planet study. Each child had selected a planet to study. During library, we generated questions about the planets, read parts of books about stars, meteors, and planets, and watched a key video called The Language of Science: Earth/Space Science K-2: Space and Planets. The repetition of key concepts made me feel that they were ready to create their own planets.

 

We generated a list of criteria: planets MUST be round, they MUST orbit a star, they MUST be big; they CAN have moons, they CAN be made of gas, or rock, or both, etc. And then the questions, “How big are they?” “How far are they from their star?” Then I gave them the iPads and with very little instruction, they started their books using the very user friendly Scribble Press. The drawing tools and text box tools are very easy to use. We learned as we went along that on the back cover you can “take” your picture and write an “About the author” statement. That was unforeseen, but fun. The books were exceptional and expressive. I shared them to my school iTunes account. That means that after synching the 15 iPads, we now have all the planet books available in iBooks on each iPad. You can also share to Dropbox. That is a good solution for parents. Create a dropbox account for the project and share the folder with other Dropbox users. Scribble Press also has an online gallery, which is also an option.

 

Budget:

 

$500 and up:

Depends on which app you want to use and whether you want each child to do their own book on Scribble Press (text and image only) or Book Creator for the iPad (if you want audio) or whether you want to digitize some handmade work, which requires only one iPad. See resources list.

 

Timeline:

 

Scribble Press project: 3 class periods

Peter stories for Book Creator for iPad (audio only) and iBooks Author (audio/video): 8 class periods

 

Evidence of Outcomes, Possible Adaptations, Lessons Learned:

 

iBooks Author is a very robust program, but if you are familiar with other Apple programs like iWeb, Pages, and Keynote, the learning curve is not too daunting. But there are peculiarities. I did not use sections or chapters in my book. Those posed a problem for me. In portrait view, there were errant images. So I deleted sections, moved movie widgets onto blank pages, and the result was successful, using only one section with multiple blank pages to fill. If you are publishing to iBookstore, quality is important. I made countless versions. I learned also that your book can be viewed as ePub, but the video and audio widgets will not work. It will simply be a PDF.

 

Submitting it to publish, iTunes Producer appears. You are prompted to get an iTunes Connect account, which is the vehicle in which Apple communicates to use as a manager of your ibooks. The specs are extremely specific because when filling them out, you are creating the metadata for your book. It was a great learning experience. Everything can be edited after the fact.

 

For a library that has one iPad, I think that Book Creator for the iPad is worth $5.00. It took me 30 minutes to create a book. Well worth it.

 

Common Core State Standard(s) addressed:

 

Create your own planet books:

RI.1.1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

W.1.2. Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

W.K.1.6 & W.1.6. With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

 

Peter stories:

Kindergarten:

RL.K.2. With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

RL.K.3. With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

W.K.3. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

W.K.1.6 With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

 

1^st grade:

RL.1.2. Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

RL.1.3. Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

W.1.3. Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

W.1.6. With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

 

Information Fluency Continuum (IFC) Skill(s) addressed:

Peter stories (K/1^st):

Recognizes the works of a single author

Identifies plot, characters, times, and places in a story

Draws and shares conclusions about main idea of a story.

 

Create your own planet books (1^st gr):

Presents facts and simple answers to questions

Formulates questions related to listening activities

Interprets information represented in pictures, illustrations and

simple charts and verbalizes the main idea.

 

Skill(s) taught:           

 

Determining criteria for a planet and using constraints to create your own

Drawing conclusions about characters

Using a narrative structure or story arc to tell a story: beginning, middle, end with moments of excitement

Projecting your voice

Respecting others while recording

Digital tools: adding text, images, and selecting drawing tools

 

Assessments: (If an IFC assessment was used, which one?)

 

Still in process

 

Resources Used:   A lot of your own time and . . .

           

For Scribble Press:

            1:1 Set of iPads

            Scribble Press app (FREE)

            The Language of Science: Earth/Space Science K-2: Space and Planets.  Prod. Visual Classroom.  Visual Classroom, 2010. Discovery Education. Web. 4 May 2012. <http://www.discoveryeducation.com/>.

            Asch, Frank. The Sun is My Favorite Star. New York: Harcourt, 2000.

            Any other planet, star, and outer space books and videos in your collection

 

For Book Creator for the iPad:

            1 iPad

            Book creator for the iPad app ($4.99)

            Books by Ezra Jack Keats that feature Peter: Books by Ezra Jack Keats: “The Snowy Day,” “Goggles,” “Peter’s Chair,” “A Letter for Amy,” among others.

 

For iBooks Author:   

            iMac with Lion OS

            iMac app: iBooks Author 1.1

            1 iPad

            Garageband

            iMovie