Going global with Book Creator

Redefining teaching and learning

As a technology integrator for Avenues: The World School, I am constantly searching for technology tools that will allow students and teachers to redefine teaching and learning in a way that is personalised and accessible to a range of abilities.

It is important that I find tools that allow for both creativity and collaboration. Book Creator for iPad is an app that allows students and teachers to author authentic content collaboratively from anywhere in the world, and even better, the app makes it easy to publish and share their multi-media iBook creations in a variety of ways!

Collaboration made easy with Book Creator

A central theme of the Avenues curriculum is global collaboration, so our students and teachers love to connect with classrooms around the world. But if you have ever tried to organise collaboration between multiple classrooms around the world, you probably know that it can often take quite a bit of time and planning. Luckily, Book Creator saves you a lot of time by making the collaboration part super easy.

The Global iBook

I love trying ideas with our earliest learners at Avenues, because I figure if they can do it, almost anyone can do it! Since our four-year-old pre-K students had just finished studying the topic of location, I decided that creating a global book could be a perfect way for them to share some of the things they had learned about our location in New York City, and to learn about other locations around the world.

I sent a tweet out on Twitter asking for anyone using the Book Creator app to send us a page about their location, and I was shocked by the amount of people who wanted to participate in the global book. Pages poured in from around the world, from students of all ages and all abilities. The creativity of the multi-media pages was amazing and exciting!

Are u using Book Creator app? I would love if u would create a page about your location & send 2 me. I want 2 create a global book! #ipaded

— Meg Wilson (@iPodsibilities) May 24, 2013

It was super easy to combine the pages, as people either emailed me the pages or a link to the pages. Once the book was compiled, I uploaded the multi-media creation to the cloud so it was easy for everyone to access and download to any iPad.

The finished result of our collaboration was a beautiful Global iBook filled with videos, audio, images, hyperlinks, and text from around the world. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and I know that it has inspired students and teachers around the world to author and publish collaborative iBooks using Book Creator!

Download the Global iBook for free from the iBookstore