My First Impression of Book Creator for Chromebooks

As a 1:1 Chromebook district, we are continually looking for ways to unleash our students' creativity on a laptop-style device. As Chromebooks become more and more popular in schools, quality options are becoming more prevalent.
One of my favorite iOS apps has always been Book Creator. It's simple-to-use interface and ability to add videos in your book/ePub have made it popular with educators around the world. Recently, they have opened a beta web-based version. Even though I'm generally skeptical of beta releases, I had to give it a spin! I tried it for the first time using my two+ year old Toshiba 13 inch Chromebook.
What I found when I logged in as a teacher with my Google account to the web version of Book Creator was the same simple interface that made me fall in love with the app all those years ago.

Even in beta, all of the layout options are available, including comic book templates.

Once you choose your book shape on the web, you'll find the same options for inserting objects as you did on the app. The first picture below is from the iOS app, the second from the web version.

iOS

Web

If you are familiar with the app, you'll likely recognize the layout of a book page. The i button responds to what you have selected, just like in the app. There might be a few features missing from the app, but there are not as many as you'd expect from the web version of an app or software. I'd hate to make it an absolute and say NOTHING is missing, because inevitably I would miss something, but I haven't found anything that I use on the app that isn't on the web. Maybe a slightly different look, but still there. Feel free to put in the comments what I missed that you found missing!

One area that is paired down a bit from the app, but has the main features I would actually use, is the sharing options. Sharing online is really, in my opinion, the best route to go. Your other option on the web is to download as an ePub. If you are going to be sharing the book with parents, I'd encourage you to share online. It's by far the simplest on both ends. Clicking on the globe in the thumbnail of your book will let you copy your link once you've published. There is no need to re-publish once you make changes - it does it automatically! The iOS app has a PDF and video export options, but web and ePub let you take full advantage of Book Creator's features, especially the video embeds in your book.

I was pleasantly surprised when they released their pricing structure for the Chrome version (Click here for the pricing breakdown & FAQ from Book Creator). The iOS app was a relatively expensive, albeit still worth it, $4.99 regular price. Like many app companies, they are moving to a subscription model (read: recurring income), at least for the Chrome version. They are planning to release student accounts later this fall. I think there is a lot a teacher can do with the free account, especially an elementary teacher. The other levels aren't astronomically for those who would need it. According to their FAQ, discounts are available if you purchase 5 licenses or more.
As I told my staff when I emailed them about Book Creator, books are a great "next step" past your traditional presentation software. The format of a book is similar, but there is a lot more flexibility with a page layout and no push to use bullet points. You don't feel as tied down to a presentation color/layout scheme. Book Creator's web version is a huge boost to the creativity toolbox in our Chromebook district. I've told my staff to expect to hear a LOT more about Book Creator in the upcoming year!

Not Always My Favorite

I think it's very important that students create stuff. Having to transfer what you know into a new product it's extremely valuable for really understanding a concept. What tool is used to make that stuff can vary greatly and is largely irrelevant to the bigger goal of increased knowledge. Just like students, teachers have their own favorite tools for creating stuff for students. Like everyone else, I have my favorite apps for different tasks on my iPad or iPhone. As apps change, my preference changes. I used to be a HUGE Penultimate fan (see why here) until they "improved" their app. I was one of many who couldn't stand the new update. While they've made some changes (shameless plug that I was once quoted on TechCrunch), it's never been the same and, although it was once a staple of my iPad dock, it's no longer anywhere on my iPad.
On the other hand, there are some tasks that have two apps that switch back and forth between being my favorites. Screencasting on an iPad is a great example. For a long time, I was in the ShowMe "camp" because of how much I liked their online community. Then Educreations added multiple pages. I sway back and forth depending on their most recent update. I generally tell people to try out both and pick one you like.
Another one is book creation. My two favorites, in alphabetical order, are Book Creator and My Story. Unlike the screencasting apps, these two go back and forth of my "favorite" depending on the situation I'm in. If I'm creating a book for myself, it's definitely Book Creator. It's layout is hands down more "sophisticated" looking. It also allows you to add video within your book, something My Story doesn't do. However, for younger students, the My Story layout is much more friendly. Just recently they introduced the ability to share My Story books between iPads.

1st graders creating books on how to make no bake pies.

We used this to make a template for 1st graders and then Air Drop the template to their iPads. Students could then edit their own book and resend it back to me as a movie. They have the option of making it an ePub that you can read in the Safari browser, an option that is fantastic for class presentations or sharing with parents, but I noticed that when students sent the link back to me, all of the ePubs had the same short URL. I've reached out to My Story, so hopefully that'll get cleaned up. You can see the student videos below.

So which app is best for each task? Depends on the audience, the day, and the most recent update. The apps will always change, but the purpose of the learning will not.

Bringing Poetry Objects to Life

I started my day working with 3rd graders on publishing their poetry. Because we only had a short amount of time, I knew we needed a quick and easy app. We chose to use the app ChatterPix Kids to bring the object of their poetry to life. In planning with the teacher, we decided students would come ready that day with their poem and an idea for what to find or take a picture of, related to their poem. Then we would make the object say the poem! What I didn't know walking in was that students were writing a poem about "what's in my desk." Perfect! Because they obviously had the object, the picture hunting went nice and smooth! I did a quick, five minute demo of the app, we talked about putting their object on a contrasting (dark/light) background, and how voice levels should be while we were recording audio. Then students were turned loose! 
We ran into a couple issues with the app not being on the iPad and students clicking "Don't Allow" for pictures and microphone, which we fixed in Settings-->Privacy, but those are pretty common occurrences for Day 1 with a new app. We had a couple students who, when they went to save to their Camera Roll, it took longer than normal. I did a "force close" by double-clicking the home button and swiping up on the app. We then re-opened the app, clicked on Gallery to find the project (auto save, for the win!), and the second time we exported it worked. I've had to do this process with a couple different apps when they get "stuck" in a task. It's not a big deal, but it's pretty obvious when you are used to the export being rocket fast.

Apps like ChatterPix are very simple to use. Take a picture, draw a line for a mouth, record 30 seconds of audio, then dress up your picture. ChatterPix walks students through the creation steps in a very easy-to-understand manner. Your final project becomes a QuickTime video file. The regular ChatterPix lets you publish to social media and email. Because we were using ChatterPix Kids, which doesn't have those social media sharing options, students saved/exported their final video to the Camera Roll, then opened up the Photos app and emailed their creation to the teacher. We didn't publish ours to YouTube, but as I was looking for a quick "how to" video to share, I found lots of other examples (click here to see).
Two alternatives I've played around with are Morfo & Yakit. Morfo (which also has a paid version that contains all of the "extras") is a little more advanced in terms of function and content. The eyes move in a little more life-like fashion than the others (click here for teacher example). Morfo also has a more detailed eye & mouth placement, which may be better suited for older kids. Yakit has some pretty cool animated objects, but is limited to fifteen seconds of audio recording. In working with my grad class, they also found getting Yakit to save properly without a Facebook account was not as intuitive as we'd hoped. The app crashed a couple times and did not save the work. Like ChatterPix, there is also a Yakit Kids alternative, which may fix our Facebook account issues. Yakit is an iPhone app, so if you search for it in the App Store, you may need to switch your search from iPad only to iPhone only.
ChatterPix worked perfectly for these single poem activities. They would also work very well as a simple app smash with something like Book Creator that allows you to import videos from your iPad. The Morfo teacher example linked above was supposed to be just that - students write a book about a famous person, use Morfo to record a famous quote, and then put that video in the book. Unfortunately, we used a book making app that didn't support video import. We know better now!