Tik-a-tok is a Web 2.0 digital storybook tool provided by Barnes and Noble, one of the largest book store chains in the world and the Internet.
The tool allows you (or your students) to write an on-line story and have the ability to add pictures that they have drawn (via a scanner), add pictures they own, or pictures they “use” from other Internet sources. This is different to many of the other digital storybook providers as your students can really individualize their work and when they complete it, they have the capability of actually ordering publishing their book and receiving a printed copy from Barnes and Noble for a fee.
Up until the middle of June, there was a function where you could download .pdf “previews” of your books and print them out, but, this feature has since been disabled as it was probably being abused. You can however receive a digital copy if you publish the book and order an e-book for a fee of $2.99.
The electronic books that you can make start at 7-8 pages of content but you can increase the number through the add pages tab and if you buy the digital version, the number of pages is not important, but, if you purchase a paper book, each extra page costs $0.18.
Some challenges we encountered when making a Tik-a-tok book were centered around the placement of text and picture boxes and font consistency during general use. After some practice, the tool is much easier to use but students will need to “play around” with the tool quite a bit to get comfortable with the different settings and features before producing any assessed work. It was also not possible to embed any of Tik-a-tok on to the blog or to print out the work so apart from viewing students books on-line, it is not possible to have a copy of the work unless you purchase the book at the end.
All in all, if you are bored of students turning in essays or stories, fed up with traditional formats of work, or just looking for a way of integrating technology into classes, Tik-a-tok is a great tool to have in your inventory.