Book Creator

The title of this app gives away most of its purpose, but doesn’t hint to any of the awesome creative uses it has. Book Creator is an app that lets the user create a book or comic book using their own images and text, formatting it at their will. This app is “the most versatile literacy based app we have on the iPads – it is a great way for students to present their learning” according to Nick, an author for australiancurriculumtfel.edublogs.org.(http://australiancurriculumtfel.edublogs.org/2016/01/28/book-creator-whats-new/)

Testing the App:

                             Homepage

          My story

To test the app, I used my Windows Surface Tablet, and not an iPad, which made a difference in the features available.

The app is pretty straight forward: Once you open it up, you can read a tutorial demo, or start your own book. There are three options for this: a square, landscape or portrait book. A simplistic menu on the side allows you to add media, text, or change the color of the background (there are more options on the iPad). The objects added on each page are also quite malleable (although I haven’t found out how to rotate an image). You can add as many pages as you like and even divide a page with a grid to make a comic book (on the iPad only).

              Tools

I created a short story but found myself stumped when trying to save it. On my Windows tablet, it can only be exported or shared as an .epub file. This type of file only works in the app. After some research, I found that some people were able to export their books as PDFs or save them as videos. I’m guessing that is a feature only available on Apple products. So I screenshot every page and made one image out of them.

Pedagogical Uses:

Well to start off, this app can be used in numerous classes. It’s an innovative way to demonstrate progress in a sports class for example, to create an art portfolio or to create a story in a creative writing class.

In the ESL class, a student can use this tool in a variety of ways. One of the most obvious ways to use this is to ask students to create a story. They could use images from the school iPads or from the internet, but they could also act out the story, take pictures and add text to create a story book.

Book Creator can also be a fun way to test comprehension of texts, movies or audio books. Students can either act out and photograph themselves, or use props to summarize a story they encountered in class.

Amanda Bindel, a Common Sens Graphite reviewer, says that “this creation tool is versatile enough to be used in any content area, and students can extend their creativity by app-smashing and creating images with other apps to use in their books” (https://www.graphite.org/app/book-creator).

The fact that every project is digital means that it can be displayed on a Smartboard for the class to read, or shared between students to discuss.

On another note, since this app also records voice, it could be used by teachers to create audio books. Combining audio and images could be a good way to explain a lesson in a flipped classroom.

In addition, using this technology allows students to work from home. Using this technology to test comprehension makes it easier for students in special programs who are often on the road or unable to attend class to submit work.

 

Recommendations:

Similarly to a recent article of mine, I am about to disagree with most of the reviews on this product.

Reviews from the Microsoft website

When using an assortment of Apple products, the publishing, sharing and projection of projects using Book Creator is easy. Using this tool in the classroom can be stimulating for students. It is an opportunity for them to show off their creativity.

I agree with Serena Z., a classroom teacher from Italy who says “Book Creator App is a very simple to use but very powerful [tool]”.

I’d recommend this app to any ESL teacher, but especially one who either needs a way to evaluate their students understanding of a story, wants their students to write a creative story or any teacher looking for a creative way to present material in a flipped classroom.

Express YOUR Ideas with StoryJumper

What is StoryJumper?

John Yen and Peter Weck are the founders of StoryJumper in 2009. They believe

“StoryJumper is a leading education tech platform that makes it easy to publish your own children’s story book.”

StoryJumper is a website that allows children, students or teachers the possibility to create, illustrate, and publish online stories. Moreover, StoryJumper is one of the top-rated websites for story creation because it is easy to use. This platform is student friendly, since they have the chance to manage and edit their own work.

What does it offer?

StoryJumper offers various tools for story creation by all ages. It provides a simple interface that anyone could use, which makes it even more fun. There is no specific need to go on another internet page to browse for pictures because on the webpage itself, you could simply search with the graphic tools already offered. For instance, I wanted a picture of a castle; therefore, I typed it in the picture section and approximately 100 pictures of castles showed up in less than 30 seconds. It is a quick and understandable educational platform.

StoryJumper is a free website, where all the necessary tools are provided for any students or even yourself to create and to publish an amazing story. Everyone is able to print a small size copy for free. However, some publishing options are offered, for your story to be more like a real book. You can create a hardcover book for $24.95, to create a paper pack it is $12.95, and $1.95 for unlimited digital downloads of a book.

My Experience

First, when I visited the website, I created an account as a new user, but I was offered to sign-in as a normal user or as a teacher. I chose to sign up as a teacher to look at all the tools offered for a teacher. However, I was asked to enter my school zip code and my school’s name.

Afterwards, I had to create a password for my students to have access to my classroom. The virtual class remains open for 90minutes, but I can re-open a class whenever I want, since I am the host for my students’ page.

Second, a tutorial video is offered. I took the time to watch it, since I had no knowledge about this webpage. It showed step-by-step how to create a short story with many tools. Then I tried doing one myself, by adding pictures and texts. All your story pages are shown at the bottom of your work and it is available for you to move them around.

I found it really practical because, like in Google Drive, it has an auto save option. Therefore, every time I edited and changed something, it auto save, which is awesome for young students because they do not have to worry about saving their work. However, there is also a “save and close” option on the top right corner of the webpage. Once you are done and happy about your creation, you can simply print it out, save it online, and even share it via social media.

Application in ESL teaching

StoryJumper is a well-organized webpage and easy to use for teachers, as well as for students. Here is a guide for teachers to get an overview of how the platform works. It is detailed enough to follow the procedures step-by-step. To help teachers get a head start with Story Jumper, there is a worksheet that helps students plan out their writing process by staying on task. It is also easy for teachers to go back and look at their students’ work, since they have to accept it before publishing it online. It is safe because students’ work is supervised and must be approved by their teacher before posting it online.

StoryJumper is a good and practical webpage for ESL teachers because they can look at their students’ stories and observe their mistakes. Afterwards, teachers could cover some focus grammar points, on the students’ most frequent errors. With this story-writing platform, students can enrich and develop their writing skills more efficiently. Furthermore, it is useful for ESL teachers to demonstrate new subjects related to writing and language.

Personally, as an ESL teacher, I would use StoryJumper because students develop more  language skills when they practice. Also, learning comes with doing, therefore, involving technology into students’ learning only increases their knowledge.

For example, Cody Huseby uses Story Jumper with his 3^rd grade. Young students as in third grade can easily create fictional narrative stories, so imagine what 6 graders can do. This tool helps students promote their strengths and ideas into writing.

“My students wrote their fictional narratives using Story Jumper. They loved the illustration feature and the fact that they could include themselves in the story. We synced it up with Google Drive and many of the students completed their own illustrations or had their classmates take pictures of them to use in their story. The parent feedback was very positive. My students loved their Story Jumper books as keepsakes and got to show it off to the rest of their family.”

Nevertheless, younger students might need more help and guidance throughout the book creating process. In addition, StoryJumper only has a webpage, so students must create an account to be able to use it. Also, having younger students create an account can be more difficult and can end up by taking a lot of time.

I would recommend StoryJumper in ESL teaching because students can have fun creating their own stories while practicing their writing and language skills. For instance, my cooperating teacher in my first practicum used StoryJumper with her sixth grade intensive English. They spend a whole afternoon creating stories to practice their understanding of the language. Students really enjoyed the activity and did such a good job that my teacher chose a few stories and had them published in hardcovers. Elementary students adore this webpage.

-Jessica Kempf, TESL student

Blurb!

What is Blurb? 

According to Eileen, the creator, Blurb is :

Blurb, the world’s first platform for creating, printing, and publishing independent books. The democratization of illustrated publishing had arrived. But these weren’t just any books. They were beautiful, bookstore-quality books on premium paper stock with archival-quality binding. And anyone could make one. Literally, just one. Or two. Or ten thousand. Blurb was one of those amazing big-picture ideas made real: A mash-up of creative freedom with print-on-demand technology.

Indeed, this online tool can be used to create, photo books, magazines, book covers, images books, trade books or ebooks. Also, the tool is interesting for its atypical sizing options.

For instance, the portrait book is 10 x 8 inches instead of the standard 11 x 8.5 inches. On the other hand, the cover options are standard and limited. There are no lay-flat, leather or fabric cover options. Instead, you can choose from a soft cover, a hard cover with a dust jacket or an image wrapped around a cover. –Jessica Stone

What can you do with it?

To start off your project, you need to download the Bookwright application. With this app, you are now able to create your book. On the other hand, if you are not at ease with the Internet or you feel you do not have the time to create a book, you can hire an expert to create your book. When you have this application on your computer, you no longer need to use the Internet to work on your project. However, you could also use Blurb Bookify online to create your books. 

If you decide to use the online website, you will have access to fewer tools. In fact, it’s not possible to add text directly to the pictures. The Internet tool seems better to create photo books because it’s easy to upload pictures from social networks but also from your computer.  By using the online tool, you could create books and on the same order of idea as the application, set them to sell your final projects on Amazon.

By using the application, you have access to many options to modify tour book. You can start from an empty book or from a template. Those templates include text spaces and pictures spaces. However, you can also add other text zones and pictures to your templates. When you use an empty book, you can add as many text and pictures as you would like to. I love this tool! It is really easy to use. It took me the time of an application download to understand how it worked. What is also great is that your work is auto-saving. However, you need to do a final saving before quitting the application.

If you don’t want to create a proper book but a magazine or a book cover, you have access to 90 seconds videos to show you how to create your book.This can be great because it allows you to visualize what you will be creating. You can find these videos directly on the application.

I decided to test the tool by creating a book myself. My book is about a trip to Spain and Portugal. However, if you take a look at it, you can see that it includes text about the country and what I did. I found out that it was much simpler that what I thought. According to the Top 10 Reviews, as a photo book editor, Blurb is scoring 8.70/10 and is ranked 8/10.

PROS / Blurb gives you the option to design the book yourself or have a professional online editor do it for you.

CONS / The service only offers standard hard and softcover books. – Jessica Stone

When you are done with your book, you can decide to order it. Books done with this site are really affordable, even for low budgets. You need to choose the type of book and the type of cover you want to get but the steps are really easy to go through.  A book is around 24.99$. However, if you add pages you need to pay for your extra sheets or even if you change the paper type. Also, fast shipping is available but a normal shipping without any additional fee is around three days.

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When the whole book project is over, you can decide to sell your book on the Internet. You can sell it throughout Blurb itself, on Amazon or also on the Apple store. An Ebook available on the Apple store is worth 9.99$.

Finally, directly on the website, you can shop for books that were done by Blurb users. What is really great is that authors do not have to pay for an editor and authors receive profits for all the books they are selling!

How is it used by teachers?

Teachers can use Blurb to create a class book. As we saw in our Pedagogy class, creating a class book make the students’ sense of belonging to the class increase. This is really important for teachers to create in the class. Also, it could be used to create a collection of stories created by students. ESL teachers should use blurb to make their students create books that will be used in the class as lectures. Indeed, after creating a book, teachers could use the selling part of Blurb to encourage parents to buy the class’ book or the collection to read to their children at night. This way, teachers could use the profits made with the sold books to buy board games or materials for their classes.

Also, using this tool, teachers could give their students the love of writing. In fact, this is a major goal of an ESL teacher since it is not easy to get texts in the students’ second language. With Blurb, students could start writing stories or little texts in English out of the school.

However, because the book could be expensive for parents to buy each book done by their children, they should look on the Internet to find some discounts codes for the books. They are really easy to find and are worth the time spent to find them.

As an ESL teacher, I would use Blurb to create a story book for my student to read in the class. Because I believe that reading is the cornerstone of learning a new language, I would like to have my older students to write stories and to image them in order to get a collection of stories. Then, I would read these stories to my younger students in their 15 minutes of reading at the beginning of each class.

Also, because Blurb is easy to use and normally not used in most of the classrooms, students would not see the tool as an evaluation tool. This way, they are less stressed out while doing their tasks and will enjoy more their project. When associated with emotions like joy, projects are better remembered by students and their parents. In fact, parents are really proud to see their children project at home. I believe it could be a really nice way to include ICT’s in the class and make the evaluation interesting.

The pictures download on the application and the dragging option with the pictures makes it easy to use for children of all ages. In fact, students are more used to the use of Ipads nowadays. The interface makes the tool look like an Ipad screen. It makes the tools more tangible. Because you just have to drag what you want on the page, on the page, visual children will feel less deprived than with some other tools.

Blurb is a really great tool that should be more known!

Marie-Christine Laflamme, TESL

 

 

 

My Story Book: YOUR (easy) story!

Think back to when you were a child. Your parents most probably read you bedtime stories, and it probably was your introduction to the great of world of books and novels. But what if one was able to create his or her own story book? Not only would it be a lot of fun, especially for children, but it could also be a great way to stimulate creativity and good writing skills. Just think how useful this hypothetical tool could be for language teachers. Too bad it doesn’t exist. Oh wait, it actually exists. My Story Book is a simple and easy way for everyone to become a story book author, and it’s free too! This application could be very useful in the ESL classroom, you just need to have a bit of imagination.

First of all, some might wonder why an ESL teacher should exploit story books. TeachingEnglish mentions a few relevant reasons:

• Working with illustrations provides a creative and artistic learning environment which children respond to

• A story book provides a child-centered universe where abstract concepts are symbolized within the text and images

• It provides an ideal context for literacy practice as well as linguistic acquisition

• Supporting visual literacy is important in order to help children take meaning from texts as well as develop aesthetic understanding

• Providing information through pictures is an important and fast developing method of communication in the global world

I  also think that story books can be particularly useful to teach second languages. Because most of them include images, it allows children to focus on the meaning of the story rather than the words themselves (unlike novels). Also, they are great for beginners, because they often have very simply vocabulary and stories. This is why applications such as My Story Book are great!

Furthermore, reading story books can have applications unrelated to literacy too. It has been proved countless times that reading improves academic skills, ESPECIALLY for children. The Writers Bureau also mentions that:

• Children who can read well are more likely to have higher confidence

• Reading can make children more relaxed

• Reading helps to develop a child’s imagination

• Children who read understand and accept their own feelings better

The Basics

When I first logged in on Mystorybook.com, I was immediately charmed by the minimalist, yet colorful interface. Every time you create a new story book, you have minimum four pages to fill: a front page, two story pages, and a cover page. On the left, you have four options of items and actions: items, draw, text and scene. The “items” options allow you to put characters or elements in your book. Even if there are only two options for characters(one boy and one girl), you can change the way they look, whether it is their hair, their skin color, the color of their clothes, etc. Some might say that the options are a bit limited, but it doesn’t really matter, since you can upload your own pictures anyway. The “draw” option lets the user draw on the pages using a brush or line dragger , so it makes one able to do basically anything he or she wants to (although it should be noted that drawing with a mouse is not particularly easy or intuitive). The “text” option makes it so you are able to write anything with different font and color options. It makes it super easy to have a colorful and good-looking story book. The last option, “scene”, allows you to choose different backgrounds for your story book, to make it look more “toonish”.

When you are done creating your story, you can share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus. Furthermore, you can download and publish your e-book for 5 dollars. It is an option, but if you create more than one book, it can get expensive very quickly. As such, you can simply use the website’s interface to present books, although you will need an internet connection to do so. It is really up to the reader!

Uses for ESL teaching

With all of these options, one can imagine an endless array of possibilities and purposes for this application, especially when it comes to ESL teaching. One of the most obvious uses for ESL teachers would be to teach literacy skills. Often, teachers want to present story-book classics to their students, but maybe they fear that the students will not understand the text or think it’s boring. Using My Story Book, I would have two solutions to that problem. My first idea would be to re-create the story using the application, but with colorful visuals. I would keep the original text, as having visuals would make the stories easier to understand, and perhaps one could also take advantage of the situation to review reading strategies. My other idea would be to read and analyze the original stories in class, and then ask students to do their own takes on the stories using the application. Of course, there would be guidelines, but this would stimulate the student’s creativity, and they would be free to add fun little jokes or even make fun of the original story. These kind of activities would be great for Grade 1 or 2 students! For example, the students at the University of Wales in the Education degree used the application with great success:

As a future ESL teacher, I must say that I can already see another great way to use it (and my personal favorite). I would ask students to create a short story revolving around one of their classmates. The catch would be that they would not choose their classmate, they would have to draw a name in a bowl. Then, in their story, they would have to include details such as the person’s favorite color, their favorite food, their qualities, etc. I think this would be a great activity for class-building, and perhaps students would make new friends too! This kind of activity would be perfect for 3rd or 4th grade students.

Another great way to use this application would be ask students to explain what value is important to them, and why. For example, a student could create a story book on why it is important to accept others just the way they are, with examples about some of his or her friends. An ESL teacher could also use this kind of activity to create debates, such as asking students “What does equality mean to you?”, and having them create a story-book on this question. This would be a good activity for 5th and 6th graders. I tried to test out the application by creating a story that would fit in this project, as you can see below:

Conclusion

Overall, My Story Book is a great tool for ESL teachers. It allows both teachers and students to use their creativity and literacy skills in multiple ways. Furthermore, it is very simple to use, making it a great site for kids (and perhaps for teachers who are not so great with technology too). As a future ESL teacher, I would use it, but only with primary students; secondary students may see this kind of application as very childish and one-note, as the graphics are very “cartoon-ish”. Since I am planning on becoming a primary ESL teacher, I will most definitely bookmark this site, and I recommend you do so too!

By Michael Gagnon,

BEALS student at Laval University

Storybird: A Simple Way to Explore Students’ Creativity

What is StoryBird?

According to storybird.com:

Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. We curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories. It’s a simple idea that has attracted millions of writers, readers, and artists to our platform. Families and friends, teachers and students, and amateurs and professionals have created more than 5 million stories—making Storybird one of the world’s largest storytelling communities.

I have recently discovered a new online social platform called  Storybird. This is an awesome platform that allows students, teachers, writers and artists (basically anyone) to create and read  art-inspired stories easily. People using this platform can either create stories or discover other users’ stories. The use of Storybird is quite easy to grasp. Storybird generates the pictures for you, you only have to add some text or to drag and drop words on the pictures. There are three story formats that Storybird offers to its users: Picture book, Poem and Longform book.

How does it work?

The use of Storybird is quite simple for teachers, as well as for students . Teachers have to create a page, on which they can have different groups. These groups will appear on the left side of the page. You can also create stories that your students will be able to read. These stories will be published in the class’ library. In order to give access to this class library to your students, you can either give them the class access code or create an account for them. Storybird allows educators to create a secure and safe virtual classroom because the students’ stories are not public; only teachers and classmates can view others’ stories. Teachers can also create assignments including a due date, clear instructions and media, as shown in the picture below:

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Teachers can grade (by giving a letter or a number) their students’ stories and they can give them awards. Teachers can give rewards to the best stories of the class. Teachers can also moderate comments on their students’ stories by turning on the comment moderation. Students can also comment and read their peer’s work; this is something students would like to do, in my opinion. I like this aspect of Storybird because, by giving each other feedback, students learn how to critique others’ work. 

On the top of the page, you can see some sections called Studio, Create, Read and Shop. You can have your students read imaginative stories that other users have created. Since the stories on Storybird all have been verified by  the website itself, you can be sure that these stories will be appropriate for your students . In the ‘’Create’’ section, you and your students can create stories. The Studio section includes all your assignments, stories, etc.

As I mentionned above, students can create their own stories and they can publish them into the class’ library.  Students can either write their story alone or in teams. Indeed, pupils can work collaboratively while writing their story (just like Googledocs).

If some parents want some hard copies of their child’s story, they can do so by using the ‘’Fundraiser’’ option. 30% of the money will go to the teacher for the classroom’s needs

How could we use Storybird in ESL classrooms?

Storybird could be integrated either at the high school level or at the elementary level. Since children like hearing stories, ESL teachers at the primary level can create stories and read them afterwards to their students. As for the teachers of higher level, they can have their students create imaginative stories on Storybird. As Stephen Davis, a middle school English teacher, mentioned, it allows students to express their abstract thoughts:

Storybird can help students bring abstract thoughts in their mind to life and adds a dynamic, digital component to traditional storyboards.Without requiring any artistic ability, students drag and drop characters and images onto a digital storyboard. Students are inspired by the themes and artwork available on Storybird: abstract thoughts and emotions students could not express easily come to the surface.A concrete visual representation of their abstract thoughts can now be transformed into wonderful writing.

I completely agree with him, because as a future ESL teacher, I think that sometimes it can be hard for students to express their thoughts since they have to use their second language to do so. Storybird can overcome this difficulty because students can easily add images, words and characters that are in conjunction with their emotions. ESL teachers at the high school level could also read a classic story (e.g. The Red Riding Hood), and then tell their students to summarize or to rewrite the story using Storybird. They can also have students guess and write the end of a novel or a movie by using this platform.

As mentioned in this article,given that you can work collaboratively on Storybird, a remote collaboration for story writing could be done between different schools around the globe. I really enjoy this idea because every student has a unique writing style and if different styles are put together, a story can simply get better and more creative.This is a great way for teachers to show their students how collaboration can be profitable in life. Doing this kind of project would also enhance students’ teamwork skills.

Another advantage of using Storybird is that the platform is completely free for teachers. Isn’t it beautiful? By using Storybird, students foster their creativity, their critical thinking and their interest in literacy. Indeed, this platform is genuinely useful in terms of having students increase their interest in writing and reading tasks. Students will become motivated to write stories using this website because it involves technology and social media. It is really encouraging for students to see their stories come to life.  There are multiple reasons for teachers to use Storybird; it just makes everything more enjoyable! ESL teachers can also ask their students to write a story in the past or in the future to evaluate their understanding of these two verb tenses. In sum, teachers can use this platform either to spice up their assignments, their lessons or their evaluations. That’s great!

Finally, if you want to show your students how Storybird works, this tutorial can be really helpful. 

My Experience

When I first signed up on Storybird, I really liked the platform because it was easy to use. I also think that it is easy enough to use for students who are at the primary level. As I earlier mentioned in my article, there are three available formats that you can choose for your story creation: the picture book, the poem format and the longform book. My favorite one was the picture pook that looks like this: 

The picture book was the one I prefered the most because there is a whole bunch of images you can choose from the library. Students would really enjoy using this format because it can be motivating to see their work come to reality. I don’t really like the poem format because you can only only drag and drop words on an image. I personally think it is a little bit boring as you can observe on the picture below:

The longform book is also easy and enjoyable. You just have to choose images from the platform and add text below them. Once you have finished writing your story, you can include a summary that will appear on the side of your story. You can also add tags and select a target audience. You have also the option of buying your story as an Ebook or a PDF ($2.99 each). Your longfrom book will look like this:

The fact that parents can buy their child’s books is also interesting because it can be really motivating to see their work come to reality. By seeing their story in a print copy, students can see their potential and, therefore, gain confidence in their writing skills. Some students lack of confidence when it comes to creating artsy projects because they underestimate their abilities. Storybird can solve this problem since students do not have to create their images, but only have to write their story.

I enthusiastically endorse teachers who use Storybird since I am a person who likes creative writing.  In my opinion, students do not have enough opportunity to explore their creativity; this is why I would use this platform. From all the tools I have discovered so far, this is my favorite one.  I think that Story Bird would  greatly help students develop their interest in literacy. Students who have a hard time when it comes to doing a writing task would enjoy using Storybird. The fact that students write their own stories drawing their inspiration on a picture can be a source of motivation also.

A slight concern that I have is that students cannot fully explore their creativity since they do not have to create their picture or their image; they take it from someone else’s portfolio. I do not think that it is a big deal, but I think that Storybird should implement a way that students could  add their personal images or pictures. Moreover, I don’t really like the fact that teachers can give rewards to the best story, because it can lead to a competitive atmosphere in the class.

All in all, I think that Storybird is an entertaining way to motivate students of all ages. Having your students writing such stories does not feel academic at all. Quite the opposite, they will feel like they are doing something fun. Storybird is simple and enjoyable to use; what a nice combination we have here! According to me, it is worth exploring it in language classrooms!

Alexandra Jacques

TESL – Laval University