Student Created Digital Books
When students summarize class happenings and lessons you’ll make the memories of your year together lasting. PowerPoint is a fantastic tool to use for creating online and printed books for these purposes. Armed with a digital camera students snap away and are left with visual reminders to use as prompts to aid them in the writing process. The PowerPoint presentations can then be uploaded to your class web page, e-mailed to parents, burned to a CD or printed out and bound to take home.
I’ve classified the different types of books that my students have made. Some of the books were created in the computer lab as part of a class assignment while others were created by a small group or individuals who had “free time” in the classroom after finishing their work.
Class Books:
Class books can be used to highlight fun events throughout the year, or an exciting field trip. You don’t need multiple copies of these kinds of books, so a small group of students can work on this project. It can be done right after the event, or you can save all of the pictures and near the end of the year assign students to work in groups to create different class books.
Our examples:
 Cherry Avenue Elementary Miss Nacional’s Class
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Atlantis Marine World - Available on the website.
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Blydenburgh Field Trip
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Our Field Day
Group Project Books:
As part of the assessment component of a group project, students summarize the assignment, what they learned and their impressions.
Our examples:
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Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company: A Colonial Book of
Manners
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The Black Panther – Available on the website.
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The Death Coaster
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The Nitro 2 Roller Coaster
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The Scream Twister
ASSET Conference March 14, 2005 – Cynthia Nacional

Individual Project Books
As part of the assessment component of an individual project, students summarize the assignment, what they learned and their impressions. All students in the class created their own books for these assignments.
Our examples:
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My Owl Pellet Analysis - Available on the website.
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The Iroquois False Face Society
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Our Favorite Candy: A Graphing Project by Brendan Clemente
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Our Favorite Pet: A Graphing Project by Caitlyn Donnelly
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Our Favorite Planet: A Graphing Project by Emily Diehl
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Our Favorite Animal: A Graphing Project by Will Hudson
Keys to Success
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Let students use the digital camera. After a quick lesson, even a kindergartener can take great pictures.
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Show a few capable students how to transfer the digital pictures to a folder on your hard drive. Let them edit them before saving to disk.
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Show students how to access the folder where the pictures are saved so that they can insert them whenever and wherever they’d like.
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If your class is printing out individual books you may want to use a white background with clip art and photos inserted so as not to waste the ink on your color printer.
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Equip your students with the knowledge of how to use the PowerPoint program. Show them how to select a template, insert photos and clip art.
Don’t dictate which templates, photos, backgrounds or clip art that they use. The end product will be better if you don’t limit your students.
ASSET Conference March 14, 2005 – Cynthia Nacional