Creating Musical Ebooks In The
Elementary General Music Classroom Using “Book Creator” Amy Burns
Far Hills Country Day School
aburns@fhcds.org
a movement activity, composing a melody, or creating an ac- companiment, when they are working diligently together to create something musical, it is magical. When the “Book Creator” app (see figure 1) came out a few
O
years ago, I saw another opportunity for my elementary music students to create. This time, they would create music ebooks that they could publish and share with their parents and other students from around the world.
Figure 2 Audio tool Figure 1 Book Creator
History of the “Book Creator” App In 2011, Dan Amos and his wife Ally Kennen, came up with an idea for an app for the iPad that would help children create their own books about the things that they love. In Sep- tember, the app rolled out and educators immediately began using it with their students. I was so enthralled with how intui- tive the app is for young children to use, that I had my third graders begin using it to create their own recorder books. This app is “Book Creator” (
www.bookcreator.com). After “Book Creator” launched, the developers realized that it was, in fact, an educational app. Therefore, in subse- quent updates, they added more tools to assist teachers and students in creating ebooks. These tools were ones such as au- dio (see figure 2), video, hyperlinks, and the pen tool. In ad- dition, the updates allowed users to export the ebooks as pdf files, videos (so we can include the audio and video excerpts that we added), and eventually publish the ebooks online. The app went from iOS only, to iOS and web-based, so that devices with an internet browser can utilize the app. They also allowed merging of two books into one. Then they added a “read to me” mode where the ebook can be read aloud in a variety of
TEMPO
The Basics of “Book Creator” “Book Creator” has a very intuitive template. You can be- gin with a plain template in three different screen sizes, or a comic book template. There are two menus: the “+” and the “i” (see figure 3). The “+” allows you to add photos, access the camera, use the pen tool, add text, record sound, add shapes, access files, add a map, or embed from the web. The “i” allows you to change the background of the page and the text boxes, as well as change the font, the font size, the text color, align- ment of text, and ordering items on the page.
Figure 3 Menus
Pitch Exploration Ebooks I have been using the approach written by John Feiera- bend in his curriculum, First Steps in Music for Preschool and Beyond, to teach kindergarten general music this year. In the eight-step musical workout, the lessons begin with step one: pitch explorations. We have used various pitch explorations, such as echoing a slide whistle, to help the young students be- gin to sing in their head voices. By utilizing “Book Creator”, each child used the pen tool to draw their own pitch explo-
48 JANUARY 2019
ne of the most rewarding parts of teaching ele- mentary general music is watching your students create. Whether they are creating music, creating
languages. Finally, they recently added real-time collaboration for the web-based app as well as embedding content from other websites and apps into “Book Creator”.
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