Author: Sarah Liebenrood, 4th Grade Teacher, Greenville, South Carolina

“When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.”-Bono

Imagine a classroom where students are all published authors. Students are engaged in their learning and are seeing themselves as real published authors. This classroom is no longer something of the imagination. Technology in the classroom has made this vision a reality…a powerful reality. As teachers, our goal each day to help students realize and reach their full potential. We express to them the importance literacy plays in their daily lives. Each day, we scaffold students into becoming independent thinkers, readers and writers. When a child finally comes to the realization that they are authors and what they are reading and writing are important, we, as teachers, have reached our full potential. Literacy instruction should be student-centered, with the majority of instruction in the “you do” portion of the lesson. Technology in the classroom has made it very simple to transform your classroom into a student-centered learning environment. It is up to you as a teacher to make sure the students are engaged, motivated, and taking learning into their own hands.

In my classroom, both first and fourth grade, I have been fortunate enough to work in a school that has a 1:1 iPad Program. When I first began using iPads in the classroom, I was very reluctant to allow students to completely take learning in to their own hands. In the beginning, I was the skeptical teacher that still wanted students to complete their writing pieces with paper and pencil. Although I do believe in a balance, I quickly found that using technology increases student motivation and engagement. When my students are motivated and engaged, it increases their performance, especially with the writing pieces that they are producing. Using one of my favorite apps, students have worked toward a goal of becoming a published author, multiple times each school year.

The app that has completely revolutionized my writing instruction is Book Creator by Red Jumper ($4.99 in the App Store). This app is powerful! Book Creator has functionalities that allow students to create their own eBooks, add photographs, personal illustrations, voice recordings, and videos. This is digital storytelling at its finest hour.  The best part is how easy the eBooks are to share. They books can be open in iBooks, e-mailed, or saved in a cloud storage such as Google Drive or Dropbox. iBooks shows published piece, complete with virtual turning of the pages!

How can I use Book Creator to make my students published authors?

Whether you are in a 1:1 classroom, using one iPad cart to share or iPad per classroom, you can turn your students into published digital storytellers. In my classroom, in both first and fourth grade, my students go through the writing process. They begin each piece with a prewriting activity, usually a graphic organizer, then continue on to draft, revise and edit their piece as much as they need to in order to make it their personal best. Once students are ready to publish, they use their iPads to begin the publishing process. The students first create a book cover with the title and either a photograph they have taken or an illustration they have drawn using a drawing app (Doodle Buddy or My Arts). Next, they create the title page and continue on to type their writing. This is usually the part of the day when I hear squeals (yes, even fourth graders get this excited). “Mrs. Liebenrood, it’s starting to look like a REAL book!” This is their epiphany that they are REAL writers. The students continue to write and illustrate their book in its entirety. Students then go back through and use the record feature to record their own voices reading their writing. Finally, when students have finished, they open their books in iBooks and are ready to read, share, rejoice, and celebrate their published piece.

Can I use Book Creator for Interactive Notebooking?

Yes, yes, and YES! I have started using Book Creator for Interactive Notebooking in Social Studies. This was a realization that I had over the summer when I was planning for my new content area. I was so excited to start the school year by having my students create their Interactive Notebooks with Book Creator. The prefix “inter” means an action between two things and with all the features of Book Creator, especially the voice record, students can easily interact with their notes in an engaging way that gives every child a voice.

My students are using their Interactive Social Studies notebooks to interact with the curriculum and take ownership over their learning by using their voice recordings, photographs, maps, illustrations, and text.  Interactive Notebooking has made it extremely easy to integrate literacy skills into the content areas.  Students are able to record themselves summarizing the material, making connections, identifying important fact, and more. Students can easily add photographs, maps, labels, captions and other nonfiction text features.  They are creating their own personal Social Studies informational texts. Creating their own informational texts aids in their comprehension and allows them to explore features of the genre. For each unit, we begin as a new chapter in their book. Each student adds the title and our essential question for the unit for the first page of the chapter. Next, they add to their notebooks each day with graphic organizers from our notes, photographs and maps with labels and captions, and text that explain the content area. Students add headings, bold and italicize important key words to their pages that come together in what looks like their own text book. Students just reading informational text and taking notes in not as engaging as having students create their own books. By creating their own interactive notebooks, it allows students to be immersed in informational text and really take a different approach to studying the genre. Students are applying their learning of the features of informational text on a daily basis.

As educators, we all know that reading and writing share a critical reciprocal relationship. When students become better readers, they become better writers and vice versa. The power of technology with digital storytelling and interactive notebooks allows that reciprocal relationship to flourish; making a high-tech student-centered classroom while increasing literacy abilities one published eBook at a time!