Skip to main content

Cool Tool #4: My Ebookmaker

This week's cool tool was My Ebookmaker. This tool is a free book making program that you can download and create as many books as you want. Your ebooks can be downloaded in an epub format (an e-book file format that can be downloaded and read on any device) and can be distributed in many forms of technology such as:
  • Amazon Kindle
  • Apple Ibooks
  • Barnes and Nobel
  • Googlebooks 
  • Lulu
Unfortunately, when it comes to this tool I am not a fan and did not get to finish making my book because it was just too confusing to use. It is not an 'easy to follow' process like my other cool tools were. One of the hardest things for me to do was add images to my book. When you click on the photo icon it takes you to a weird screen that does not allow you to add a picture from a file. The only way I was able to add a photo was by clicking the upload tab and then click send to server. But that took me a while (with additional help) to figure out. Even after the picture is uploaded there is not way to fix the size to make it bigger or smaller. 

Another problem that I found was that I wanted to preview my progress to see what my book looked like so far but the preview that it gave did not look like a book at all, it just looked like a word document. Unfortunately, I do not have any examples to show because I became very frustrated and gave up trying to navigate the very complicated tool bar.  The last problem that I found was that it was very slow when transitioning to new chapters and sections of the book and it is very basic. 

But, I did appreciate that while you were typing it auto-saved for you just in case you forget in the midst of typing and creating text was simple to follow. 


I think something similar to this would be good to use in the classroom as another form for students to share their stories or even for end of the quarter book projects. If the Ebook app you chose allows you to share, students would be able to share their stories with their classmates so they could read it, instead of just the teacher. I see that there are uses for this tool but it would not be an Ebook tool that I would use in my classroom. I appreciate that it was simple and free to sign up but it was not very exciting to use and I don't think students would enjoy using it either.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cool Tool #2- Emaze

The Cool Tool that I chose to review for this week is Emaze . Emaze is the next generation of PowerPoint presentation that expands to offer a creation tool to the social hubs such as website design , blogs, ecards, and photo albums. With Emaze you are able to add media, GIFs, and live social feeds. Some features that Emaze has is that it is easy to share content anywhere and monitor who is watching. It is also easy to use , has front-line designs and be used on more than one device. Along with that Emaze has language support and is cloud based so you are able to save on your cloud. You can also upload an existing PowerPoint and make changes from there OR you can create your own from scratch. Something else that is nice is that students can use their Google account information to create an Emaze, which means that they will not have to memorize new information.  Emaze could be used in the classroom for presentation purposes both for teachers and students. For teachers this co...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ebooks

I don't have a catchy title for this week's blog...sorry. BUT if you did read my bland title today's blog theme is all about Ebooks! Ebooks are just electronical versions on of printed books that can be read on the computer or any other electronic device. Ebooks in the classroom should be used in younger grades, intervention classes, or as an option for students who do not read as well or as quick as their peers.  According the the article E-Books and TPACK:   What Teachers Need to Know About Ebooks ,  Ebooks have the traditional conventions of print books such as having a title, pages and chapters but they also have pictures and hotspots that provide navigation mechanisms for the reader such as: animations, sounds, videos, and read aloud functions. Perfect for students who struggle with reading. I think that these would be great to assign to students who also struggle with bring things back or loosing items that they are given. In the school that I am tutoring...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog #11- Productivity

Productivity as an educator is one of the most important things you need to be. Personally, I would like to get a routine going in the start of my teaching career to make things easier in the future than to continue to work hard my whole teaching career. When achieving productivity in the classroom you want to make sure that your students interests are kept while also incorporating high order thinking. After taking this class there are a few productivity tools that I could see myself using in my classroom such as: Reminding Tools - to help me remind myself of test days or important dates and to also help me remind my students and their parents of the homework that is due along with important dates (tests, field trips, permission slip deadlines, picture day, ect). With these tools it also holds the students accountable because they cannot use the excuse of "I did not know what the homework was so I did not do it". This gives multiple ways to communicate these important ...
Post a Comment
Read more