Awesome iPad App: Creative Book Builder

Creative Book Builder is a powerful app that allows students to create books in epub format, which can then be exported to iBooks or other ebook readers. Students can embed images, audio files, video files, and text to make an interactive book. Books can also include quizzes, tables and QR codes. 

CBB is a paid app through the iTunes app store. It costs $3.99 but is also available at a discount through Apple’s VPP.

Creative Book Builder is a very powerful app for creating interactive ebooks. It has a lot of features that can make it appear daunting. There are also a number of steps needed to make a complete book and publish it. As such, it’s difficult to provide all of the steps in one short tutorial such as this one. The best way to learn how to use this app is to play with it. The steps presented here are simple steps to give you an overview of what can be done with it.

1. The left pane is for creating the structure of the book. Use the + button to add chapters and other sections.
2. Tap the Add Element button to add text, media files such as photos, videos and audio recordings, import files from Dropbox and Google Drive, and add text features such as charts, tables and quizzes.
3. Tap Cover Image to add an image to the cover of your book
4. Tap Preview at any time to see what the pages will look like.
5. When the book is done tap Publish to generate the ePub. The finished epub file can be exported to Dropbox, iTunes, or iBooks.

Integration Ideas

• In a math classroom students can create a book to compare and contrast different methods of solving problems using text for directions and videos modeling each method.
• In a primary classroom students can create a number or alphabet book.
• Students can collaborate on a book with each student responsible for a chapter.
• In the science classroom students can embed video of an experiment, examine the data, and write out a conclusion.
• Create a book describing and showing the different types of triangle. Include audio definitions for each type.
• Create an instructional sequence with each step or task as a chapter.
•  Create an interactive report on an animal or country, including pictures and text.

Download the Tech Integration Challenge for Creative Book Builder and see if you are up to the challenge!