The Power of Publishing

Recently I ran two online workshops via Google Meet for the Emmanual Foundation's Innovative Schools Project.  The workshops were to help their graduates try to meet the needs of online learning now that all schools in Indonesia are closed due to the pandemic.

The first workshop was designed for teachers that are new to Google apps. I introduced Slides and led the participants through how to make a simple layout with layered photos in Slides. 

I wanted to keep things very simple so we stayed completely within the app and used the Google Image Search that is inside. I taught the participants how to add .png to a photo search to get vector images with transparent backgrounds. 

The task I set was to make a lesson that used photos and instructions. The participants were so keen that the workshop went on for 2 hours. 

For the follow-up workshop, I taught the participants to create a virtual reading room. Here is the example that I used Virtual Reading Room.

The example that I used with the group was in Indonesian. I published these stories almost 8 years ago. They were written as a part of the backpack project that I did back in 2012 in a small village in North Sumatra. I worked with the children in that village to write every day stories about their life. 

There was a lot of discussion about these books and I hope that I inspired these teachers to try publishing stories of their own. I used Book Creator to publish these books and they even have a free version that includes 40 books. 

I was so proud to see that these teachers (70 attended my session) were able to make their own reading rooms. Here's an example from the class. Here is a screenshot of a virtual reading room created by one of the participants. She even put links to each book and filtered the YouTube videos with SafeTube. I'm happy because I did go in detail about online safety and whilst YouTube has so many awesome videos, it's much safer to filter out unwanted content. 

Dictation on the iPad with Book Creator

Book Creator is one of my go-to apps on the school iPads. I work at an international school with students from all over the world. A great accessibility feature of iPads is the dictation feature in the keyboard.

I have used dictation in Book Creator as a way for young learners to be able to get their thoughts typed up more efficiently. I find it really helpful for young learners to be able to speak aloud their sentences and see them being typed up by the iPad.

Well, did you know that this in-built feature works for languages other than English? In the screenshot below I have used the Indonesian keyboard to access dictation in Indonesian. It works so well! What a fantastic way for students to practice pronunciation. Go on try it now with a language that you can speak ...

Go to Settings - General - Keyboard

Choose any keyboards you wish to make available. 

Now open Book Creator. When you want to dictate, select 'Add Text' from the plus menu. 

When you dictate - click the world icon on the bottom left of the spacebar and select your language. Press the microphone icon and speak your sentence. It's works best if you only dictate short sentences with either a hands free microphone or work in a quiet space.

Waiting ... for my iBook to be Approved

I have blogged about my first attempts to create a storybook using iBooks Author. I was able to create a book of 15 pages over a couple of days. The software is easy to use and feels like a combination between the Mac software Pages and Keynote.

My next task after I had completed the book and had it proof-read was to upload it to iTunes Connect. Itunes Connect requires you to download the software iTunes Producer which enables you to upload your iBook and fill out all the necessary information for publishing.



My first issue was that one of my interactive picture widgets in my book was not working properly. I didn't realize that the word tags in the picture must always stay within the frame. I was able to fix this fairly quickly but I then needed to wait for iTunes Connect to view my book again.

After a few days I sent a message to iTunes Connect to ask what was happening with my iBook. I got an answer within a day. I was told that my book was in the review process and needed to be cleared.

Just yesterday I noticed that my book in iTunes Connect was no longer labelled as 'pending' but was now needing a different review process. This review is for quality. I don't know why my book has been singled out for this review. I am wondering perhaps it is because it is in Indonesian and there might not be anyone in iTunes Connect that can check the language?

I wait patiently for my book to be cleared ....

Jangan Menyerah

5MJ decided to go further with learning about how resources are unevenly distributed in the world. The teachers arranged a visit to the local landfill community. This community is only 15 minutes drive from school. There are 40 families who live on the landfill amongst the rubbish. The class has been learning to sing a pop song in Indonesian which is all about trying your best no matter what the circumstances. It is a lovely song which fits well with the class as we are currently striving to complete some personal goals. We hope that it will inspire the children that live at the Landfill community.

Here are the words and a video of the teachers singing the song.

F G Am
Tak ada manusia
F G Am
Yang terlahir sempurna
F G Am
Jangan kau sesali
F G C
Segala yang telah terjadi

F G Am
Kita pasti pernah
F G Am
Dapatkan cobaan yang berat
F G Am
Seakan hidup ini
F G C
Tak ada artinya lagi

F G Am
Syukuri apa yang ada
F G C
Hidup adalah anugerah
F G Am
Tetap jalani hidup ini
F G C
Melakukan yang terbaik

[intro] F G Am
F G C

Jangan menyerah…jangan menyerah jangan menyerah ….aaaaaa
jangan menyerah jangan menyerah jangan menyerah aaaaaa

[intro] F G Am
F G C

F G Am
Syukuri apa yang ada
F G C
Hidup adalah anugerah
F G Am
Tetap jalani hidup ini
F G C
Melakukan yang terbaik
F G Am
Tuhan pasti kan menunjukkan
F G C
Kebesaran dan kuasanya
F G Am
Bagi hambanya yang sabar
F G C
Dan tak kenal Putus asa
jangan menyerah….menyerah …..
Jangan menyerah…jangan menyerah jangan menyerah ….aaaaaa

Mother Tongue Week

Soon it will be Mother Tongue Week at school. I thought that I'd get a jump-start on things and make a story together with my youngest son in his Mother Tongue which is Indonesian. Today is a public holiday so we went to explore the river at our housing estate. My son likes to play there and catch little fish. We made a story about this. I plan to get it printed up with hard back binding.

Ikan-Ikan Kecil (Little Fish)