MiddSouth Innovates
Issue #7 2018-2019
Creating The Next Stan Lee
During MP1 Ms. Rohlfs and Mrs. McKittrick were looking for a way to have students demonstrate their understanding of literary technique as well as tap into their creativity. So, they turned to Book Creator. Book Creator is an online book generator that allows students to add both text and graphics to their work. Rather than just having the students write a story in a Google Doc, Book Creator allows the students to be creative with visuals and graphics, and shorten their writing narratives.
As the wrap up to the Antigone unit, students in Ms. Rohlfs class were given 2 options: develop an alternative ending or create an additional scene to the play. Since Book Creator allows students to create something that looks more like a graphic novel than a traditional book, the students were able to focus more on characterization and scene development rather than dialogue.
Mrs. McKittrick used Book Creator as part of the MP1 Quarterly because it piggybacked the objectives of both the historical and literature areas using the same vehicle. For the assignment, students were asked to develop a character and compose a short narrative that embodied one of the values of the ancient Greeks and Romans. With Book Creator, they were able to add pictures, thought bubbles, captions, voice narration and even sketch over the top. Since the program feels more like a graphic novel, you have many more layout options than something like Google Slides.
Book Creator is free, easy to use, and easy to understand if you are willing to click and try the different options. There is a full version that allows for multiple co-teachers and live collaboration between groups of students the way you could with a Google Doc. Below you can find some screenshots and links to the e-books.
Make Your Presentations EMAZE-ing!
Emaze is more than just an online presentation tool. It can help you build websites, e-cards, photo journals, and blogs. Templates are already setup for you to help you simply click and drag in new layouts, themes, color schemes, and content. You can add widgets to your pages that allow you to link to other pages or various Social Media outlets. And editing is really simple. Text and images function more like they do in Google Drawings than a typical website. Want your text larger? You can type in the font size or simple drag the text box to the size that looks good on your screen. The layouts for presentations are sharp and eye-catching, very similar to the type of designs you find at Slides Carnival.
Check out the video below to see an overview of how Emaze works and check out their YouTube Channel for more tutorials.