In a continued quest to find ways that iPads can be not only consumption, but creation devices, I recently worked with a high school psychology class (@alisonshaver’s class) where students were working in pairs to create children’s books about various psychological disorders. The app we used for the project was BookCreator. We chose the app for its ease of use, ability to record audio directly into the book and the ability to export the final product as both an eBook and PDF file.

The Process: 

• 5 minute BookCreator tutorial
• Students worked in pairs to research their disorder
• Groups outlined their children’s book (paper outlines)
• Groups created or found images online
• Groups created their books by importing images from the camera roll & inserting text

The entire process took approximately one week and when the groups were finished, they exported the final product by emailing both the eBook and PDF version to the teacher’s email account.

The eBook versions can then be opened directly on the teacher’s iPad for assessment and the PDF versions can be opened, downloaded and then posted online ( we used Issuu ) for web based reading of the books.

@allisonshaver’s iBooks app on her iPad with student created eBooks ready to be read.

Why conduct this project?

• Students worked collaboratively to research, write and create the book.
• Conveying a complicated message in the form of a children’s book is challenging and requires a solid understanding of the concept for the final product to be understandable to the audience.
• The technology was not an add on. The iPad itself was not the focal point of the project, rather a means by which the groups could create something to demonstrate their understanding that could not have been created, published and shared without using this particular resource.
• Flexibility: while some groups decided to find pictures online and use them in the eBook, other students decided to draw or digitally create their images and the BookCreator app allows for all three scenarios.
• Access: by exporting the books as both eBooks and PDF versions they can be read on mobile devices or directly online. Students can easily read and evaluate each others work either at home or during a period of in-class reading.

Here are two examples, enjoy!