Cool Tool 4: Book Creator

As promised in my "Cool Tool 3: Explain Everything" post, I have finally finished creating an eBook using Book Creator. After our week 3 videos on eBooks, I was very intrigued and wanted to find out more about having students create eBooks in the classroom. I had a chance to connect with Jon Smith via email and asked him a few questions. One of my questions was if he recommended using iBooks Author over Book Creator or vice versa. His response was:

"I like book creator because it is so simple to use. I also like it because you could make a very good book only using the iPad. Anything that can be put into the camera roll can be added to book creator. I'm a huge fan of app smashing. 

iBooks Author is a little harder to use (slightly). It also offers up a more robust experience. However, book creator can make some really good books and it's much easier for young kids to use. I work with a KDG teacher and her kids have gotten to a pint where they will make their own books without help from the teacher."

With that, I decided to try out Book Creator, but was wondering, "What is app smashing?" So I checked it out and decided that I do that all the time and it would make sense that students would do that, too, when creating projects to help them make the best book possible. One example I was already thinking of was from the main video when Explain Everything was discussed to incorporate videos showing students thinking. Therefore, I included my Explain Everything creation on the water cycle in the eBook I created.

Anyways, back to Book Creator! I decided to download the $4.99 version of the app instead of the free version because I know this is something that I want to use with my students. I decided to create a book about water and the water cycle so that I could incorporate my Explain Everything video, as mentioned above.

The Book Creator app can create landscape, portrait, and square eBooks. With the app you can include text, photos, sound, and videos. The app has functions to change the font, font color, font size, background color, picture size, and video size. You can also make the background color on the left and right side of the book different. The app has a feature that you can turn on guides and snap items to the guides which makes aligning items on a page very easy, however, this function can be turned off if you do not want the app to automatically align items for you. Another feature that is noteworthy is the pen tool. The pen allows you to draw and annotate your book. The app also has comic book templates you can use when creating eBooks. Finally, when books are finished, you can upload them as PDFs, videos, or ePubs. They can also be shared to a variety of apps.

Below are three screen shots of most of the options you will come across when creating a book.



This tool could be used in the classroom in so many different ways. Students could collaborate to make eBooks or create them independently. Students could use the app to create informative eBooks on topics they have researched or learned about or they could create fiction and nonfiction narratives, among other things. I also like the idea of app smashing discussed above and having students use other apps, like Explain Everything, to add to their book. I would use this in my classroom because it is a way to incorporate technology into the classroom that teaches students 21st century skills. The app also engages students more than if they were to just write or type a research report, biography, story, etc. It gives them more options when creating them and gives them more room to be creative. I also really like Jon Smith's idea of having students publish their eBooks on iTunes. Publishing these books gives students a greater purpose for creating them and they will most likely put more effort into them since they know they will have a huge audience instead of just the teacher, class, or their family. I also loved how by adding them to iTunes students can incorporate math and geography skills by tracking where the downloads are, graphing how many downloads they get, and analyzing the data.

Students of all ages could definitely use this app to create eBooks because it is very user-friendly. Jon Smith's website also has eBooks created by students of all ages that are a testament that students can definitely use the app. Younger students would definitely need support while learning the app, but I'm sure they would pick it up fast. Older students, however, would not require much support at all if they already are pretty tech-savvy. I did not come across an aspects of the app that I thought would be challenging for students.

Here is my eBook creation that I saved and uploaded as a video.


I'm interested in knowing if anyone has used this app with their students. What have you done with it? Have there been any challenges? Even if you haven't used this app yet, what are some ideas you have for using it? I highly recommend trying out Book Creator if you haven't yet. I can't wait to start using it with my class!

Cool Tool 3: Emaze

For this week's cool tool review, I was planning on finishing my eBook I started making last week with Book Creator, but I decided to take a break from that and try out a new tool! This week I created an Emaze presentation on synonyms and antonyms, a topic my second graders are currently learning.

Emaze is a tool that enables you to create presentations. It can be used on iPads, laptops, computers, tablets, and phones that are connected to Wi-Fi. The presentations can also be easily shared on many different social media sites. This tool has many different presentation themes you can use, and many more if you decide to buy one of the paid versions. Also, if you buy a paid version, you can collaborate on presentations. However, I decided to try out the free version for the time being and used the chalkboard theme. I really liked using this tool and thought it was very simple to use. I like the flow of the presentation and the transition between the slides. There are many options when creating your presentation. You can include text, numbers, images, media, shapes, and charts into your presentations. Another cool feature is that you can important PowerPoint projects that you have already created into Emaze.

When working with slides you can duplicate them or change the settings, such as: auto play, duration, and page scroll. When working with text, there are many features such as: style, size, alignment, bold, text color, background color, effect, opacity, list, indent, text direction, hyperlink, target, audio, arrange, lock, rotate, 3D, line spacing, letter spacing, and font.

Below you will find a screenshot of what you will see when you are creating a presentation.

This would be a great tool to use in the classroom for instruction because, while there are many presentation apps to use, I really like the layout of this one and think it is very engaging for students. Teachers can teach the content with the presentation that incorporates technology and keeps students interested. I can see this being more appealing than a PowerPoint presentation for students of all ages. I love how the slides flow into each other and give the effect that they are all on the same background.

This would also fit even greater with TPACK if it were incorporated into an assignment for the students. For example, students could research a famous person and then show what they learned by creating an Emaze presentation. Emaze does not have so many options that it would overwhelm the students when trying to learn how to use the program, especially younger students. Part of me thinks that Emaze would even be easier for primary-aged students to use than PowerPoint.

I would definitely use this in the classroom to present material on a variety of topics from the weather cycle to character traits to arrays. As I mentioned above I would use this to present material because it presents material in an engaging way and you can also incorporate media and audio. Also, I was able to make it interactive by adding questions to the presentation. I would have students use this because it enables them to create presentations showing what they learned being as creative as they want. It is also easy to use and would not require much teacher support and instruction on how to use the tool. Students could also incorporate media, audio, and links in their presentation. Students can create presentations quickly using Automaze and "Smart" templates. Lastly, there is a template that looks like a newspaper. This would be a fun template for students to use for an assignment where they could create a newspaper to contain articles on a variety of topics. I could see students collaborating easily with the newspaper template, where each student is a journalist reporting on a different topic and they each put their information into the template. Students could also play the role of editor and edit each other's work. There are a variety of templates that I'm sure could open themselves up to many more different engaging and thought-provoking assignment ideas.

Below is an example Emaze that uses the newspaper template.


The one challenge I had with this tool was that I could not edit images, other than resizing objects, with this tool so I had to edit them in Microsoft Word and copy/paste them into my Emaze presentation. For example, I found a picture and wanted to crop it, but I was unable to find a way to crop it in the Emaze presentation.

Overall, I think this is an excellent tool for teachers to create engaging presentations and for students to create presentations that showcase their learning in an interactive, creative, engaging way instead of always using reports and tests. I highly recommend trying out this app for yourself and with your students!

Here's my finished Emaze presentation on synonyms and antonyms!

Cool Tool 2: Explain Everything

This week I was really intrigued by the our weekly topic video and wanted to try to create an eBook so that I could learn the program and explore it before using it with my students. Jon Smith recommended the following three apps when creating eBooks with students.

1. iBooks Author
2. Book Creator
3. Explain Everything

I started to work with Book Creator making an eBook for the water cycle, but after I made the cover page, I thought it'd be cool to incorporate a video of the water cycle in my eBook. So that took me to Explain Everything. I downloaded Explain Everything for $3.99. I bought the paid version versus the free version because I know I want to use this in my classroom. I spent so much time creating my video, probably too much because I'm a perfectionist and wanted it to be just right. I had so much fun using this and learning how to work this tool. It was frustrating at times, but as I got the hang of it it became much easier and started making more sense. I didn't read about how to do it before I used the app (which probably could have been useful), instead I just started exploring on my own. At this point, I thought "I have just spent so much time using Explain Everything and haven't even touched my Book Creator book. The requirement for our class is one Cool Tool a week and I was now doing two at once. I began to get overwhelmed, as I always do, and came to the conclusion that I would use my Explain Everything creation for my Cool Tool 2 and incorporate it into my Book Creator project for my Cool Tool 3. So check back next week to see my thoughts on Book Creator and see how I incorporated my Explain Everything animation into my eBook!

Anyways, back to Explain Everything. Here is my finished product! It's not perfect, but I'm sure my second graders will love it!

Explain Everything is an amazing screencasting and interactive whiteboard tool. With this tool you can create a variety of things by animating, narrating, annotating, designing, importing and exporting, draw in any color, and add text and shapes. You can also create slides and use a laser pointer, but these were two features that I have not yet explored. When you start a new project, you have the choice of selecting landscape or portrait and there are a few color color templates to choose, as well. Once you selected the two options you'd like, your screen will look like the one below:


I was about to explain everything you see, but then I found this useful cheat sheet from Flipping the Elementary Music Classroom!

The one tool I wasn't sure what it was for a while was the inspector tool, but once I did it made my life much easier! It allows you to duplicate, arrange, copy, paste, rotate, group, and lock items. Until I found this tool I was using my fingers to rotate and resize items and it was very frustrating trying to match the sizing and rotation of multiple items so they looked the same. However, when using the duplicate option it does it all for me.

I think students would use this tool after they have been taught about or done research on a subject. I think of it as a way for students to show what they have learned. This tool fits perfectly with the TPACK method of teaching for many reasons. The first reason is because it can fit with any content area that I can think of and students are taking what they have learned and using the technology to show it, whether it be in a group or independently. Students could illustrate many things, from the water cycle to how to regroup in addition and subtraction. I think they could also illustrate events that happened in a book they read or create how-to animations on various topics. I also like this way of having students show what they have learned and would use it because some students are not good test takers or they struggle putting what they know into words in their writing. This is another way for them to show their knowledge on a topic. It allows them to be creative and gives them many different ways to share their thinking. Lastly, using this technology where they are annotating and recording is very engaging. When creating projects, many students probably won't even feel like they are working because they will be having such a good time.

This tool is definitely a tool students could use to create their own digital media artifacts. At my grade level, students would definitely need support, instruction, and modeling to get started, but they pick up on things so fast I know they'd be able to do it. It might also be a good idea for them to work in small groups or partners for the first couple projects so that they can help each other as they are all figuring out the tool. I think the easiest features for my students would be using the drawing, shapes, and color tools. I also think that once I teach them how to save images and add them in that would be very easy for them as well. Lastly, I think they would have an easy time moving images and objects while they are recording.

Thinking about my current second graders again, it may be challenging at first for them to learn how to record and how to edit it/delete things when they aren't happy with their first try. This was a process that even took me a while to get the hang of. It's kind of like a trial and error thing. Another thing that caused issues for me was every time you press record or add or delete something it adds a box on the recording strip. Many times the boxes would start piling up on top of each other and it was hard to get the one that you wanted to delete.

It was frustrating when I wanted to go back to a previous point I already worked on and change things. I would delete something and rerecord, but then when I would watch it back the object I deleted would still be there. This happened many times and I'm not sure why. At one point I deleted everything until the end of the recording and just started over because it wasn't changing what I was telling it to. I'm not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or not, but it was very frustrating. I consider myself pretty tech savvy and pick up on new technological things quickly, so if it was challenging for me I'm assuming it would be challenging for students as well, especially my young second graders. One other thing that was challenging was that I would watch the video and it would be just how I wanted, but when I exported it there would be little errors that didn't show up when I watched it in the app, but were showing when I played the video in another app on the computer. Lastly, another thing that could cause problems for students is when they want to change something, they either have to click "mix" or "overwrite" when they go to record again. Mix leaves everything they have but changes the part they are working on. Overwrite deletes everything past the point you are overwriting and you can't get it back. When I was still learning the difference, I clicked overwrite and lost a lot. That would be one area that students would definitely need a lesson in, because its very frustrating when you spend so much time on your project and then lose it just like that.

When teaching students to use this tool, I think a tip I would need to give them to avoid the problems I mentioned above would be: Don't move on to the next part of your animation until you have what you are working on exactly how you want it. This will help them because they won't have to go back and change things and worry about the app not doing what you want it to do. Now I know that sometimes you think that you have it just right and you don't think of a better way until later on when working on another part so you can't always follow that tip, but I think if they try to do that it will help avoid a lot of issues.

All in all, I know students would love this tool. At my grade level, however, students would need a lot of instruction and practice to learn how to use the tool. I cannot wait to see some of the creations students will come up with. Unfortunately, I only have my personal iPad for students to use. Wishing I had a class set or even just a couple more!

If anyone has used this tool before and has any ideas for projects students could create or tips and hints to help the students, I'd love for you to share them! Comment below!

Cool Tool 1: bubbl.us

For my first Cool Tools Review I decided to try out bubbl.us. This tool caught my attention because it was also mentioned in an article I read this week in my ILA magazine.

Bubbl.us is a brainstorming tool that allows you to create mind maps (concept maps/graphic organizers). It offers endless opportunities and you can design it to have as many bubbles as you'd like. It is very simple to use which is great for younger students. Another cool feature is that the bubbles all have colors and you can change the bubble colors, font colors, and size. I searched "bubbl.us" in Google to get some more information and came across this short blog about bubble.us. It gives a basic overview of bubbl.us, but I really liked it because it gave some ideas for use with the tool, such as: family trees, plot lines, life cycles, and so much more. Check out the blog here:

TeachersFirst Review - bubbl.us

When trying out the tool, I decided to create a mind map on the pros and cons of homework because this week I am going to be sharing with my students a Newsela article discussing how some schools and parents are saying "no" to homework.

I also used the following two articles to help create my concept map.

10 Benefits of Homework

5 Reasons Kids Need Homework and 5 Reasons They Don't

After reading the Newsela article, students will be working in groups to come up with pros and cons of homework. After, the students will share their ideas and we'll create a class concept map. Finally, students are going to choose a side and write reasons to support their belief (we should or should not have homework). Their reasons can be reasons from the articles shared in class or from personal experience with homework. This lesson incorporates the following second grade writing standards from Ohio's New Learning Standards:

1. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section 

7. Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations). 

8. Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Below is the concept map I created as an example of what we will be creating as a class during this lesson.

If I had access to a class set of iPads or tablets or was able to do this lesson during our computer lab time, I would have students create their own bubbl.us for this lesson with their group. However, this lesson will be done in the classroom and will be used as an introductory to bubbl.us since my students have no prior experience using this tool. The goal will be that my students will use bubbl.us in small groups or independently in future lessons.

The following reasons show how this tool can be used in many ways, not limited to the ones I listed and linked above, and are also the ways I could use it in my classroom. I think that this tool will help students create organizers efficiently and organize material in an easy, effective way. The concept maps, compared to ones created by a teacher or downloaded and printed for students to fill in, can be more visually appealing and easy to follow due to the use of colors. Students can show different categories by giving each category a color. For example, on the concept map I created, I could have made all of the pros blue and all of the cons red. I also like how you can make each bubble a different size, i.e.: they aren't all limited to the same size. Students could show the most important information by using larger text than the others. Bubbl.us can also be faster than writing if students have decent typing skills. This tool offers students more options than if a teacher passes out a generic organizer because it lets them be free and creative with the way they organize their information. The bubbles are easy to move around, change/edit, make new connections (versus writing--you have to erase or may run out of room).

Screenshot of the options you will see when you are creating a map in the tool.
Plus, what you will see if you place your mouse over a bubble.

Bubbl.us works with TPACK because students are using technology to meet the needs of the lesson content they are working on mastering. Using graphic organizers is a great teaching (pedagogy) technique to help students organize their thoughts or information from sources, wether they are writing a story/report or illustrating/describing a concept they read about in any subject area. This tool is also gives teacher a great way to differentiate. For example, if a graphic organizer is passed out in class, all students have the same boxes, outline, and format to use and they are probably all required to fill out the complete organizer. If a teacher used bubbl.us, he/she can give students different guidelines/directions to follow (ex: different number of categories/elements/bubbles to include). If a teacher wanted to do that with a paper concept map, it'd take much more planning time to make several different graphic organizers for the students to use. With bubbl.us students can create the map to illustrate the information in a way that makes sense to them.

Students could very easily use this tool to create their own media artifacts. I like that it does not have an overwhelming amount of features, which makes it easy to use for even my little second graders. Any thing students want to change about a bubble is editable right at that bubble. They don't have to use a tool bar or tabs at the top of the screen to find what they are looking for. When using this tool the only frustrating thing I found was when I went to change the layout of the bubble (colors, font, etc.) because you have to hold the mouse over the bubbles and wait for the options to pop up. My first instinct was to click the box, which makes the text box editable. However, as I worked with the tool it became easier and I'm sure kids would get the hang of it, too.

I love this tool and can't wait to use it with my second graders. I definitely recommend trying this tool out! I think it gives students endless ways to display their thoughts or learning about a topic and doesn't constrain them to the same map every other student is using. I can't wait to see the variety of mind maps my students come up with. It will truly let their creativity and uniqueness flourish!

I'm interested to know if anyone has used this tool before? If so, how have you used it? Can it do anything else that I didn't mention above? Even if you haven't used it, I'd love some other ideas for its use in the classroom!