Writing for the iBookstore and for the World

It's been a few days since the news broke about my 9 year old student, Keily Setiawan the youngest student to self publish a book in English and Chinese to the Apple iTunes iBookstore. The reaction to the news has been quite amazing.

We held a press conference at my school last Friday, 11th May to announce Keily's book that she had published with my help and under her mother's authority.

To date the news has been posted in many, many different publications both online and print.

Online News - click on the links below
Kompas
Antara News
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta Globe
Bisnis Indonesia
Pikiran Rakyat
Indonesia Headlines
Shang Bao Indonesia
Indonesia Proud

Printed Publications and photos from the press conference:

Created with flickr slideshow.


These articles have been generated about the story so far. I was most excited to see the news posted by Apple in their iTunes News section on their website.

We teach students to write in every school but their audience is usually limited to their teacher, their peers and their parents.

We are seeing the beginnings of a publishing revolution.

Kids can now write for a world wide audience. Now we are putting tools into the students hands that can empower them to share their knowledge, their experiences and their learning in a whole new way.

"I am witnessing my students completely re-think the way they present their learning. It's gone beyond just fulfilling the expectations of a teacher, to how they can present their work so it will engage an audience that they have never met. 

It's more than posting online to a blog. The tools that the students have access to when creating a book for the iPad change the whole way they think about presenting their work. It's beyond words and pictures - it becomes engaging and along with that students need to rethink everything."

Some examples:

 Keily (9 yrs) used a storytelling style to present her book by working hard on her voice recordings to give more life to her story. She wanted to show how well she can speak in Chinese in her book 'Chen Chen Goes to Space'.

"It's different when you know kids in America can access your book. I love to read the comments on the iBookstore about my book" - Keily.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/chen-chen-goes-to-space/id512438757?mt=11

John (6 yrs) wanted to tell his fishing story and show everyone how he is now able to read by adding voice recordings to his book 'Little Fish'.

"I want to show how I can read the words now" - John.

John's book has been downloaded over 2,400 times. It was number 2 in free children's books downloads in France last weekend.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/little-fish/id505847227?mt=11

Peter (15 yrs - amateur golfer with handicap of 4) wanted to teach his audience about golf by creating interactive images and instructional videos to enhance his 6 months of research on technology in Golf.

"When people saw my iBook - they thought that I had purchased it online. They couldn't believe that I had made it myself. I never thought that I would start my career at aged 15. I now know that I want to be a sports writer." - Peter.

This iBook is in the process of being published.

Nahyeon (17 yrs) reworked a book that she created over a year ago to be more appealing to a younger audience so she added voice narration to her storybook. She had been unable to publish her book as she thought the only way to publish was via printing, an option that was far too expensive for her to persue. After uploading her book to the Apple iTunes iBookstore, Apple approved it and published it after only 24 hours.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/threescoops-snowy-adventure/id525959248?mt=11

"I want to reach as many people as I can with my message about the environment through my artwork. It is my dream to become a book illustrator and now that has come true. I am already working hard on my next book" - Nahyeon.

Juan (10 yrs) wanted to teach others about simple machines by including fun quizzes using interactive pictures throughout his book. He wanted people to understand how to identify the simple machines inside everyday machines that are used in our lives by using labels that zoom in on an object in a photo when tapped. He also added 3D images to 'make my book more fun'!

"I want people to have fun when they are reading my iBook. I hope that I can teach them about simple machines and that they have fun learning about it." - Juan.

This iBook has been uploaded - waiting approval from Apple.

 

 

Can you see now what it is that I am witnessing?

This is just the beginning ...

Singing at the Landfill Community

Ms Marion made a video about our first visit to the Landfill in Serpong. The students were given the task to get to know the children there by asking simple questions such as "What class are you in?", or "What time do you make up?".

The students from SWA were surprised to find out that many children don't go to school and some children have to wake up at 2am in the morning to collect water as they don't have running water in their house. It made us realize that many children have to live without basic rights such as access to clean water and the right to have an education.

After returning to SWA the students looked at some of the issues facing these children. They decided which issues they were interested in and began to inquiry into possible solutions for these problems.

The 3 issues that the class decided on were:

Lighting: the houses were very dark in the middle of the day. What could be a low-cost solution?
Water: the houses had no running water. The well was far from the houses and was very poluted. What solutions are there to help this situation?
Housing: the houses were very small and looked unsafe. What can be done to help this?

Observations at the Landfill Site

On Wednesday 5MJ went to visit the Landfill site otherwise known as TPA Serpong. They made many observations and are currently doing some real life problem solving activities to see what solutions are needed to improve the quality of life for the residents there.

Here are some photos and the initial observations by 5MJ. The class has broken into three groups based on the student observations.

Those groups are:

Water – there is no running water in these houses. The children have to carry water to use in the kitchen. How could this problem be addressed? What is needed to have running water in each kitchen? Is it possible?

Shelter – these houses look very unstable. How could they be improved so that they are safer to live in? Why do these houses look temporary. Do they own or rent this land?

Light – the Liter of Light is a project in the Phillipines. It is a project where you place a used liter Coca cola bottle in the ceiling of a house to act as a skylight during the day. (Click here to see the website Liter of Light) We went inside some of these houses and it was very dark despite it being very sunny outside. How could we install some Liter of Lights in these houses? Ms Jane has been in contact with the head of this project in the Phillipines and he is keen to help us. How could the students of 5MJ start a Liter of Light project in Indonesia. What needs to be organized? How can we get sponsorship?

SWA Soccer Field and a Rice Farm – Which is bigger?

Today we sorted out our Math problem for measuring the SWA soccer field.

We had a small competition to see which group got the closest measurement to the actual size.

The size of the SWA soccer field is 4,000 m²

Group 3 (Shereen, Gabi, Zubin and Rifqi) had the closest answer which was 3,969 m²

What we realized was that the average size of a Javanese rice farm in Indonesia is smaller than the school soccer field. The average rice farm is 3,333 m². Most of the Grade 5 students thought that the rice farm would be much bigger. It was a shock for us to realize this. We now know that the rice farms that we can see are often several rice farms joined together so therefore have more than one owner. It is now not surprising to us that the farmer will only make 9 million rupiah per year based on getting two harvests in a calendar year. This is not enough to live on as this gives the farmer less than US$100 per month to feed their family.

Take a look at our video to see how we measured the school soccer field. It was not work but a lot of fun!!

Visualizing the Size of a Rice Farm in Indonesia

This is the SWA soccer field. Is it bigger than the average Javanese rice farm?

Here are some students ready to measure the school soccer field.

Today 5MJ had the task to measure the area of the soccer field at SWA. The students have been learning about area. This is a part of our inquiry into the size of a rice farm in Indonesia. We have learned that the size of an average Javanese rice farm is 3,333 square meters. The purpose of measuring the soccer field is so that the students can compare the size. They cannot image how big 3,333 square meters is, so once we know the size of our soccer field we can see if the rice farm is bigger or smaller.

We got our information about the size of rice farms in Java from detik.com.

This morning each student made a drawing of the soccer field and put a drawing of how big they thought an Indonesian rice farm would be next to it.

Shereen makes her prediction. She thinks that the average Javanese rice farm is much bigger than the school soccer field. Look at her prediction drawing on the mini white board. She then captured this with her Photobooth and uploaded it to her blog. Read Shereen's post.

An Inquiry into Rice Plants in the Classroom

Here is the video taken during the rice plant inquiry in the classroom.