This powerful digital tool is accessible to anyone, no matter their age, ability or literacy level. And that’s true for teachers as well as students. The results are incredible. When kids discover that they can be genuine creators they’re instantly engaged. They want to share their creations with friends, peers and parents. Interactive stories, science reports, research journals, comic adventures… it’s inspiring to see what young people are capable of.

With over 200 million books already made and 98% of teachers saying it positively impacts their teaching, Book Creator is the secret to transforming student engagement

Formats:

• Works in the browser on tablets, PCs and laptops using Chrome, Safari or Microsoft Edge

Primary URL:

http://bookcreator.com

Problem solved:

Disengagement:

Book Creator is a simple-to-use tool for creating digital books that can be used in any subject across the curriculum to demonstrate understanding, engage reluctant writers and promote collaboration. The concept of creating a book is universally recognizable. The idea of becoming a published author is intrinsically motivating for students. Instead of producing work that only their teachers will read, they now get to share their work to a wider audience, beyond the classroom. They will put in the extra effort to produce higher quality work, knowing that it could have a global audience. This has been demonstrated.

Using Book Creator helps foster consistent attainment of the highest levels of engagement on the Student Engagement Continuum. Teachers report that students literally work through recess as they are so engaged in writing their book! What’s more, because Book Creator is so open-ended, it allows for student voice and choice. Built with the UDL lens in mind, Book Creator offers multiple means of expression - students can choose to type, draw, or record their voice or a video. They can even use other edtech apps and appsmash their creations into their books. This freedom of expression makes the whole experience much more engaging for students as they take ownership of their learning. We have created an app that can be used by young and old students alike, and with literally hundreds of built-in accessibility features, it can be used in a powerful way in special education, across the spectrum.

Book Creator is also a tool that teachers can use to create their own resources for their students. Using built-in templates or a blank canvas, teachers can create differentiated materials for their students. They can tailor resources to fit an individual student’s learning style, to cover topics that off-the-shelf textbooks aren’t covering or translating the learning to make it accessible for all learners. Teachers are able to provide a scaffolded book for their learners, ensuring learning goals are clearly met without sacrificing any student’s creative agency over their work. This can be built into a portfolio, where powerful features like the video and audio recorder allow a student to actually see and hear the improvements they have made over time. Book Creator places student voice and choice at the very center of its technology, ensuring every student can create an engaging, meaningful, and highly personalized piece of work in the classroom.

Grade/age range:

It is ideal at elementary and middle school but is used consistently throughout K-12.

Core/supplemental/special needs/extracurricular/professional development?

Book Creator is cross-curricular and can be differentiated to all learning styles. Four areas where Book Creator stands out are:

• Enhancing literacy curriculum by offering a differentiated approach to teaching the 5 core facets of literacy - listening, reading, writing, speaking and vocabulary.
• Supporting language learners - “We use Book Creator to target all the language domains of our ELs, especially speaking and writing. We use it to build background for our students to support the content instruction.” - Christina Mahar, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools
• Supporting Special Education - Book Creator’s multimodal tools and supports make lessons accessible while building in student voice and choice. With hundreds of accessibility features built into the app, Book Creator is designed to support the three principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
• Creating Digital Learning Portfolios that students can take with them through grades, can share with parents, and can store all their progress.
• Creating resources to share with the wider school community. With publishing options, translations, and analytics on engagement, it’s a great tool for engaging the community - both nearby and those family members or community that are further away. Many schools use Book Creator to make newsletters, class intro books, yearbooks, and other resources.

Topic/standards:

They have an ESSA Level 4 with an independent study from Learn Platform. They also recently achieved the ISTE Seal in its new category: creativity.

Lesson time needed:

Book Creator can be used as little or as much as required. As a tool for demonstrating understanding, students can choose to use it or not (and we love that expression of student choice or voice). That said, on numerous occasions teachers have told us that students continue to work on Book Creator through recess or in their spare time because they find it so engaging.

Also, feedback from technology integrators tells us that one of the reasons Book Creator is so popular is because it doesn’t take a lot of lesson time to learn.

Pricing model:

Book Creator is free for individual teachers - when you create an account they give you 1 library with a capacity of 40 books and loads of creativity features. Teachers can upgrade for $130 per year (or $13 per month) and get unlimited libraries, 1,000 books and lots more features.

They offer discounts for license bundles for schools and districts which include more admin features like LMS integration and PD support to help with a smooth rollout.

Additional services needed:

No additional services needed.

What makes Book Creator unique?

In a landscape where creative technology tools are becoming more ubiquitous and also more homogenous as we all compete for a share of the market, Book Creator stands out as being the simplest tool of them all. We don’t overload the students with unnecessary tools or complexity - you can access everything you need as a student with just two buttons on screen!

Characteristics:

The Book Creator interface hasn’t changed much in the 13 years we’ve been around - that might be a good reason behind why it’s proved so popular. The UI is designed to be easy enough that a 4-year-old can use it but with enough versatility in the features that it can be used at any grade level.

They’ve long been a proponent of the importance of the blank canvas to promote future-ready skills such as creativity, collaboration and design thinking. That said, they responded to teacher feedback more recently to include templates and graphic organizers to scaffold the authoring process (more often needed for teachers rather than students!).

What users are saying:

From Common Sense Education, Book Creator has received a 5 out 5 star review and has been chosen as a ‘Common Sense Selection for Learning’ for the last 4 years. Here are a couple of reviews from there:

“I like the way that this tool is set up for the classroom. By allowing for students to create work and allow for teacher and peer access, it makes collaboration easy and fun. Once work is completed, students can share it with family, friends, and virtually anyone who they would like to see their work.”

“I think Book Creator is an amazing resource. I think it brings engagement and is an incredible platform that can be used for all ages and subjects. I have used it with writing narratives. The students had a page for the different story elements and were able to show all the parts and then eventually type the actual essay. It was a really fun experience.”