Badiner Bytes and Tech Tidbits: Publish with Book Creator

One of the benefits of living in a digital world is the availability of a worldwide audience. Students write differently for a larger audience than they do for the classroom. There are many tools out there that allow for digital publishing. One of them is Book Creator. This is a tool that can be used on Chromebooks as well as tablets. There are different levels of paid access, but the free version can also be used in a classroom! With the free version, you get 1 library (collection of books) and 40 individual books. That works well for 1 book per student and leftover books for you or teams to create. At the end of the year, you can archive this library and start over with a new library and 40 new books. Check out the steps below to explore how Book Creator can help your students publish to a large audience!

Create an Account:

Head over to bookcreator.com.
Click “Sign In” at the top and then choose “Switch to Teacher”.

Choose “Sign in with Google”.

You will have to complete the steps to set up your library (the free version only allows 1 Library and 40 books).

Create a Book:

Click on the “+ New Book” button.

Choose your layout/shape.

Choose your Background by clicking the “i” icon.

Add content by clicking the “+” icon:

Media

Images: add images from the web or from your device.

Camera: Use your webcam to add a video/image

Pen: Draw anything you wish

The “Auto Draw” at the bottom uses AI to auto-create a picture so ANYONE can be an artist!

Text: Create a text box

Voice to Text: Add text by typing or DICTATION!

Record: record audio to add to your book

Shapes

Insert shapes and callout bubbles (can have text added)

Add pages

Click the arrow to the right to add a page

Manage/reorder pages

Play the book

Just click the arrow in the top right to play the book. You can even have it read to you by clicking “Read to me”.

Share with Students:

First, there are 2 ways to display your books. The grid icon in the top right controls this.

There are 2 ways to share your books.

Add to a Library:

Click the 3 dots and choose “Move to Library” if in compact view.

Go to the “Library” icon and click “Move to Library” if in the zoomed-in view.

Open the Library you added the book into by clicking the 3 horizontal lines in the top left, choosing the Library, and clicking on the “Invite Code” link at the top. This is what you will share with your students once they have signed into Book Creator.

Share the Link:

After your books are finished you can share them with the world by clicking the “Share icon”. You can then choose to “Publish online”, “Download as ebook”, or “Print”. The ebook download will require an ebook reader, and printing can be paper or a shared PDF but will lose the video/audio features.

Once published, your book can be read on bookcreator.com with a private link. You choose who to share this book with, and you can unpublish the book at any time.

Add Students to Library:

There are 2 ways to add students. The easiest is by using their Google Accounts.

Use your students’ Google Sign-in:

Have your class go to bookcreator.com.
They will click the “Student” option.
They will sign in with their Google Account.
Students will be asked for the teacher's code. This is found by opening the Library you added the book into by clicking the 3 horizontal lines in the top left, choosing the Library, and clicking on the “Invite Code” link at the top. This is what you will share with your students once they have signed into Book Creator.