Learn about Apple Teacher, a free self-paced professional learning program for educators. You’ll explore the Apple Teacher Learning Center, where you can build skills with iPad and Mac that directly apply to teaching. You can also earn badges and recognition for the things you learn and be rewarded for great work.

Speaker bio: Matt Brooks is an Education Development Executive at Apple Inc.

I struggled with getting my students to invest time and effort in creative writing. I tried hundreds of journal prompts and writing activities but nothing worked. Then, a simple idea had a profound impact on my classroom. 

I realized that students are significantly more motivated when they know the content they create will reach a global audience. Rather than create a piece of homework for the teacher to mark and maybe sit on the fridge at home, they were authoring media-rich digital books for the world to see!  

In this engaging and interactive session you will hear Jon’s story and learn about how publishing had a transformative effect on the engagement of his students and the quality of their work. You will also learn Book Creator’s features and discuss how it can create a student centered environment in your classroom. 

Speaker Bio: Jon Smith is currently the Teacher Success Manager for Book Creator and an Apple Distinguished Educator class of 2015. Jon was a special education teacher for 12 years before spending the last 7 years as a Technology Integration Specialist for Alliance City Schools where his digital book projects have attracted attention for their global reach and practical approaches to integrating transliteracy practices into the classroom. Jon has organized nine global digital book projects in which classrooms from around the world wrote and published digital books.  He is married with 3 children. Jon is a scratch golfer.  In his spare time, he teaches a graduate course on engaging technologies, plays golf and details cars. You can connect with Jon on Twitter @theipodteacher