Tech Tips Tuesday

Experimenting with Book Creator

At my little guy's Mothers' Day celebration, his class of 3 year-olds (and a couple who are 4) read a big book called "The Cat Sat on the Mat". They then read a class made book on the smart board "The Frog Sat on the Log". We decided to make our own version on the weekend using the iPad to take photos of my little guys teddies sitting on a chair.

Each page an extra teddy is added to the chair until the first teddy roars and scares the others away! After taking the photos and adding the text I got my little guy to narrate for the book, adding an audio recording to each page. These play when the icon is touched.

What I liked:

• Simple to use
• Allows for images, text and audio
• Grid lines appear to help you line things up
• Exports nicely to iBooks for easy reading (and listening)
• Can be exported to PDF (without audio)

My gripes:

• I could have saved time if there was a simple way to duplicate pages and then switch out the photos. It was hard to ensure that pictures were the same size and that the text sat in the same position, particularly once the pages had been turned.

While it did the trick, and pretty quick, I'm not yet convinced it's the best way to go for making books on the iPad. I must say though, it was nice to be able to publish it so easily to iBooks and see it in a "library". I think this is a big bonus for students who need that motivation.

The Bear Sat on the Chair from pennyryder