The popular classroom tool Book Creator recently dropped two big updates which teachers will be excited about. If you’re someone who has traditionally relied on PDFs and worksheets to aid learning in the classroom, it’s now time to bring those PDFs to life in Book Creator!
From now on, Book Creator allows you to upload your PDFs onto the pages of your book, where you can then annotate them and add rich multimedia materials such as audio, video, emojis or AppSmash with various other tools.
Learn more about the process of importing PDFs on the Book Creator website. And if you’re new to Book Creator, you’ll be pleased to know that this tool is free to use for teachers and you can get started right away.
What are the benefits of adding PDFs to Book Creator?
1. Personalize your PDFs
PDFs are often used to consolidate thinking and practice learning. But often the PDFs we source online aren’t quite tailored to your students learning style or the exact concept you’re trying to teach. In Book Creator you can quickly and easily edit the PDF - erase sections, add new text, images and audio to bring them to life and make them much more engaging and interactive.
2. Save time when teaching
You probably have a stash of go-to PDFs that you’ve used over the years - you may even have a folder of printed worksheets that you have to photocopy every time you want the class to use them. Now you can scan and upload them to Book Creator and customize them as you need to. And you can think beyond PDFs too - how about exporting your favorite Google Slides presentations as a PDF and turning them into an interactive book?
3. From Substitution to Augmentation
It’s important to realize that standard PDFs are not accessible, engaging or customizable. Having students download a raw PDF is not enough to be considered the "digital" component of your curriculum! Using a tool like Book Creator, you can modify the PDF and transform the learning process into something more engaging and accessible for your students.
If you know the SAMR model, you’ll know how important this is. And that’s just the start. Once your students get familiar with Book Creator you’ll be turning them into published authors in no time!
BONUS update - cropping images
As part of this big update, the Book Creator team also released a small but might feature that allows you to crop images, photos and yes, PDFs, with ease. This has been on the feature request list for many years so was well received by teachers when it dropped!
New to Book Creator?
Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom. It’s incredibly popular with teachers and students alike, with over 2.5 million books made in schools each month in Book Creator, across the world.
Did you know that Book Creator is free for teachers? Create an account today and get started.
Written by Dan Kemp. Dan has been the Marketing Director for Book Creator since 2013. He lives and works in Bristol, UK.This post originally appeared in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning ( www.educatorstechnology.com ).
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