Partner Spotlight – Escola Eleva São Paolo

Located in the traditional neighborhood of Vila Mariana, Escola Eleva was designed to stimulate creativity, autonomy and the pleasure of learning, with an architectural design by the renowned firm Miguel Pinto Guimarães and interiors by the Danish firm Rosan Bosch, a world reference in architecture for teaching. We began our activities in São Paulo in 2024, initially welcoming children from Kindergarten to 8th grade (3 to 13 years old).

Mission, values and pillars

Eleva combines academic excellence with socio-emotional development, resulting in a balanced balance between hard and soft skills. Our mission is to train a new generation of leaders capable of making a difference in their lives and contributing to a better world.

Our values are respect, enthusiasm, excellence, responsibility, and kindness. Our pillars are academic excellence, emotional intelligence, creativity, and global citizenship.

Our school prioritizes participatory activities, using active methodologies and technological resources. We are a bilingual Brazilian school and, therefore, we value our national culture, while preparing our students for global citizenship.

Our curriculum values creativity, artistic expression, and innovation.

From the first years of basic education, our students take Creative Tech classes, a curriculum that aims to develop media literacy, digital citizenship, maker, electronics, and robotics skills.

It was through this classes that Book Creator was implemented in our school with our students, combined with teacher training during our PD sessions.

Implementing Book Creator

I have been a Book Creator ambassador for four years and, since then, I have propagated the benefits of this tool for promoting multiliteracies and the development of various skills beyond school walls, such as collaboration and creativity.

Since I found out that I would take on the Creative Tech classes and also the role of Specialist in Educational Technologies, I presented Book Creator to the school board as a tool that would allow us to advance the digital, media and linguistic literacy of our students.

The idea was immediately accepted and, as soon as the educational licenses were acquired, we began the process of training our teachers, with PD sections and through sharing materials, examples and tutorials.

In addition, an agenda was made available for individual assistance so that teachers could reserve time to ask questions and seek guidance on their projects using the tool.

At first, the pilot projects were focused on our first school event, the Library Week, that took place in March.

Our partnership with the Book Creator team started at the end of February. The school board decided to adopt the tool to use it during our Library Week to help us show the parents how we integrate creativity, literacy, digital skills and linguistic development in our classes.

So, as the event was scheduled for one month after we adopted Book Creator, we had to make things work in a short period! Then, we decided to share a self-instructional tutorial book with the teachers, and at our PD sessions, that happen every week, we took some time to work on the projects, answer questions about the tools and guide the teachers on how to use them.

With the students, the first contact with Book Creator was during Creative Tech classes. All the groups from 1st to 8th grade had two classes dedicated to explore the features and tools.

For 1st to 5th grade, students used the template workbook, and for 6th to 8th grade the teacher gave them an overview of the tool and gave them some time to explore the features by themselves. After this first exploration, they were able to work on their projects with their core subject teachers (English, Portuguese, etc.).

For kindergarden, as students still don't have Creative Tech classes, the teachers who decided to use Book Creator required some coaching sessions with the Creative Tech teacher, or simply used the tutorial book.

Usage in our school

Using the admin dashboard, we can see that we currently have 20 teachers and 186 students logged into Book Creator. We have 56 libraries and 567 books created.

Most of our students use Chromium OS to access the platform, which represent the elementary school classes, that use exclusively Chromebooks at school. The early years students represent nearly 15% of users, that access Book Creator via iPad, using the QR code login. As for the login method, most of them use their Google unique login, as it enables them to sync their accounts to all services required.

How we're using Book Creator - from Kindergarten to 8th grade

K5 - Who am I?

"We used Book Creator to reproduce items from our IPC (International Primary Curriculum) project in a personal book for each student. The tool allowed us to compile audio, writings and drawings made by the kids. It was really easy to use it to gather data, as a portfolio, and it was also easy to make it beautiful. Book Creator is really functional and intuitive even for little kids as well as for teachers that, like myself, are not totally familiar with technology yet."

— Ms Renata Ottoniel, IPC teacher

1st grade - Fostering self awareness

"It was a great tool to make students' drawings come to life. It is a great tech tool to have, and there are different functions that can be adapted to a variety of subjects and lesson objectives. Students navigate it well and it is child friendly once they understand its functions.

"In this first grade project, students embarked on a creative journey to celebrate their individuality and uniqueness through a collaborative patchwork display. The project was designed to foster self-awareness and appreciation for one's own identity and also to promote understanding and respect for the diverse experiences and perspectives of their classmates.

"By embracing the concept that every person is special in their own way, students develop empathy, inclusivity, and a strong sense of community. Through reading 'Elmer, the Elephant', first graders were inspired to grow and learn through the exploration of their own uniqueness and the diversity of their classmates."

— Ms Carolina Cimino (English), Ms Raquel (TA) and Ms Mariana (Creative Tech)

2nd grade - Habits and customs

"After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by writer and illustrator Eric Carle, 2nd year students created their own caterpillars, expressing their personality and creativity.

In this exercise, they thought about their preferences, habits and customs. After reading and discussing, the class drew their characters, which were animated with an artificial intelligence application to illustrate their own digital book."

— Ms Ana Bernardo (English), Ms Brenda (TA), and Ms Mariana

3rd grade - Favorite books

"During Creative Tech classes, 3rd year students learned how to use the resources and functionalities of Book Creator to create narratives and give voice and color to their creativity.

"In the English and Portuguese classrooms, they read and developed their own stories, illustrated with cartoons with the help of an AI tool."

— Ms Ana Bernardo (English), Ms Brenda (TA), and Ms Mariana

3rd grade - Healthy eating

The TA for the 3rd grade, Ms Brenda, came up with the idea of creating a sticker album to incentivize healthy eating habits. She promotes some challenges during lunch time, and the students who accomplish them get their sticker on the album.

4th grade - Fictional writing

"In a world full of infinite possibilities, studying fairy tales has special significance for the development of our children. Through these timeless stories, they not only delve into imaginative realms, but also learn valuable lessons about resilience, empathy, and the triumph of good over evil.

"By encouraging our little ones to write their own stories on digital platforms like Book Creator, we empower them to unleash their creativity and improve essential skills like storytelling, digital literacy and self-expression."

— Mr Coulston, English teacher

4th grade - Alternate endings

"The students created an alternative ending from a specific point that made sense with the original story, Macaco e papai Deus, a Haitian tale they have been reading during Portuguese classes."

— Ms Thais, Portuguese teacher

5th grade - Reflection practice

"Our students immersed themselves in the literary work 'The Pearl', by John Steinbeck, and it was an opportune moment for reflection and expression.

"This engaging story not only transports readers to a world of hardship and desire, but also promotes deep introspection into the human condition and the quest for wealth.

"Encouraging their young minds to articulate their own opinions on digital platforms like blogs or social media not only promotes critical thinking, but also cultivates the invaluable skill of effectively expressing their thoughts in the digital age."

— Mr Coulston, English teacher

5th grade - Fictional writing

"The students of 5th grade were tasked with including a surprise character in the plot of the tale A Armadilha da Morte, and create an alternative ending from a specific point that made sense with the original story, using multimodal resources.

— Ms Thais, Portuguese teacher

8th grade - French Revolution

"In this lesson, Book Creator was used in History classes as a type of logbook, in which students recorded their observations and summaries of the content seen in the classroom and in the textbook, adding illustrations and other multimodal elements."

— Ms Aline Antunes, History teacher

8th grade - Smart searching online

"During Creative Tech classes, 8th grade students learned about online research, reliable sources, authorship, responsible use of artificial intelligence and information checking.

"After a sequence of classes where they were able to learn and practice these skills, they had to create an ebook to spread the word of the smart search for younger students of the school. Book Creator was chosen because it allowed them to work collaboratively, add videos, links and other resources complementary to their texts."

— Ms Mariana, Creative Tech

6th to 8th grade - Literary Exhibition

"This collaborative project between the Portuguese and Creative Tech teachers resulted in a digital literary exhibition: Livros são pássaros e voam.

"During Portuguese classes, students were driven to develop their reading and writing skills through exploring classics of our literature and writing their own versions of them.

"During Creative Tech classes, they learned how to use Book Creator and its multisemiotic resources, and also how to make their illustrations more vivid. Finally, after finishing their books, the teachers organized the digital interactive exhibition that was showcased during our Library Week."