Tool Software
I. Integration Strategy
Creative Book Builder enables students to easily create, edit and publish e-books that can be read on any ePub reader, including iBooks. This iPad application allows students to use their creativity by adding titles, paragraphs, images, videos, audio recording, music, hyperlinks, and HTML widgets. Using Creative Book Builder, students can create an unlimited number of chapters and multiple books that can be exported to PDF, uploaded to dropbox, Google Drive, FTP server and WebDAV server.
Creative Book Builder is an interesting way for students to present their research. Here are some suggestions for how to go about this.
Step 1: Have students watch this video and look at this screenshot tutorial to see actual examples. Ideally this will be done on the first day, so that students see a finished product before they even begin.
Step 2: Ask students to set up a new book and create separate chapters called diabetes, which may contain three sub-chapters called causes, effects, prevention.
Step 3: Tell students to begin adding their research content from Evernote into their chapters.
Step 4 [optional]: Have students gather more information under a new category called tips. Students will collect new ideas and objects of interest to add to this chapter. Alternatively, students might set up an entirely new book. In order to do this, provide students with the following links.
Women’s Fitness UK is a free website that provides information, articles and resources under a range of categories including fitness, healthy eating, weight loss, health and style. Women’s Health and Fitness Australia is another free website that offers a range of health/fitness articles and information such as recipes, exercise routines, as well as topics like motivation and healthy relationships. Users have access to a number of free articles and content, with more available to paid subscribers. There is also an iPad app for full subscribers.
These websites and their addition to student books are recommendable as the websites feature many interesting articles on timely subjects of interest to women, along with nice photos, which the students should enjoy. Additionally, the websites have a number of subtopics that are light and fun, which makes a nice counter-balance to the topic of diabetes.
II. Relative Advantage
The relative advantage of an application like Creative Book Builder is that while students might be able create their own book using paper and pencil - which, granted can be an enjoyable, hands-on, old-school activity - paper and pencil do not enable the inclusion of digital images, voice recording, music, video and hypermedia, the result of which, like the paid app iBook Pro, results in a professional-looking finished digital product that can be shared digitally.
III. Expected Outcome
Importantly, the application Creative Book Builder reflects a constructivist approach, wherein it is believed that people learn best when they have an opportunity to collaborate and use their creativity to produce something that is authentic and personally meaningful. Simply put, ABP students will be more motivated to work with English and retain more of what they learn when they are actively using language to create a tangible product like a digital book.
IV. Additional Resources
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/creative-book-builder/id451041428?mt=8
