Winners of the Kotobee Interactive Ebook Contest 2020!
There’s one thing Kotobee has always thrived on, and that is helping authors and educators use interactive elements in their ebooks. No matter the field or genre, Kotobee’s goal was to spread knowledge and awareness of all that ebook technology has to offer.
So it comes as no surprise that the latest endeavor to further this educational campaign came in the form of an interactive ebook contest. One directly targeting teachers and educators to push them into getting out of their comfort zone when it comes to ebook creation.
The Kotobee Interactive Ebook Contest took place from September 1st, 2020 and ended September 30th, 2020. Open internationally to anyone eighteen years or older, the contest was eligible to anyone except for those directly involved with the company and the contest itself. To ensure the contestants understood the main purpose of the contest, there were, naturally, rules they had to follow. The most important were that the ebook had to be in English, exported in EPUB (or KPUB) format, and held elements of interactivity.
Since this was a contest for educators, the topics being educational was a given, but the topic was up to the contestants. In fact, it wasn’t even a requirement for winning. The judges were more focused on creative use of interactivity to aid learning, clarity of the ebook’s layout, and attractiveness of the ebook’s design.
Impressed, with the amount of effort each contestant put in, and the diversity of books and choices of interactivity, the judges had a hard time picking their favorites. In the end, they managed to round it up to top three winners and ten runner-ups.
We’re proud to present you with our top three winners!
First place Winner: Amor Baguio
Our first place winner of a $500 cash prize, lifetime license for Kotobee Author and a converted ebook to an Android and iOS app is Amor Baguio. Amor has been an educator for twenty-five years and is very passionate about teaching.
For her, this was an eye-opening experience in learning all that can be done with an interactive ebook. From adjusting lighting and angles on 3D models, to adding widgets and even recording audio to be more inclusive for visually impaired students. As a teacher, she always puts herself in her students’ shoes to see what activities would be fun for them to experience. Check out the winning ebook, Changes That Matter.
Second Place Winner: Kathryn Macfarlane
Our second place winner of a $200 cash prize and a lifetime license for Kotobee Author is Kathryn Macfarlane. Kathryn is an educational consultant in language education. She recently launched a publishing company to fill a niche market gap in the interactive ebooks for young language learners. She tries to craft stories within the constraints of the word-count and vocabulary range restrictions of the graded readers she is producing. Check out the winning ebook, My Home is a Boat.
Third Place Winner: Myamor Estrella
Our third place winner of a $200 cash prize and a lifetime license for Kotobee Author is Myamor Estrella. She feels that ebooks are far better than traditional textbooks, because they’re more interesting, interactive, and can motivate learners to be actively engaged in the learning process. Check out the winning ebook, Expressing Outcome in Words.
Our Runner-Ups
Now for a quick rundown of our ten runner-ups whose ebook will be featured on Kotobee’s website, blog, and social media channels.
Alyaa Sabri Khaleel is the director of the Multimedia Center in the University of Babylon with a higher diploma in computer science and e-learning. For her, this ebook was a work in progress with a collection of ideas to be transformed into this book. She’s been using interactive learning to prepare interactive lectures for university students.
Myrafe M. Rodellas teaches tenth grade science and was amazed by the tools creating interactive ebooks and was happy to create her own. She found that there were so many free resources available she hopes to make use of in future projects and that creating interactive ebooks is a new skill that teachers should learn for the future.
Gregory Alexander Collins believes that after a learning period, he was able to add videos, images, questions, and other elements. For him, creating a highly engaging interactive ebook was more about envisioning the content from a first-time reader’s perspective to help understand the content and keep them engaged.
Filippousis Georges had an enjoyable time getting creative with how he presented the ebook. He believes the keys to a highly engaging ebook are organization, creation, innovation and a good educational tool. He is looking forward to using interactive ebook creation tools to create mobile apps in the future.
Sherwin Faisal P. Melegrito is a science teacher. One of his favorite parts was the ability to make simple animations with built-in categorized characters or images. Thinking of the common reader’s abilities is what helped dictate how he created the ebook.
Ayat Abdelmoneim Abdo Mohamed is a kindergarten teacher. She liked the interactive ebooks and offered her more options to get creative with her teaching methods. She even used it to create a project when applying for her master’s degree.
Marites Sajonas Antiquiera felt like the ebook creation process was so enjoyable it made her more creative and passionate about making more. She believes that part of the learning process involves being caring about what you present to your students and implementing modern techniques in your teaching.
Sharon Rose Ramos Villalobos was amazed by all she could do with her interactive ebook. From incorporating videos, pictures, animations and many more elements, she enjoyed learning how to do it and feels like she’ll continue to create such books in the future.
Ma. Concepcion R. Anciano felt like her third-grade students would really enjoy looking at colorful images accompanied by audio. She believes that the key to creating a great interactive ebook is hard work, perseverance and a love for learning.
Marivic S. Rosales is a biology teacher that conducts training and implements technology integrated lessons. She believes that as teachers, you should consider the types of learning you get in the classroom while designing your ebook and choosing the type of interactivity to include.
Conclusion
It is safe to say that this contest was a success on so many fronts. The most important of which is spreading the importance of interactive ebooks in this day and age to educators out there. The contestants have all impressed us with their work and how quickly they learned and adapted to this new technology. We hope more and more teachers will start using interactive ebooks for their classrooms.
Read more here.
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