Student Publishes First Book in English/Chinese to iBookstore

I have been working with a Grade 4 student very closely over the past 2 months. We have been creating a book in Chinese during Chinese language classes. I am a Tech Coach at my school and I was keen to get the iPads being used across the school. I found out about the app Book Creator which allows even very young children to create a talking book directly on the iPad. I started using this app in language classes. It works really well as the student can record their voice reading their own story really easily, directly on the iPad.

I published my first book using this app a few weeks ago with my 5 Year old son. See it here Little Fish
Since then the app creator Dan Amos has added me to his website here. I wrote a blog post about it here.

On Saturday I was really excited to find out that my student, Keily has published the first child-created iBook in English and Chinese to the Apple iBookstore. Get your free copy here Chen Chen Goes to Space

I have been asked by educators how I am able to publish books created by children with the iBookstore. The process is fairly straight forward:

First you need time to work on the story, the plan, the artwork and the voice recordings. After the story is finished you need to share it with others for proof-reading and feedback. So far this is pretty much inline with any kind of story creation.

Next you will need to ask the student's parent to create an iTunes account and an iTunes Producer account. Students under 13 need to have a parent publish their work for them. For the case of Keily, I invited her parents to school so that I could guide them through the process of creating the necessary accounts.

Please Note!!!


To publish with the Apple iBookstore on iTunes, you need to have an iTunes account with a credit card. You will be asked to provide that credit card information even thought this process doesn't cost anything.

Next you will need to create the book package for uploading to iTunes Connect. I created that for my student as you really need to pay attention to the size of the book cover image and sample pages. I used the app Book Creator which produces the book file that is standards compliant with the iBookstore.

I sat down with Keily's parents to help them complete all the information needed in the publishing package.

After we had successfully uploaded the book I taught the parents how to email iTunes Connect to ask about the book and when it would be published.

After a few days we got a message from the iBookstore that the Chinese language is not supported. We were so surprised and worried that all our hard work had been for nothing. We decided to revise the book so that it was in English with Chinese as a bilingual book. The Chinese characters have been put in the book as JPEG so that there would be no problems with the script.


Thankfully this made the book acceptable and we were relieved that it has now been published. 

Marble Roller Coasters - Going Further ...

As I predicted - the students LOVE this project. We began with making roller coasters in Minecraft but there are quite a few things about Minecraft that just don't work in the real world. Now we are on to making Marble Coasters on the walls of the classroom.

Here is an explanation from Science Buddies.org behind how a Roller Coaster works:

Slow and clanking, the string of cars is pulled up to the crest of the tallest point on the roller coaster. One by one, the cars start downhill on the other side, until gravity takes over and the full weight of the train is careening down into curves, twists, and turns. The roller coaster is a great example of conversions between potential energy (stored energy) and kinetic energy (the energy of motion). As the cars are being pulled up to the top of the first hill, they are acquiring potential energy. The chain that pulls them up the hill works against the force of gravity. At the top of the hill, the cars' potential energy is at it's maximum. When the cars start down the other side, this potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. The cars pick up speed as they go downhill. As the cars go through the next uphill section, they slow down. Some of the kinetic energy is now being converted to potential energy, which will be be released when the cars go down the other side.

You've probably noticed that the first hill on the roller coaster is always the highest (unless the coaster is given another "boost" of energy along the way). This is because not all of the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. Some of the potential energy is "lost" in other energy conversion processes.

You can investigate the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy with this project. There are as many possible variations to this project as there are twists and turns on a great roller coaster ride, but a good place to start is to see how much initial height you need in order to have your marble successfully navigate a loop in the track.

You'll use the same size loop for each of your tests, but you'll add (or subtract) track before the loop so that you can change the initial height where the marble starts. For each track configuration, you should try at least 10 separate tests with the marble to see whether it can loop the loop or not. You should also measure the slope of each track configuration. An easy way to think about the slope is the expression rise/run (see the illustration below). The rise is the height of the starting point, and the run is the horizontal distance from the starting point to the beginning of the loop.

The illustration above shows how to measure "rise" and "run" in order to calculate the average slope of the track leading in to the loop.

How much height (rise) will be required to successfully navigate a given loop size? A foam roller coaster for marbles is easy to build, so try it for yourself and find out!

Oh oh - I did it again Grade 5 ... my lesson turned in a Maths lesson ...

So you will need to measure the height (rise) and the run (length along the bottom) of your first hill run on your coaster.

I wonder how these numbers will compare? My challenge to you is to make a successful loop de loop.

5 Year Old Publishes on the iBookstore

My son has published his first story on the iBookstore. This story was his idea based on playing at the local river in our housing complex in Indonesia. John likes to play at the river (with adult supervision) and in this story he tells about catching fish using a plastic cup. My son told me this story and I suggested that we make it into a book. We used the app Book Creator to make the story directly on the iPad. I like that we can stretch the photos so that they either fill one page or go over the page fold slightly to make the layout more interesting.

John is only 5 and is only just beginning to type up words. For this story he came up with the sentences but I typed in the words for him. I took the photos as well.
We began one morning. I walked and he rode his bike to the river. I asked him to stop along the way for photos.

After he had finished I downloaded the photos from my iPhone to my iPad. I worked with John to choose which ones to use to tell the story. The finished book is 50 pages long. John then recorded each page by reading directly on the app.

After we had finished and were happy with the results we took the book to school and presented it to his Kindergarten class for feedback. I was easily able to share the book to 6 iPads. Here is John proudly sharing his book with his class.



We had such a great reaction to this book so I decided to publish it on the iBookstore. I am already a member of iTunes Connect having already published an iBook. I am well aware of how to get a book published.

I uploaded the book and was very happy that there were no errors. I am impressed with this app Book Creator as it is easy to use and produces a format that is inline with the requirements from the iBookstore.

After 2 weeks I sent a message inquiring about this book. It took a couple of days to get an answer which was a standard one telling me that my book needed to pass the content check. After another week had passed I sent another message and then a few days later I sent another message again. I think that there must be a lot of books under consideration in the iBookstore. When I published my first iBook that I made with iBooks Author, the whole process only took 2 weeks. A month passed with this one with very little response.

Finally whilst I was on term break, I got an email telling me that this book 'Little Fish' had been published. My advice to anyone wishing to publish with the iBookstore is to be patient. I'm sure that they get a lot of books to consider. I am currently working with a parent to help them publish a fantastic book created by one of my students.

This book is for free, you can get your copy here Little Fish.

Simple Machines Inquiry - My Initial Planning

Affordable computers have great potential to stimulate creativity and develop excellent problem-solving skills.

Thinking about my next Unit of Inquiry. This one is all about Machines.

I want to tap into the current craze amongst my Grade 5 students which is Minecraft. I am thinking that I will get the students to create a roller coaster in Minecraft that doesn't use any power rails and the challenge will be to see how many hills the mine cart can travel over with only the using the motion from down the initial inclined plane.

We can measure the height of the slope by counting how many blocks high it is. I would then like to translate this into a real live activity by getting the students to create a marble run in the shared area between the classrooms using a flexible hose and marbles of different weights. We could try to compare the two by making a decision based on a scale that one Minecraft block equals so many centimeters. This is based on the height of our roof which would allow a maximum height of 3.5 M. I'm going to try creating a roller coaster tonight in Minecraft that is 35 blocks high to see how far it gets me.

Given that Minecraft uses a mine cart and the marble run uses a marble we need to scale it down. Perhaps we could compare the height of a mine cart with a marble to get a better break down? I'll leave those decisions for the students.

Here is a great example of what I hope to re-create.



For my second hands-on I would like to start by using Angry Birds online to explore a catapult and then get the students to make their own catapults. We will start by throwing soccer balls of different weights to see how far it will go. This we can then compare to using a catapult.

Here is a You Tube video of what we hope to create.

Actually I am still planning this but I do like to leave certain things open to happen in the moment. I'll certainly post about it when we get started.

AirPlay Mirror iPad to Macbook with Reflection App

I use iPads a lot in classes but it can be quite difficult for students to project their screen as the VGA connection for iPad sometimes takes a little while to kick in.

On the weekend I downloaded a new app for Mac called Reflection. This app is very easy to setup and use. I was easily able to download the trial version which worked straight away on my own home connection.

My school uses a Proxy server so I wasn't able to just connect to the system like I can at home.

What I did was the following:

In System Preferences I opened the Internet Sharing option.



In the Sharing options check the box for Internet Sharing and choose WiFi.
Make sure that this is OK with your school ICT Manager first :)



Then in my WiFi tab on my Mac I created a network called jane_ross
This was so I would know which WiFi to join from each iPad.

On each iPad I joined the new jane_ross network. After that I was able to double tap my home button on the iPad and swipe to the left to see the AirPlay button. You need to make sure that the Reflection App is active first - or you will not see any AirPlay button.



This morning at school I tried it out with 6 iPads at once. Here is the result. It is quite easy to change the size of each iPad by dragging a corner.

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 ....

Accessibility in iOS - Getting your iPad to Speak

I recently presented a mini workshop about Accessibility in iOS in Bangkok. This is new learning for me. I have had my current iPad 2 for several months and I can't believe that I only just learned that it can read the screen in 36 different built-in languages!

This feature works best with iBooks. This means that you can get your iPad to read your iBook to you. I have my own iBook that I wrote in Indonesian so I decided to test it.

To enable VoiceOver I prefer to use the Triple-click Home method in the Accessibility settings on the iPad. This gives the user greater control to turn the VoiceOver on or off as necessary.



To adjust the speaking rate in the VoiceOver section of the settings slide the setting towards to turtle to make the speech slower.



Before you try using the VoiceOver you will also need to select the languages you wish to make available in the Language Rotor. You can select any languages that you will use. You need to select VoiceOver and then inside that tab you select Language Rotor.



Next open iBooks and open a book that you would like to have read to you. Open the book to the page that you want read. Enable VoiceOver by tapping quickly three times on the home button.

To activate the rotor, tap and hold the screen with two fingers and rotate your fingers. It's a little like turning a dial with two fingers. You will see a dial pop up. You can select the 'language' setting on the dial.



To change between languages you tap the screen as if you are making a check mark. You will hear your iPad call out each language. When you get to the one that you want, tap on the text to hear your iPad read the text aloud.

Accessibility on OSX - making your Macbook Spell

I recently presented a mini workshop about Accessibility on OSX. This is something that I previously didn't have much experience with and I am very grateful to Jane Harris for giving me the following suggestions.

Jane taught me about reverse spelling. A traditional spelling test is when the teacher reads out a list of words for the students to spell. Jane's idea is to reverse this, to get your Macbook to spell out each word. In Lion, the Macbook has a built in feature for speech.

To enable this in Pages you simply highlight the text you want spoken, right click it and select speak.

For spelling, just put a space in between each letter - s p e l l . Your macbook will spell the word.
You can teach your students to create personal spelling lists and then they can get the Macbook to spell out each word whilst they write it down.



You can adjust the speaking speed in the System Preferences settings in the Speech section.



To adjust the speed of the speech you can slide the speaking speed to 'slow'.



Another idea is to create slideshows of vocabulary words in iPhoto. In iPhoto make a folder of images (an Event) and rename each image with the word of the object. You can also add a description which is a sentence that includes the vocabulary word.



Hold down the shift button to select all images and create a new Slideshow.



In the settings make sure that you select 'Show Captions' with Title and Descriptions selected.



You could encourage your students by playing a couple of their visual spelling slideshows each day