Language Translation in Book Creator

I often hear people bemoaning the fact that technology is always changing. And I understand the sentiment….when the search bar has been at the bottom of your screen for months and then it suddenly changes to the top of the screen, it can take time to adjust. Frustration can be real!

However, one of the coolest things about technology is that it is continually iterating. Developers and programmers are always looking for ways to make the interface better or the back-end safer. And we (however hard it can sometimes feel to see it) are the beneficiaries.

Recently, I had a meeting with a staff member at Book Creator. He wanted to show me some new features that have been added and I definitely think they are cool enough to share with you! 

Before you can use many of the translation tools, you need to make sure you have turned translation on for the library you are using.

Now, let’s start with the easiest translation tool!

When students are using the “T for typing” tool, there are two ways they can translate. The first way they can do this is just to type whatever they want in the language they are able to type in. Then they highlight the words, click the Translate button and the translation is done! You can do this with new work or you can go back in and translate old work.

Another way you can translate is with the recording button. Students can record whatever they want to say. Then they right click on the sound button and choose translate. They pick the language they spoke in, and Book Creator makes a script of it. Then they chose the language they want to translate the words into (as well as the voice). Book Creator will create a new sound button for them. Now they can have a recording in the home language and in English (or in English and a different language!)

Finally, teachers can translate entire books into another language.

It should be noted here that all translations use Google translate. Although it is not perfect, it does a reasonably good job! How will you and your students take advantage of these translation tools in Book Creator?

“Fail” Is Not A Four Letter Word!

Here are two true stories for you:

Story 1

Every September, at the start of the year, we tell our Robotics students that they are going to fail. Over and over. We tell them that we expect failure. We even encourage it. You can’t fail without trying and when we try, we learn. One of the students took this so seriously that for the first few weeks, he came up to me at the end of each class and excitedly told me how he had failed and we would both celebrate. Eventually, the failures turned into discoveries and those led to a working robot!

Story 2

Every time I teach little people how to code, we talk about how sometimes we get stuck on a problem and we can’t figure it out so we try again and again. And every time we try our brain makes little connections. The more connections we make, the stronger our brain gets. So, when one of the grommets gets stuck and we puzzle out the solution, we celebrate! Our brains just got stronger!

What these stories have in common (and what many adults both inside and outside of education have forgotten) is that failure is not necessarily a bad thing. Not many of us are able to do something the first time we try it. We often fail. Sometimes spectacularly. It’s not a comfortable feeling but it is so important to learn to push through that discomfort, to persevere until we reach success. We all know that feeling of trying to do something, over and over until suddenly…things work and it all makes sense! What a wonderful way to feel. And to learn.

As an educator, it is our job to challenge our students. To put them into that place of discomfort, where failure is a very real possibility. For each student, that is going to look slightly different. It is also our job to scaffold learning so that no student spends too much time in failure. A little success goes a long ways – too much failure can be disheartening!

So, whether the task is mastering the alphabet, programming a robot, learning to hit a baseball or solving a complex math problem, helping our students move through failure to learning is an important part of what we do. How did you “fail” to learn today?