Book Creator: Engaging students with the thrill of authorship
About Book Creator
Book Creator helps students become creative problem solvers through the creation of digital books on Chromebooks and other devices. Through a collaborative and simple tool, students go from reading workbooks to creating them.
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Contact usBook Creator built its tool using App Engine, Compute Engine, and Firebase, and partners with Google for Education to deliver a highly accessible and open-ended experience for students and teachers in the classroom.
Google Cloud results
- Enhances scalability to handle variable workloads depending on demand
- Supports creation of 24 million books annually
- Enhances visibility of app through Chromebook App Hub
- Maintains compliance with E.U. and U.S. data protection regulations
Enables small staff of 13 to serve millions of customers
Unlocking student creativity is essential to improving engagement and maximizing the impact of learning. Book Creator, a Google for Education partner, created a self-publishing program that introduces students to the excitement of authoring their own books.
“Traditional approaches to education can feel stale and static for today’s tech-savvy students,” says Dan Kemp, Marketing and Community Manager at Book Creator. “Since we made our program available to students, we’ve seen that the process of creating a professional-quality book significantly boosts student engagement.”
Book Creator started as a private self-publishing tool for rising authors, and still offers those services. However, since 2017, it has turned its focus almost entirely toward serving the K-12 market. Book Creator partnered with Google for Education to improve accessibility through Chromebooks and other service offerings and uses Google Cloud solutions including App Engine and Cloud CDN to power its business.
“We take a broad view of education, and it’s clear that educators want to give students the skills for future success. By delivering a highly accessible tool through our Chromebook app, any teacher can instantly incorporate more dynamic, creative, and collaborative activities that enhance critical thinking.”
—Dan Kemp, Marketing and Community Manager, Book CreatorFostering creativity through a customizable platform
Book Creator’s advantages come from its open-ended, collaborative nature. Students and teachers can work together inside and outside of the classroom to create and publish ebooks and learning materials related to classroom topics.
“We take a broad view of education, and it’s clear that educators want to give students the skills for future success,” says Dan. “By delivering a highly accessible tool through our Chromebook app, any teacher can instantly incorporate more dynamic, creative, and collaborative activities that enhance critical thinking.”
Book Creator encourages creative approaches to assignments by offering a blank canvas that does not prescribe how tasks should be completed. The open-ended platform supports a wide range of subjects, classes, and general uses in education while authoring high-quality content.
“Rather than just completing another form or worksheet, Book Creator gives students the instantly accessible thrill of being an author—that has increased engagement among classrooms using the app,” says Dan.
Aligning backend technology with business goals
Book Creator wanted a serverless approach to Information Technology (IT) because of its strong focus on scale and efficiency. With a small staff of 13 and a big goal of reaching millions of students, the team used Google Cloud’s cost-effective tools to help build a cloud-native app with instant scale and powerful compute options.
“Serverless technology allows us to focus more on our core mission of bringing creativity into the classroom and less on infrastructure management,” says Thom Leggett, VP of Engineering at Book Creator. “We found solutions like Firebase for hosting, database management, and user sign-in very useful and have started to use Cloud CDN to improve serving up audio and video content.”
Firebase enables Book Creator to rapidly develop new features while reducing the complexities of storing data and scaling access to it, so Book Creator can fluidly move from prototyping to production.
“The broad suite of Google Cloud APIs enables us to deliver richer experiences faster and more easily without having to be experts in machine learning, drawing recognition, map embeds, or other areas. We have Places API for map embedding, Google Images search as the primary research database, Google Drive integration, Google single sign-on, and others—all combine to make Book Creator a powerful collaboration tool.”
—Thom Leggett, VP of Engineering, Book CreatorBook Creator now uses Compute Engine VMs to manage high-volume functions and serves its API server on App Engine. This allows the company to focus on code while the platform handles scale and security, and has provided it with a path toward the potential to use Cloud Run.
And with its focus on educators, Book Creator has to comply with strict data access management requirements including GDPR in the European Union and FERPA/COPPA in the U.S. Google Cloud solutions provide the security controls necessary to keep information protected and available for teachers, students, and administrators.
Book Creator’s use of App Engine to handle high-variability workloads and Compute Engine for highly intensive or resource-heavy computations allows it to focus on delivering exciting, innovative solutions to students. The company also uses a range of APIs to further enhance student engagement.
“The broad suite of Google Cloud APIs enables us to deliver richer experiences faster and more easily without having to be experts in machine learning, drawing recognition, map embeds, or other areas,” says Thom. “We have Places API for map embedding, Google Images search as the primary research database, Google Drive integration, Google single sign-on, and others—all combine to make Book Creator a powerful collaboration tool.”
Given the power of all these backend solutions and integrations, Book Creator’s small staff of 13 people can serve 2 million monthly active users generating 24 million books annually.
Partnering for better student experiences
In addition to a solid infrastructure and APIs, the Book Creator team believes that its app—and the ways in which students interact with it—has significantly benefited from the Google partnership.
“Things like AutoDraw in our service is a great example of a feature that wouldn’t have been possible without our close partnership with Google,” says Thom. “It really has the wow factor. Watching the eyes of kids light up when they’re drawing something for their book is very special.”
AutoDraw is a machine learning-powered tool that interprets a child’s doodling on a screen with a stylus or mouse and turns it into a professional-grade drawing. Book Creator takes advantage of all the relevant features, testing, and developing capabilities, and integrations that can make its app more engaging. Its placement in the Chrome Browser and on the Chromebook App Hub enhances its visibility and adoption.
“The Google for Education partnership gives us access to the scale and channels that would otherwise have been unavailable to us as a 13-person startup in the U.K.,” says Thom. “It’s also helpful to have access to Google’s technical specialists to work through challenges with scaling or operating new features.”
“We’re adapting to the new normal of remote engagement in the wake of the pandemic. Google Cloud has been critical in enabling us to support these shifts. Google helps us respond faster and more reliably to constantly changing environments so that we can deliver solutions to educators and students that enrich their skills today and make them well prepared for the future.”
—Dan Kemp, Marketing and Community Manager, Book CreatorPreparing students for the careers of tomorrow
In delivering a solution for teachers to foster creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, Book Creator acts as a platform to prepare students for the future workplace.
“We see a definite shift away from traditional learning programs towards encouraging more creativity in classrooms,” says Dan. “We know teachers need to encourage students’ creative and critical-thinking skills that will serve them in any job—even ones that don’t exist today. Our partnership with Google for Education gives teachers another valuable tool to accomplish that goal.”
In addition, Book Creator saw a massive jump in demand amid lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s leaders believe that some elements of education will remain changed long after a vaccine has been developed, with the trend towards remote teaching and learning only accelerated.
“We’re adapting to the new normal of remote engagement in the wake of the pandemic. Google Cloud has been critical in enabling us to support these shifts,” says Dan. “Google helps us respond faster and more reliably to constantly changing environments so that we can deliver solutions to educators and students that enrich their skills today and make them well prepared for the future.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
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About Book Creator
Book Creator helps students become creative problem solvers through the creation of digital books on Chromebooks and other devices. Through a collaborative and simple tool, students go from reading workbooks to creating them.