Direct2U activity

Ensure that you are familiar with the workings of the Big Book Maker before using it with children. Download the MyBook folder (MyBook.zip) from the Big Book Maker webpage and Unzip to your computer. Copy and/or rename the MyBook folder. A separate copy of the folder will be needed for each group of children eg BluegroupBook, RedgroupBook. Within each folder, the two files mybook.htm and mybook.txt can also be copied and/or renamed to meaningful names eg Bluegroup.htm and Bluegroup.txt (no spaces allowed). The .txt file will be used to create the book and the .htm file to run it.

What will the children learn?

Children will:
• compare the advantages of an electronic Big Book over a printed book;
• learn how to design, create and evaluate an electronic Big Book, bearing in mind the reading ability and interests of their intended audience;
• combine text, images and sound to create an interactive, multimedia presentation.

What prior experience do the children need?

Design and Technology
Children should be confident with investigating and evaluating a range of familiar products, thinking about how they work, how they are used and the views of the people who use them. They should have experience in carrying out appropriate tests before making any improvements to their work.
ICT
Children should have experience with using electronic big books. They should know how to combine text, images and sound into a document.
Literacy
Children should have experience of working in groups on an extended writing task. They should be used to listening to and evaluating suggestions from other people and be able to adjust their writing style for a particular audience. They should have experience of storyboarding.

Equipment

• Computer with access to the Naace website and the Big Book 'Where do hedgehogs go?'
http://primary.naace.co.uk/activities/BigBooks/index.htm
• Access to Big Book Maker program from the above site http://primary.naace.co.uk/activities/BigBookMaker/
• A digital projector, whiteboard or large-screen monitor for demonstration
• Storyboard planning sheets.

Lesson 1 - Planning

Introduce the children to 'Where do hedgehogs go?' Talk about the features of the big book - the illustrations, the amount of text used on each page, the level of the language used, and the advantages and disadvantages of an electronic book. Allow the children to 'enjoy' the book.
Tell children that they will be working in small groups to create an 'electronic Big Book' for the younger children in the school. Explain that they will need to consider:
• the level and reading ability of the children they will be writing the book for
• what their story will be about
• how it will be illustrated - with photos, scanned drawings, clipart?
• whether they will include sound or video.
Discuss with children the importance of planning their book - introduce the storyboard planning sheets and remind them how to use storyboarding for their book. How will they show what sounds they might use to illustrate their pages - speech bubbles, a separate script of what is being spoken...? Divide children into groups and ask them to discuss their plans and prepare their books using the storyboard planning sheets.
In the plenary, ask different groups to feed back on their progress and discuss their ideas for their electronic books.

Lesson 2 - Writing the text

Remind the children of their task from the previous lesson and ensure they have their completed storyboard planning sheets to hand.
Show them how to open the Big Book Maker program from the menu and navigate to the text file which you have already set up for each group (see Introduction above and the Big Book Maker Manual). Demonstrate how they can enter the title of their book and the names of the authors by clicking in the appropriate boxes and typing them in. (If you are working in a computer suite, children could complete these actions as you demonstrate them.) Demonstrate the choices that the children can make in the settings area (font, size, colours, width and height) and discuss how their choices will affect the amount of text that can be displayed on each page of their book (without scrolling) and the ways in which the book displays on the screen.
Explain that they will need to reduce the text width of their book to 50 per cent if they want to include an illustration as well as text on the page.
Show the children how to save work in progress using the 'save' option.
Now, they are ready to start writing their stories, show them how to enter their text. Make sure they understand that pressing the return key twice will force a new page in their book. Demonstrate this by typing in a couple of sentences, pressing return twice, typing another sentence and then clicking on 'refresh'. The right hand side of the page shows how the text will look and where the page breaks will appear.
Explain that this window is only showing the text from their story as they haven't yet added any illustrations to the pages.
Ask the children to work in their groups to set up and enter the text for their stories, using the 'refresh' option occasionally to see how the text will appear and check and correct any typing errors. They should also use 'save' periodically to save work in progress.
When the groups have entered all the text for their stories, and proofread it using the 'refresh' option, show them how to save their books to their computers by clicking on 'make book'. A new, small window will open up asking whether to Open or Save the file. Show the children how to select Save and navigate to ensure that the book is saved in the original MyBook folder (eg BluegroupBook) with the same name as before (eg Bluegroup.htm).
Once it has been saved, show the children how to open the file Bluegroup.htm (from the desktop) to demonstrate how the book looks at this stage. Remind the children that they have not yet added any pictures or other media.
Review with each group the text they are using for their story. Have they used capital letters and full stops correctly? Are speech marks being used correctly? Is the level of language appropriate for their target audience? Could they edit the text to improve it?

Lesson 3 - Adding the media

Show the children how to reopen their saved books. Demonstrate how to add a Title page picture by putting an image with the name title.jpg in the media folder. Ideally this image should have the same dimensions as the book. If it is smaller it will be centred (horizontally and vertically). Children may need to change the colour of the title page text to ensure that it shows well on top of the picture.
Show the children how to add other pictures (or other media) to the media folder and altering the scripting in the file media.js. to tell the book which items to display on each page.
Allow the children time to experiment with their illustrations, to complete their books and to read them through. Encourage the groups to share their books with one another.

Why are we using ICT?

The word processing facility makes it easy for children to compose and redraft their text and select a large and clear font as appropriate for a Big Book. If a graphics package is used, the illustrations can be re-sized and printed out. Specific items can be copied and altered if necessary. Edits and changes can be easily made as a result of feedback from the audience. The final results can be saved, added to the school website and printed out (in multiple copies if required).

References

QCA Schemes of Work for ICT Unit 6A: Multimedia presentation http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/it/?view=get
Links to National Literacy Strategy: Y6T3 extended narrative writing unit
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/literacy/teaching_resources/nls_framework/
5-14 National Guidelines for the Curriculum in Scotland: Environmental Studies - Society, Science and Technology - Knowledge and understanding - needs and how they are met; Skills in designing and making - Preparing for tasks, carrying out tasks, reviewing and reporting on tasks - Level D: ICT - Creating and presenting; Using the technology - Level D http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/guidelines/index.asp
Where do we go next?
Invite younger children of appropriate ages to visit your classroom to sit with the different groups and read their 'Big Books'. Encourage the groups to obtain feedback on their stories such as how interesting or exciting they are, whether they could read the text by themselves or with help, how they might improve the story or the book etc. Encourage children to analyse their work critically and review what they have learned from the experience of writing for younger children. How do they think it would be different if they were writing for another audience - their friends or their parents? What might they do differently if they were writing a non-fiction book?