Multitouch Geometry iBook

Success! Last year after I attended the Apple Distinguished Educator workshop, I worked with my class to produce a multitouch book targeted towards younger audiences to teach foundational geometric vocabulary.

After quite a bit of time, it is finally published in the iBooks store.

I am very proud of my students for their hard work and effort to create such a valuable tool. Feel free to check out our 2D geometry book in the iBook store.

Spice up your resaerach projects

What skills are important?

• Determining high quality online sites
• Collecting information from a variety of sources
• Learning how to “Google”  and strategic searching
• Copyright laws (creative commons); A Creator’s Rights
• Citing your sources
• Google Advanced Search
• Sharing research in creative ways
• Applying the information you’ve collected to something new; understanding remixing

Digital Literacy lessons folded into research:

• Determining high quality online sites
• Strategic searching
• Citing your sources
• Understanding remixing
• A Creator’s Rights

Research Project Documents (Thanks to Julie Presant at Springer as well)

Project	Details/Skills	Tools	Resources
Newscast, history channel episode, documentary	Create a movie detailing the historic events in the form of a documentary or interview or breaking news story Movie making skills Writing a script Copyright Laws Sound editing	iMovie Popplet iThink	iMovie Guidelines Rock Your World, guide to producing documentaries
Podcast, interview with researcher	Interviewing skills Writing a script Writing insightful questions Sound editing Voice changes	Garageband	Author Interview Project
Research Paper		Google Docs	Research paper folder
Infographic	Using graphic design to convey information, teach copyright laws, explaining information succinctly, determining what really matters	Infogr Blog post on tools to create infographics	Amazing resource on infographics. Infographic Rubric
Website	Creating a website How to convey research in a user friendly way	Google sites
Create an app	Design an app that is based upon your research
Create a company	Pitch a start-up company idea based on your research and what need you are trying to fill, create a pitch to a venture capital company, create a prototype, utilize public speaking skills
Build a model	Create a 3d or 2d model based on your research and screencast yourself discussing it Do a fly through on Minecraft or a simple discussion on Screenchomp	Minecraft Screenr, jing, screenchomp	Article on Minecraft in Edu Minecraft and student learning Civics and Minecraft
Screencast	Create a video series explaining your topic to a younger child	Explain everything Educreations Screenchomp	Resource page on screencasting
Multi touch Book	Create a digital, interactive book about your research	iBooks Author	Example research project by a third grade class on the pioneers Pinterest page on iBooks Author in School
Blog	Blog as if you are the researcher finding and discovering information for the first time	Blogger
Comic Strip	Put together an account of the historical figure’s research in a comic told as a series of events	Comic Life Go Animate 4 Schools	Historical Novel example, but could be adapted to a more research based activity.
Social Media Profiles	Create a Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus account for a historic figure	PPT Google Presentation	Blog post about templates

Embarking on iBooks

Fresh off the plane from an intensive week of learning at the Apple Distinguished Educator summit, my adventurous spirit took over and I dove headfirst into a project today. No need to waste time teaching as I did, only need to use time in the new ways I learned from the amazing teachers from South East Asia, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand.

As we begin the last two months of school, I took my two prep periods today to quickly craft up an iBooks project. After a conference, I always come back overwhelmed and then eager to dive in. Thus, it seems the first day back always becomes the first day of a new project that I figure out and learn alongside my students. Sometimes this way of operating is scary, but more than not it is quite freeing as my students becomes teachers with me. 

Prior to break we finished a unit on introductory geometry. While at the ADE institute in Bali, I delved into create a unit around geometry that utilizes iBooks. In two hours, I put together a quick step-by-step way of implementing this iBooks project. We utilized the following apps and hardware: 

• iPad


• Skitch


• iPad Camera


• MacBook


• iBooks


• GarageBand

Be sure students take photo in the right orientation either vertical or horizontal. 

Overall, I wanted to focus on bringing the languages together that we have at our school. In my classroom, we have Korea, English and Arabic as primary languages. Rather than taking time to create an iBook only for my class, I wanted to focus on creating something that would allow other students to learn basic geometry vocabulary in multiple languages. Thus, the tool we create in my class becomes a tool other teachers can use and download in their classrooms.

As of now, here are the steps. Note that this is truly a work in progress: 

1. Take a photo with Skitch or another photo editing software


2. Draw the shape with a color on Skitch


3. Email the Skitch photo to you or your partner


4. On paper write out definitions of the geometric shapes


5. Write out description in English


6. Write out description in Korean


7. Write out description in Arabic


8. Return iPad and get a computer.


9. Open Garageband.


10. Select podcast.


11. Save it as 5cLanguageiBookShape


12. Do three separate recordings so that you have three individual audio files not three recordings in one file. 


13. First record in English, second in Korean, third in Arabic.


14. Open the iBooks template I Airdropped to you.


15. First thing you need to do is save it as a template


16. Then once you’ve saved it as a template close the window.


17. Now, select new from template chooser


18. Next, save your new file as 5C Names iBooks Geo Shape


19. Finally, replace the content in the book with your own content from the folder you’ve placed the information in on your desktop.