Week 5: eBooks

Tuesday 5th February

This week, the class was based on eBooks and in particular using the app Book Creator. Before we got started using the app we talked through some characteristics of eBooks and how they could be useful in a classroom setting. An eBook can be described as “an electronic version of a printed book” (Oxford Dictionary, 2019). This electronic book can be accessed and read on any digital device such as a computer, iPad, tablet or phone. Giving children the opportunity to work with these devices, on their own or in groups, lets them explore things for themselves and become more independent. They can be as creative as they like. Using this resource in the classroom doesn’t only help to develop children’s creative skills but also helps them to work on their collaboration with others, problem solving and literacy skills. This proves that digital technologies cannot be labelled its own subject as it contributes to many areas of the curriculum.

A report carried out by the University of Hull on the use of iPads in the class and at home for homework, found that the use of iPads within the classroom allowed children to be more creative and engage more with their peers through class work and assessment materials. At home, parents said that their child(ren) had “greater motivation, interest and engagement” with the learning (Burden et al., 2012). 75% also commented that children were much more willing to complete their homework tasks (Burden et al., 2012). While I am in complete agreement with these statements and believe that the use of iPads and other technologies are definitely the way forward for learners and teachers in today’s world, I do strongly believe that there are key skills in education that cannot be taught with the use of digital technologies. Therefore, I think the use of iPads in the classroom should be carefully controlled by the teacher, used when appropriate and more importantly not over used.

Book Creator is an app which allows you to create your own book. This could be anything from children’s books, comics, textbooks or journals. The app allows you to insert all forms of media. Some include images, text and even sounds clips. Drawing on a previous post, this makes the book multimodal and therefore has a massive range of benefits for using with children in the classroom. The task this week was to create an eBook based on the storyline of a children’s book. The eBook had to include images, text, sound and some interactive aspects for children to get involved with. The book I had chosen to use was The Lion Inside by Rachel Bright and Jim Field. I started by reading through the book and noting down the key ideas that I wanted to include. I took photos of the images I thought illustrated the key points well and used these in my eBook. Throughout I added little tasks for the children to complete to make the book more interactive. On the first page I included some sound clips of different animals in the book, on the third page I had some hyperlinks which would take the children to some websites where they could do some research on Lion’s. The fourth page asked them to draw a picture of one of the upcoming scenes. At the end of the book I added in a section called ‘Your Turn!’ which consisted of a series of 4 questions, 2 of which asked the children about the story line of the book, one asked for them to write down some facts they had learned from the websites and finally the last one allowed them to record themselves making the noise of 2 animals from the book using the sound button.

                                                

CfE experiences and outcomes which I worked towards during this session were:

“I can explore and experiment with digital technologies and can use what I learn to support and enhance my learning in different contexts” – TCH 1-01a 

“As I listen or watch, I can identify and discuss the purpose, key words and main ideas of the text, and use this information for a specific purpose” –  LIT 1-04a

I was really pleased with how my eBook turned out! What I like most about using the iPads is that it allows you to do things that wouldn’t be possible using worksheets or textbooks. It makes the lesson more enjoyable for the children also. The app was very easy to use and had lots of different features which allowed me to make the book so interactive. With more time, this app could be used to create something very effective. It is definitely something I will remember for future use in the classroom!

References

Burden et al. (2012) iPad Scotland Evaluation. [Moodle Resource] Available: http://moodle1819.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/39914/mod_resource/content/2/Scotland-iPad-Evaluation.pdf [Accessed: 19 February 2019]

Oxford Dictionary. (2019) [online] Available: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/e-book [Accessed: 19 February 2019]

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