5 Ways to Make Multimedia Books
Writing multimedia ebooks can be a nice way for students to illustrate and or further explain portions of fiction and non-fiction stories that they compose. The use of pictures, diagrams, audio, and video clips along with text can enhance a student’s work. Creating a multimedia ebook also can be a great way for students to showcase a combination of examples of their best work. The following five tools make it possible for students to create and publish multimedia ebooks in their web browsers.
Picture Books (K-5)
Storybird provides templates and artwork for creating digital stories. To use Storybird you simply select a theme (layout) then drag and drop the drawings you like into your story. Once you’ve selected drawings for your story, you then write in the text of your story. Using Storybird, anyone can create great-looking digital picture book stories regardless of your drawing skills or lack of drawing skills.
Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of common words. In the following video I demonstrate how to use this tool.
WriteReader is one of my favorite tools for elementary school students to use to create multimedia stories. The outstanding feature of the service is the option for teachers to write corrections directly beneath a students’ original writing in their ebooks before publication. Students can record their voices on the same pages that they write on in their ebooks. And students can use their own original artwork or select artwork provided by WriteReader to include in the pages of their ebooks. Watch my video for a WriteReader tutorial.
Audio, Video, and Pictures in eBooks (5-12)
Widbook is a platform designed to help people collaboratively create multimedia books. The service is part multimedia book authoring tool and part social network. On Widbook you can create a digital book that contains text, images, and videos. Widbook is collaborative because you can invite others to make contributions to your books. To use Widbook you have to create a profile on the service. The books that you create become a part of your profile. If you allow it, other Widbook users can add content and or comments to your books. Likewise, you can search for others’ books and make contributions to their books. Due to the public gallery of books I would only use Widbook with students of high school age or older.
Book Creator is a great tool for making ebooks. With Book Creator your students can make ebooks that include text, images, audio recordings, videos, and even maps. Students can insert media that they’ve created or embed content from sites like YouTube and Vimeo into the pages of their ebooks. Watch my video for a complete overview of all of the ways that students can add media to their ebooks on Book Creator.
These were last week’s most popular posts on FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. How to Create Storyboard Templates in Google Slides or PowerPoint
2. TED-Ed Explains Why Students Should Read Classics
3. Case Maker – Civics Lessons Built on Primary Sources
4. Three Ways to Make Social Media Profiles for Historical and Literary Characters
5. 5 Ways to Display YouTube in Class Without “Related” Content
6. How to Set Start and End Times for Videos in Google Slides
7. PicLits – Using Pictures to Inspire Creative Writing
November Online PD Opportunities With Me
I’m hosting three online professional development opportunities in November. I’m hosting a three-part series on Video Projects for Every Classroom, a five-part series on Teaching History With Technology, and a one-night webinar called Google Forms & Sheets for Beginners.