E-book Creation Tools

Well, January is in the books! It was such a busy month. Between the holidays and events such as the American Library Association Midwinter Conference, January simply flew by. 
To open the month, I'm beginning with a post about E-books. A veteran teacher at my school approached me last week and asked whether I knew anything about ebooks. He was looking to do things differently. Up until now, he had been allowing kids to make a paper booklet or powerpoint. 
The teacher, Mr. M, is a great guy; he's got a small case of tech-phobia, but always pushes through. Today we were talking and he said that a few weeks back a student was performing in a talent show he was judging and it led to an epiphany. The student had the wah-wah-wah sound from the Peanuts gang playing as he "sat in class." Mr. M got to thinking-- he pondered his own teaching practices, and decided that he needed to make it more engaging. He realized that flipcharts and "sage on the stage" just doesn't work. So, he's starting with E-books. Next week, I'm going to re-introduce him to Hyperdocs. 
Today, however, I'm going to share about Ebooks. 
 
This is one of those days where I wished we were an iPad 1:1 schools, but alas, we are not. So, I hit the Google trail. Here are a few resources to help teachers ease into ebook creation. 
For so many schools (like mine), we are Chromebook rich-- so with that in mind...a great and easy spot to start is Google Slides. There are some great ready-to-use templates that makes this an easy win for you in working with a teacher looking to engage students and go deeper in knowledge. 

Check out these templates: 

I purchased these templates from TeachersPayTeachers via Pinterest. It was a great time savings for me; I have one more crazy week, and then things will chill for a few weeks. (keep your fingers crossed)

Papyrus

I really liked the look of this online application. Sadly, it is not working right now. It has some cool features and a great WYSIWYG interface. 

iBooks Author

A few years ago, I attended the CUE conference in Palm Springs and was fortunate to garner a spot in an Apple iBooks workshop. This has all the bells and whistles and is simple to use. 

You will have the ability to add video, audio recordings, as well as space efficient text boxes with a scroll down feature, and pictures. 

Fun and dynamic. 

Regardless of the platform you use, eBook creation will help your students go deeper into the knowledge and create incredible ebooks that show that info off.