Pages: your digital publishing house. Create everything from simple essays to interactive e-books.
🔍 What does it do?
Pages is a flexible app that works in two ways: as a traditional word processor (like Word) and as a page layout tool (like Publisher). It allows pupils to combine text, photos, videos, and even audio recordings into a single document. Because it can export as an EPUB, it is the primary tool for pupils to become published authors of their own digital books.
🎓 Why is it useful?
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Interactive Media: Unlike a printed sheet, a Pages document can “talk.” Pupils can record their own voice explaining a concept and embed that audio button directly next to their writing.
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Smart Templates: Pages includes beautiful, education-specific templates for posters, research journals, and books, giving pupils a professional starting point.
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Accessibility: It features a “Reading Mode” that hides all the editing tools, allowing pupils to focus entirely on the content without distractions.
⚙️ How does it work?
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Launch: Open the Pages app (Orange icon with a white pen).
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Choose a Mode: When you start a new document, you can choose to ‘Start Writing’ to enter a simple word processing layout (for essays) or you can ‘Choose a Template’ to make posters and books.
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Add Content: Tap the icons at the top to add Photos, Videos, Web Links, or Audio Recordings.
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Format with the Brush: To change fonts, colors, or how text wraps around an image, tap the object with your finger and then tap the Format (Paintbrush) icon.
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Publishing: Tap the ‘Share’ button and select ‘Export’ to save your work as a PDF or an EPUB (e-book) that can be read in the Books app built into iPad.
🚀 Beyond the Basics
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Talking Books: Pupils can write a story and then use the ‘Record Audio’ feature to add sound effects or read their story aloud. This is a fantastic way for pupils to practice fluency and expression.
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Digital Field Journals: Take the iPad outside. Pupils can snap photos of plants or insects and drop them straight into a Pages journal, adding text boxes with their fingers to label what they see.
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Vocabulary Posters: Pupils can create a poster with images of common objects. They can then embed audio clips of them saying the word in another language, creating a “soundboard” for their peers.
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Interactive Newsletters: Use a newsletter template to report on a historical event. Pupils can embed a YouTube link or a video of a mock “interview” with a historical figure to bring the report to life.
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Image Descriptions: Teachers can show pupils how to add “Alt Text” to images within Pages. This ensures that if a visually impaired student uses a screen reader, the iPad will describe the image to them.
