Visual Storytelling with Book Creator - Conflict Stories

Today in Grade 2 we made Conflict Stories using the new comic tools in Book Creator on our iPads. The students were able to take examples from small conflicts that they had experienced in the classroom.

Outline

The outline was - Title - Beginning - Problem - Conflict - Solution. The class has been learning about conflict resolution as a unit of work. Using Book Creator, every student was able to take a conflict and easily turn it into an illustrated story within a lesson.

Design

As a part of the design, we learned about the Law of Thirds for the cover of the book and to use facial expressions to help tell the story. The students also learned about choosing fonts that are easy to read and colours that contrast well with the backgrounds. We also learned the difference between speech bubbles and thought bubbles.

The students really enjoyed working in small groups to act out each conflict theme. Most of the themes were about sharing. It is really easy for students to quickly build a story that draws together photos with text to support the storytelling.

Next Steps

Our next steps will be to finish the stories by creating voice recordings and then exporting the finished work as a video to upload to our blogs.

Title - Cover of Book

The Beginning

The Problem

The Conflict

The Solution

Dictate a Story in Book Creator

When working with young students, typing can be quite a difficult thing for them to do. In Book Creator, you can easily make a voice recording of the child telling the story but often having the written text there can make that story even more powerful.

Just recently, I was training some assistant teachers on how to use Book Creator. I run a lot of workshops, and Book Creator is one of my most used apps on my iPad.

I love it when I learn something new. So I just had to share this with you.

During the workshop, I was doing my usual explanation of how to create a book, add a photo and then add some text. The participants were asking about the predictive text feature that is now available at the top of the keyboard. I explained that this can be very helpful for students as it can support their spelling. I also explained about the globe icon and how that can change the keyboard when you enable different keyboards in your settings. This allows users to type in other languages that require special characters like Chinese or Arabic.

Next I told the participants about the microphone icon and how that is used for dictation. You tap on it and speak, and the iPad will type whatever you say. I showed it in the moment and was very impressed with how accurate it was. If you say 'full stop' it will also type a full stop. If you say 'new paragraph' it will also skip a line. This is a wonderful way to help students understand about the function of punctuation. Honestly, even I was blown away!

So I am now thinking of how this tool can be used with Kindergarten students. Our young students can now type their own stories. Amazing. Our students in Grade 1 and 2 can dictate their stories with words such as 'full stop' which will help them to make that important connection to the function of punctuation. I am so excited about this and can't wait to see how it can be used. I made a short tutorial video for you to watch with the help of my son who was very excited to dictate his first book.

Write Now 1000 - Kids Writing for Kids

My school, Sinarmas World Academy has started on a huge publishing project called Write Now 1000. The aim is to publish 1000 books over the next 7 months! If you want to read up about this project - take a look here Write Now 1000.

I am proud that this project is a direct result of a Publishing Project sandbox that I led from January to May, 2012. I worked with several students to create and publish iBooks to the Apple iBookstore. This resulted in the publishing of 10 books, some were written by students and some were written by me. As well as the 10 that were published to the iBookstore, there were about 70 other books created by students that were published to the school website.

In my own current class of Grade 4 students, I have been working with the class to write non-fiction books about the latest Unit of Inquiry. Each student has written their own book on their iPad. We used the app called Book Creator for iPad.

The difference ...

I have witnessed the awesome difference when you put publishing in the hands of students. 

My students are each creating a resource that will be available for download across the world. This is authentic learning at its' best. My students have a voice. The books that they are creating are giving them a platform to share their work as a finished product. Writing a book is a very different experience to writing on a website or blog. The book is created as a finished product - it becomes an artifact. 

Writing a book is a fantastic way to make connections in learning and to reflect on learning. Each book in my class has been research-based, includes student created photos, videos, voice recordings and hand-drawn diagrams. The students have learned about cover design, contents page, how to cite information, layout, font, color, relating pictures to text, creating accurate diagrams and how to put it all into a sequence from the beginning to the end of the book.

I am witnessing some deep thinking and there is such an excitement about the books. I am constantly seeking different ways for students to communicate their learning. I use a LOT of visual learning. In these books the students had to really demonstrate their understanding of their chosen body system by creating diagrams to go along with their text.

Each student wrote an explanation about a body system and an information report about a focus part of that body system. To go beyond the text, each student had to draw accurate diagrams to accompany their words. They also had to create a movie showing an experiment or demonstration that linked to the body system. As well as this they also took their iPads home and took pictures showing how they can actively keep their body system healthy at home.

iPads are so great for this. They are easy to use, capture is so immediate and creating dynamic digital inter-actives is very easy to do. It changes the whole way we think about learning. So much of education is text based. I love being able to create opportunities for my students to communicate visually.

Recently my class had the opportunity to share their books with a younger class. They were so excited to show their books and talk about the body system that they had researched. Each of these books averages at about 35 pages. It's become a very big task but a very interesting one.

Mind you I have read the books many, many times to check for spelling, grammar, factual text, that the facts have been reported correctly and information cited properly. I also have to check the quality of the images (not blurry and connects well to the text), that the font is consistent and easy to read. I also check that the layout is balanced. Even that a good contrast between text and page color has been achieved.

My students are fortunate that they also have access to Ms Ade (Indonesian teacher with Science background) and Mr Lindsay (our grade level EAL teacher) who can check their writing and give valuable input.

Like I said, it is a BIG process but then again we are really publishing these books and putting them online.

The system that I use is as these children are under 13 years old, I invite the parents to come to school where I help them to set up the iTunes and iTunes Connect accounts. This means that the parent becomes the publisher and has full control over the book accounts.

Here below are two of the books that I have already uploaded to the Apple iBookstore. 

 

All the information in the books has been written by the students themselves and all the images and movies have been created by them as well.

My students are 9 years old but I have taught them a simple referencing style with author, year, book title and page number.





This week I hope to upload some more books to the iBookstore. Every book created in my class will go to the School Bookstore as a part of the Write Now 1000 project.

It's such an exciting process. The parents are really excited too and I look forward to blogging about the books after Apple has approved them.

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 ...

My Dream for Education Has Come True

Today was an exciting day for me. My school hosted a press conference to celebrate the publishing of Keily's book 'Chen Chen Goes to Space' to the iBookstore. Keily Setiawan is only nine years old and is in Grade 4. I worked with Keily over several weeks in her Mandarin classes to create an iBook. When we first sent it to the iBookstore it was rejected as the iBookstore doesn't support Chinese script.

We were so disappointed but Keily suggested to make her book bilingual and add English. I had asked Apple Singapore if there were any books in the iBookstore that were in Chinese and found out that the ones that were there were bilingual.

So we revised the book.

Actually it made the book become better. We realize that Keily is probably the first child in the world to publish in English and Chinese. Download Keily's book here.

My school sent out an infobyte (newsletter) to the school community to announce Keily's achievement.

The next day I was approached by a Grade 11 student. Her name is Nahyeon Kim. Nahyeon is a very talented artist. She told me that she made a book last year for her personal project. This book was hand painted entirely by her. Nahyeon's dream is to become a graphic artist. I persuaded her to add voice recordings to each page to make the book more accessible for young children.

She agreed.

On Wednesday we uploaded the book to the iTunes iBookstore. Both students had to ask their parents to come to school to work with me to create iTunes Connect accounts as you need a credit card as a part of the verifying process. Keily is actually under age and Nahyeon doesn't have her own credit card.

Late last night I received the news that Nahyeon's book had been published. It was uploaded on Wednesday and published late Thursday night by Apple. That's the fastest I'd ever heard of getting a book published!!! Download her book, 'Threescoop's Snowy Adventure' here.

Previously Nahyeon had tried to publish her book. It was too expensive to pay for a print run. She had shared the process on her blog - but that is not the same as being officially published to the world in an online bookstore.

Today I presented these books by Keily and Nahyeon and 12 other exemplary books to the press. We had about 30 reporters come to school. Actually I have about 70 books that have been made by students. Today we wanted to show just a short range of books made by students from Kindergarten to Grade 11.

Tonight I sit and reflect upon this week of meeting the press and getting books ready for publishing. I remember it was about 4 years ago that I had an interview with The Jakarta Globe. Read the article here. I had met with the Globe having just presented at the 2008 Indonesian Teachers Congress in Jakarta. My presentation was about the power of digital storytelling. I presented entirely in Indonesian.

My dream back then was to publish digital stories and have them on a website. The point was to share stories. Sadly it didn't really take off. I have always had a passion for helping students to write and I have created many books over the years with my classes. These are great keepsakes but rarely go beyond the class and parents. In my previous school I actually published a book with my Grade 1 but we only printed 500 copies and that was very, very expensive.

In 2008 I became an Apple Distinguished Educator. This changed everything ...

Apple has supported me. The software, training and inspiration that I have been given to grow as an educator had changed the way I teach. It's all about the student voice. I realize now, that this was what I was trying to do back in 2008. I was trying to give students a platform, an opportunity to be heard and to have a greater audience to read their work that went beyond the teacher, the class, their parents and even their school community.

Today I realized that dream ...

My students are no longer writing for the teacher, for their parents or for their school community. Students are able to actually publish their work to the world. Keily now realizes that she has an audience on the other side of the globe. Her work is now alongside professional authors in a high profile online bookstore.

Keily is now an author!

Nahyeon's book that she painstakingly created over a year ago can be downloaded and viewed by people from 32 different countries.

Nahyeon is now an author and very talented book illustrator!

Yes I know that blogging can give you that international audience. But to have your book published in a forum alongside professional authors is something that is quite amazing.

Amazing!

Amazing for me to realize my dream as an educator. This is something that I will continue to build upon.

Thank you Apple 

New Life for iPod Touch Generation 2

Technology is continually updating and gadgets that were once the latest thing - are soon replaced by newer ones with more options. So was the fate of the 15 iPod Touch Generation 2 at my school. These iPods are only a couple of years old - but cannot be updated anymore.

So new apps won't work :( And the books that were made with my favourite iPad creation app Book Creator - WON'T WORK! These iPods can only be updated to iOS 4.2.1
This is a problem. I can't use the iBooks 2.0 app with iOS 4.2.1. I need the iBooks app to read the books that the students are creating. I am in the middle of a publishing project. As an ICT Coach, I have been working with several classes to create talking books.

What's the solution?

I went on Twitter - I tweeted about my problem. This is what Twitter is for me. It's my help line for Tech. I think that if I can share as much as I receive then I will have restored the cosmic balance. So I sent out a tweet - an SOS for help.

The app creator of Book Creator, Dan Amos @redjumperdan answered my tweet. He suggested that I try using iBooks v 1.2 but it's not easy to get a hold of an earlier version of an iPod app. Most links on the web direct you to the iTunes Store and the most recent version is the one that is available.

Where do you find past versions of iPod apps? oldipodapps.com?

Dan kindly sent me a copy of the version 1.3.2 but it didn't work with my iPod. What next? I even managed to get a copy of the iBooks .ipa file 1.2.2 but it still didn't work.

So why do I need these 'old' iPods to work ...

I love the talking books that my students are making with Dan's awesome Book Creator app but I needed a solution to create more access in the school community for viewing these books.
We are creating these books using the school iPads. We have a set of 20 iPad 2 and these iPads can be borrowed by teachers to use with students. In the beginning the iPads were very popular but as time went on they were being borrowed less and less.

As an ICT Coach, this is a concern of mine.
How can I get the iPads used more? How can I get the class teachers more interested to use iPads in their teaching and learning program?

I have taken on this challenge by making a publishing project. I use the Book Creator app to create the book and the Drawing Pad app to create the pictures and as well as this I use photos taken by using the iPad camera.


Book Creator App


Drawing Pad app

This works really well. We have been creating books in all Grades from 1-5. I have been working very closely with the Chinese teachers in the school as by using the Pinyin setting in the keyboard, the students are able to type in Chinese characters. In Indonesian language classes in Grade 1 we have also made several books. Soon Kindergarten will start to create books too.

Here are my students working in Chinese classes using the Book Creator app.



The Book Creator app is so user friendly and allows students to put words, pictures and voice recordings. It produces a book that can be read by the free app iBooks. iBooks works with the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

So what's the problem?

The iPads have become rather popular ... now it's quite difficult to borrow one. This has prompted me to look for other ways of how the students might be able to view each others stories.

So - solution?

Jailbreak the iPod Touch ...

I am very fortunate to have access to a school Genius Bar aka iQbar. The iQbar is available to anyone in our school community. The guys that work there know a lot about Tech. Today I learned from them about how to jailbreak an iPod 2 using Green Pois0n , load Cydia - then update it, add the AppSync for 4.0+ and sync the iBooks 1.2 that I found online. It's also possible to add a source such as Hackulo.us to download that version of iBooks.

So the ending to this story ...




Yes! Now all I have to do is get the other iPod Touch jailbroken and set. It means a new life for the iPod Touch Generation 2 in our school.

My iBook is Published!

Yesterday when I logged into my account in iTunes Connect, I discovered that my iBook had been released in 32 countries. This is my first iBook and I have written it in my second language, Indonesian, with the help of my two children Taruli and John.

You can download your copy of the book via iTunes. Here is the link to the Australian store http://itunes.apple.com/au/book/lomba-kapal/id497936331?mt=11

My iBook is called 'Lomba Kapal' which means Boat Race. It is a story about my children racing origami paper boats in the river near my house. I took the photos and videos with my iPhone on the morning that the iBooks Author app was released. I then spent the next two days working on the story and the layout. I was determined to keep the overall size as low as possible.

In Indonesia I have a very slow Internet connection at my house. I am well aware that accessibility is the most important factor in technology. I wanted to make my iBook easy to download so that others like me with a slow connection can still get it in a reasonable amount of time.

This iBook is just under 18MB and has 15 pages including interactive elements and multimedia.

Here is a screen shot inside the iTunes Store of my iBook and the preview pages.




I think that it is really sad that my book has been released to 32 countries such as US, UK, Australia, Ireland, Czech Repulic, Estonia and others but it is not available in the Indonesian iBookstore.

I asked some of my contacts on Twitter about this. I found out that the iBookstores in Asia do not have any locally produced content in them. I am wondering why this is the case? What has to happen for the iBookstore in each country to be open for locally produced content?

What can I do to open the Indonesian iBookstore for locally produced iBooks?
I have a group of national Indonesian teachers ready to create children's stories.
We need access to the Indonesian iBookstore.

In the meantime, my iBook is for free and I encourage you to download it. It includes interactive pictures, galleries and videos. I have been writing children's stories over the years but this is the first time that I have properly published one. I am hoping to write a whole series about the things that we do as a family.

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 ....

My iBook Adventures

Today I went back to school very excited to show my iBook on my iPad. This book is in Indonesian my second language. My first job was to get my language proof-read by my Indonesian colleagues. I wanted to make sure that my Indonesian was not too formal and therefore suitable for children as my book is a children’s story.

Then I tried using iTunes Producer to create the .itmsp iBook package. I am still a little confused as Indonesian is not on the list of languages. Does that mean that there are no books in the iBookstore in Indonesian?

There are only 14 languages in the drop-down list. When I tried to type over the option to add Indonesian. It continued to fail when I uploaded the package to iTunes Connect. Consequently I have had to put my book language as English even though I have written it in Indonesian.

I hope that I can create a series of books for children written in Indonesian. I need Apple to add Indonesian language to their list of languages.

A word of advice ...

I neglected to read the fine print and had to resize both my cover art image and my screenshot images for my book.

For the Cover art:

Cover art should be at least 600 pixels along the larger axis and must be a TIFF, JPEG, or PNG file in RGB Color mode. For an average trade paperback, this could be 400 x 600 minimum size.

For the screenshots:

Screenshots should be a clear picture and be a 1024 x 768, 1024 x 748, 768 x 1024, or 768 x 1004 pixel
JPEG or PNG file with the appropriate file extensions (.jpg, .jpeg, and .png) in RGB Color mode.

Once I had done this I had only one other error - language. I tried to type in Indonesian but it is not one of the language options from the drop down list. In the end I put English.

Needless to say the upload was successful. Now I am wondering what happens next. I have gone into the settings and made it available to the world.

iBooks Author - First Impressions

I downloaded iBooks Author as soon as it was released. I have been writing books in the classroom for a number of years but I have never properly published them. My books are always about the current learning. Mostly they tell the story of the current inquiry.

You can read here about the Publishing Group that I am working on at my school.

Originally I wrote books with Microsoft Publisher. This worked well enough as these books were just for printing off on a colour photocopier. I was able to master the double sided printing (short edge binding as I prefer landscape not portrait). I was able to then take the printed pages and cover to a local binder and get them made up into hard cover books.

Then I moved to an Apple school so I used Pages, Keynote and Comic Life to make my books. I am an Elementary teacher so I prefer Keynote as I use large photos and very little text. The Keynote file can be easily exported as a PDF and then the book can be printed via Preview.

I was easily able to sync these PDF books to my iPad. I have also worked with creating ePubs in Pages. I must admit I got a little frustrated with this as I had little control over the layout. I believe that layout is the most important part in an Elementary school book. I tend to keep a certain layout in my books and with ePub the pictures need to be Inline which limits the overall look.

Now for iBooks Author ...
I am impressed - hands down! It's like Apple knew what I needed. iBooks Author is a combination of Keynote and Pages. You can also easily copy/paste from Comic Life as well.

Most importantly you get TOTAL control over the layout.

I love using the widgets. I have tried the Interactive picture widget and the 3D image widget with a lot of success! Here is a screen capture from my first book. This one is in Indonesian. My children are helping me to write it. I hope to finish soon and even try to send it to the iBookstore. Who knows - maybe I'll get to actually publish this one?

School-Based Book Publishing Group

I have started a book publishing group at school. We have currently around 15 teachers in the group. So far we have met as a group a couple of times to work out some agreements like a title page template and a proof reading system. We have already produced several books. Here is a photo of our first big book. We are fortunate to have colour photocopier machines in the school. The teachers are able to print wirelessly from their Macbooks to these photocopiers. The hard binding is done outside the school at a local photocopy centre. An A4 book costs Rp30.000 ($3.50) to bind and an A3 costs Rp60.000.

Our system is a simple one:

All work must be original which includes all photographs and written work

All books must include a Preface and a title page

All books must be proof read twice by a language teacher from the language of the book before the book goes to the printing stage

We intend to develop an eLibrary of our SWA-Published books. I am currently looking into a few options. I want the books to be embedded as well as on virtual bookshelves.

Here is a copy of our Essential Agreements:

ESSENTIAL AGREEMENTS OF SWA PUBLISHING GROUP

The number of pages must have a minimum of 15 sheets of paper. (for printing purposes due to hardback binding requirements, eBooks not limited to this)

All content must be original including text and pictures. Eg: photograph is taken by the SWA community (not downloaded from internet) children’s pictures or artwork may be scanned

Font and layout style must be consistent.

Fonts have to be easy to read.

Pictures should be clear (not too dark, not too bright, not blurry)

Parental permission need to be obtained, when the book would be published outside of the school

Language used in SWA books is according to the language guideline and is proofread by a proofreading process.

The topic can be vary in any subject or any grade level. (eg. picture book, non-fiction book)

The book should include preface

Here I am reading our first big book together with Grade 1. These kids co-wrote the book. They were very excited!!