Joe Dale is an Independent modern foreign languages and technology consultant, with 13 years teaching experience. Joe is also a Book Creator Ambassador.

He was invited to present via live webinar by Nellie Deutsch, on behalf of YTLSIG IATEFL (the Young Teachers and Leaners Special Interest Group of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language). As the subject was ‘Producing and sharing personalised multimedia ebooks’, Joe decided to focus on Book Creator.

Below is a bullet point summary of what Joe talked about, with links to relevant support articles and blog posts – ideal for any teachers looking for an introduction to using Book Creator, and ideas for classroom use.

Watch the webinar by pressing play above, or view it on YouTube.

Introduction

• Book Creator is available on multiple platforms – iPad, Android tablets and Windows.
• It’s an award-winning app, picking up the ‘Best Educational App‘ award at this years’ BETT show.
• For the iPad, there is a full version, and also a free version which is limited to creating one book (Joe didn’t mention there’s also a volume purchase program for schools).
• The Android version also has a free and paid version, whilst the Windows version is currently available for free.

Making a book

• Joe talked about making your first book, and the different page layouts available.
• How to add a picture by taking a photo from within the app, and aligning it on the page.
• How to add text and format the text.
• Changing the background colour of the page.
• Adding a hyperlink to images and text.
• Pictures taken with the iPad camera in landscape will fill a double-page spread in Book Creator perfectly.
• How to add pictures from the iPad Camera Roll.

Comic books

• Joe gave a brief teaser of Book Creator 4.0 – the next version of Book Creator that Joe (as a Book Creator Ambassador) has been helping with through beta testing, which will add comic book styles and templates to the mix.

Adding video, audio and App Smashing

• How to add video from the iPad library.
• Importing video content made in other apps – namely Pic Collage, My Talking Avatar, YAKiT Kids and ScreenChomp.
• Adding video with the iPad camera (for providing audio feedback on student work).
• Recording audio hotspots (as an alternative for feeding back to students).
• Making audio hotspots invisible when viewed in iBooks.

Adding shapes and the pen tool

• How to add shapes to your book, including speech bubbles.
• Overlaying invisible hotspots onto speech bubbles so you can press on them to hear what’s said.
• Drawing and annotating your book with the pen tool.

Reading and sharing your book

• How to open your book in the iBooks app.
• Export options – ePub, PDF and video.
• Using Readium to view your book in Google Chrome.
• How to combine separate books, and view all the pages of your book.
• How to save your book with Google Drive. (Here’s are tutorial on doing the same with Dropbox).