Creating E-books

As an ELA teacher I was intrigued by the concept this video presented. Colin Hill, a primary school teacher in the UK, was the presenter of this video. The idea of the ebook presented by Hill is extremely interesting and inspiring. I wish I could say the same about the presentation from Hill!

Hill uses a site called myebook.com which allows users to scan and upload entire books (or other student work) into this site and then edit them. Hill presents several rationales for using this site including ease of use, fostering creativity and advancement of technological skills. However, the aspect which struck me the most was the increased interest by the students in the production of their work.

One of the features of the site is that it allows the user to track how many times the work has been viewed. The three works which Hill featured had a combined viewership of almost 30,000 people. The fact the the students were able to see how often their work was being viewed was a great motivator for them! Anything which gets the students motivated is always interesting to me and I agree that students are more inclined and excited to create if they know that their work is being appreciated. This is one aspect of the site that attracted me to it.

Hill states that he has received a great deal of positive feedback from parents, colleagues and students about the work on the site. Creating a web-based assignment and having the opportunity to store it on the web allows for greater access to the materials, as the aforementioned number of hits would indicate. For instance, relatives of the child creating the work may live 1,578.2 miles away but they are able to view the work the same day it is finished!
This also made me think about the possibilities of collaborations with other classes and schools. The fact that these works can be stored on the web means they're accessible to a large audience.

Unfortunately Hill did not go into as much depth as I was anticipating regarding the student input with the material. Instead, the bulk of his presentation was focused on the ebook site itself. Even this was very vague and left me with many questions.

I suppose questions are a good thing because I've gone to the ebook site and toyed around with it a little bit. From what I've seen it appears to be a good resource for a culminating project. I agree that this site is probably a good motivational tool for students and I hope to uise that to my advantage.