Tag: Book Creator

Christmas Around the World

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The days leading up to Winter Break, is a great time for students to dive into some non fiction reading and research how holidays are celebrated in other countries around the world. There is an opportunity for many great extension activities among a variety of content areas.

In early November, two 4th grade teachers approached me about converting a previously very lengthy paper packet to something digital. We explored a few options together and finally landed on Pages.

In Pages, the teachers and I created a mini booklet that contained some information regarding the celebrations, however students were welcome to research additional information in their groups. This also connected well to group discussions on how to safely search for photos, but how we respectfully use photos when being aware of copyrights.

Once the research was completed in Pages, students were then given a choice of how their group wanted to present their content. Most selected to use one of their new favorite resources, Apple Clips.

What made this project unique, is that two classrooms came together to jigsaw 17 countries. Each room completed roughly eight countries that they would present to each other. During the presentation process, students then completed their passport notes in Book Creator.

The students loved this project, and it was so great to see their smiling faces!

Apple Vanguard 4.0 Day 2

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“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Confucious

I work with an amazing team. I recommend following Lindsay Zilly (@iCoachLindsay) and Kara McFarlin (@mrstechfarlin) on Twitter. We just finished wrapping up Day 2 of our Apple Vanguard 4.0 group. If you have missed previous posts, Apple Vanguard is a series of professional development workshops held in our district for teachers that applied. We have 3 groups; primary, intermediate and jr. high. Each group consists of about 16-20 teachers from multiple buildings.

Today’s focus was emphasizing Apple’s “For the love of learning” motto. A day set around our teaching passions and for some, rekindling an old romance with curriculum resources or starting a new journey together.

While we provide plenty of opportunities for teachers to share and be hands on with various learning practices, there was something that set this particular vanguard day apart from others. I mean, who wouldn’t want to take a staff field trip to the local Apple Store and participate in a scavenger hunt around the mall? This is exactly what we did, even though it felt a bit rebellious for some!

We were lucky enough to partner with our local Apple Store, which is within very close proximity to our district office. They welcomed each of our Apple Vanguard groups into the store before opening hours, where they received a personalized lesson on a resource that was selected by the instructional coaches form their Today at Apple Sessions. We primarily decided to focus on story telling with the use of Apple Clips and Keynote. Staff loved the change of scenery, and I highly recommend this if you have the opportunity.

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Following the Today at Apple session, we wanted our teachers to collect evidence that could be used in a story, so that they could bring it back to our session after lunch. We sent them on a scavenger hunt through the mall! Yes, you read that right! In advance, we shared a template with our teachers that utilized Numbers. Teachers had a choice to work with a partner, in small groups or individually on a topic of their choice. Later on, they would then incorporate this evidence into a story using Book Creator.

This was an extremely fun day full of love for learning.

The Power of Video Conferencing

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I’ve been working with a 7th grade jr. high social studies teacher on a presidential book project. This idea was modified from another jr. high teacher and coach in the district. The goal of this particular project was to cover the importance of the Executive Branch, but students would be doing this by creating a non-fiction digital book.

When we met to plan out our lessons, once again, this was a great way to incorporate mini lessons on research and digital citizenship topics… like copyrights. To provide this project even greater meaning, we partnered with a 2nd grade class at one of our primary schools. The media specialist there was immediately on board!

Through inter-office mail, 7th grade students were able to browse primary level text in order to brainstorm questions to inquire how they could make their book appeal to a 2nd grader. 2nd grade spent time preparing by reviewing non-fiction text features, and different ways non-fiction can be published.

On the day of our actual video conference, the students were so excited to see one another. This gave our 7th graders a great boost in confidence, but also that authentic audience that they knew their published pieces would be viewed by.

We are still waiting on the final drafts, but we are eager for the epubs to be displayed in the library!

Templates in Numbers & Book Creator

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If there are two apps that I have completely fallen in love with for templates, it has to be Numbers and Book Creator. While I also love giving students the freedom to create, both of these resources enhance the organizational process for students when a template is needed.

Numbers, I often feel is overlooked for its data stereotype. However, once you erase the tables if they aren’t needed, it provides a wide, blank canvas, that can be transformed into whatever your imagination creates.

For this particular example, I had a 3rd grade teacher who approached me with a goal of having her students research a variety of countries around the world. She wanted to eliminate paper packets and keep the project digital. Knowing her goals through our discussion, I suggested Numbers. The students loved the picture placeholders and the text box placement. We discussed researching ethics and copyrights. The students even used Numbers as their presentation tool when sharing their research with their class.

As I mentioned above, another great resource to build templates in is using Book Creator. One trick that I recently learned as well, is that images from Keynote copy and paste well to Book Creator. It’s a great way to give students another library of shapes to use!

This particular template I’m referencing was for 3rd grade as well. They had been learning about the continents in social studies and planned to jigsaw them in the classroom. During our prelesson conversation, I brought up the idea of a rotation schedule. There happened to be 7, 3rd grade classrooms, so this worked out perfectly. My team was very open to trying this idea, so on the day of an early release, each 3rd grade teacher was responsible for a continent specific activity in their classrooms. The students rotated into each classroom, taking notes and photographs to document their learning. All of this was completed inside of their digital passport.

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