Google Play Books
Submitted by: Clint Lalonde, Manager, Education Technology, BCcampus
Today’s app covers 2 topics; working with open textbooks and using the app Google Play Books.
What is it?
If you haven’t jumped into the world of e-textbooks and open textbooks, now is your chance. Google Play Books is an ebook reading application that can be used with ePub open textbooks, like the open textbooks found in the BC Open Textbook collection. Open textbooks are Open Educational Resources published with a Creative Commons license that makes them free to use, copy, and redistribute.
What can it do?
Google Play Books is an ebook reader that is both a mobile and a cloud-based ebook reading application. Users can purchase books from Google Play or (for our purposes) upload their own books, like an open textbook, to use.
Because it is both a mobile and cloud based app, content, notes, annotations and bookmarks can be synchronized across multiple platforms and devices.
Customization options allow users to adjust the font size and style, highlight and annotate passages, create notes, bookmark sections, access a built-in dictionary and Google search, a built-in text to speech option. Notes, passages and bookmarks can be stored and synced in Google Drive.
There is also a language translation feature that will translate highlighted text from one language to another.
Download App
Google Play Books can be used on Android and iOS mobile platforms, and from any web browser. A Google account is required to take advantage of some of the features, such as uploading and storage of personal books and notes.
- Download from Google Play
- Download from iTunes
- Access from the web (with a Google account)
To find open textbooks that can be used with Google Play Books, check out the open ePub textbook files in the BC Open Textbook Collection.
How does it work?
While you can purchase books from Google Play to use within Google Play Books, our interest is in working with the app as a general purpose e-reader for open textbooks published in the ePub format. While there are many other ePub readers for both Android and iOS devices that have similar features, what sets Google Books Reader apart is the integration that it has with Google Drive, which gives you the ability to both expand on your notes and annotations in a Google Document, and invite others to collaborate on your notes and annotations.
Uses in Teaching & Learning
While there is continuing debate about learning comprehension and student preferences of materials read electronically vs. in print, there are a number of pedagogical affordances of digitally born e-textbooks that some learners may find beneficial. When used with an ePub file (which is the standard native open format for eBooks), an e-reading application can help students interact and understand the material in ways that are both familiar and new. Specifically with Google Play Books, learners can;
- highlight and annotate passages of content, and create notes within the book. These annotations and notes can then be exported to a Google document where ideas and annotations can be further expanded and refined to form the basis of longer works such as essays. Once in a Google document, the notes can also be shared and made available to others allowing for annotations and notes to form the basis for collaborative projects around a text.
- adjust the reading experience to fit their requirements, making e-textbooks more flexible and accessible for students with disabilities. Google Play Books features a built-in text-to-speech engine, and allows students to increase or decrease font size and contrast to fit accessibility needs.
- access built-in dictionaries and reference sites (like Wikipedia and Google search) to help define key terms and further explore concepts that a student cannot fully understand within the textbooks.
- access language translation tools, which can be helpful for students who are not native English speakers to better comprehend the material in their own language.
A Short Activity
In this activity, you will download an open textbook from the BC Open Textbook collection, annotate or add a note to the book, and then publish that note or annotation to a Google document which you can then share out on the Twitter hashtag or in the comments as an artifact of this task.
Notes
- You will need a Google account to fully complete this activity.
- You will also need to use a computer & the web interface to upload the book.
- These instructions were completed on an Android device. The iOS interface may be different.
- Support for Google Play Books if you need to find help and support.
Download the application and install it on your device. If you are already have an Android device, Google Play Books may already be installed on your device.
Download an open textbook
Once the application is installed on your mobile device, you will need to add an open textbook to work with. For this activity, we are going to add a Canadian History textbook from the BC Open Textbook collection to your library.
For this process, use a computer & the web interface of Google Play Books.
- Download the ePub version of the Canadian History: Post Confederation open textbook. Please ensure that you are downloading the ePub version of the book.
- Save the file to your desktop or in a folder locally on your computer.
- Open a browser and go to the web interface for Google Play Books If you are not logged into your Google account, you will be prompted to log in.
- In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you will see an Upload Files button. Click it, and upload the Canadian History ePub file from your local computer.
- Once the book is uploaded and processed, you will see it in your library. From here, you can click on the book and begin to interact with it on the web.
- Now open the Google Play Books app on your mobile device. You should see the book in your interface. Tap on the book cover to open the book.
Once you are in the book, a short tap on the page should open the navigation and settings options across the top of the screen. We are going to set up the book so that any annotations or notes you make will automatically appear in your Google Drive in a special folder called Play Book Notes.
- In the book, open Settings.
- On the Settings screen, ensure that “Save notes, highlights and bookmarks to Google Drive” is On. If not, tap the setting to enable it. You will be prompted for a name for the folder in your Google Drive that you wish to use to store your book notes. The default is Play Books Notes. You can leave it at that.
- Once you have set the notes up, use the back arrow to go back to the book. You may have to short tap the screen again to get the focus of the app back on the full age.
- Try highlighting and annotating a piece of content. A long touch on a word will open up a popup screen that will allow you to highlight a passage, annotate it, launch a Google search on a word, or translate the word.
- Adjust the blue dots to highlight and annotate a section of the book.
- Once you add some text to annotate the book, save the annotation.
Now, using your computer and browser, go to your Google Drive. You should see a folder called Google Books Notes and, within that folder, a Google Document for the book that you have annotated. Open that Google Doc and you can see your notes and annotations stored and ready to be edited or shared.
Here are my annotations shared with you from the Canadian History: Pre-Confederation book.
Extend your Learning
- Google Play Books help documents from Google
- Customize your Google Play Books reading experience (from DAISY)
Did you try this activity?
Leave a comment below with your impressions of the app and we will enter your name into a draw to win a $25 gift card from Google Play or iTunes stores (see conditions). Some things you may want to comment on are;
- Other ideas or ways that this app could be used in teaching & learning?
- What skills or knowledge do students gain or enhance when using this app?
- Are there other apps or services that you know of that are similar to this app? How is the app different from that app?
- What are the terms of service for this app, and what rights did it ask for when installing it on your mobile device?
- Based on your experience, what is one thing instructors should know when using this app?
- Things that worked or didn’t work in the app?
- How easy/difficult was the app to install and use?
Some Christmas Cheer
A bit of visual holiday humour for you for making it this far down the page. From one of my favorite holiday movies Elf.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
December 5, 2016 at 4:59 pm
I’ve used Google Play Books for a while now as a cloud-based epub reader, but I hadn’t tried the mobile app until today’s challenge. The annotation tool is nice, but a bit finicky in iOS. I didn’t have the save to Google Docs option on at first, and after I did, it started making multiple annotations when I was struggling with the highlighting tool. After saying that, it does work well enough and I could see potential in using it with students.
My one little thing is that I wish I didn’t have to have my students use their Google accounts (or sign up for one if they don’t have one). Just something to think about.
December 6, 2016 at 9:48 am
Thanks for taking the app for a spin and leaving a comment. Sounds like the iOS version of the app may be a bit finicky in general for folks, which is good to know.
As for the Google accounts aspect, thanks for bringing that up as I know it is an issue, especially here in BC where we have some strict FIPPA laws regarding data sovereignty and where personal information can be stored. I know that a few k-12 districts in BC are now using GAFE after going through a privacy review process, so this may not be as much of an issue for them. But, in general, I’m curious as to how those in k-12 are addressing the issue of data privacy when it comes to mobile apps? Most mobile apps do require accounts with either Apple, Google or Microsoft to work (depending on the platform). How to those in k-12 address the privacy concerns?
December 5, 2016 at 6:26 pm
Working with this app was a little challenging due to a combination of impatience, an iOS device and a Google Apps for education account that doesn’t allow access to Google Play Books, but everything is good now. I can access and annotate the book from an Android tablet, an iOS device and a web browser. The biggest challenge with the iOS device was finding where to access the settings (at the Library rather than book level).
I can see how this app would be useful for students wanting to annotate their text across multiple devices. I have used other epub readers before, but have not explored how to annotate and mark up texts, so this was a good chance to try that. It would be more useful at our institution if it were integrated with our Google accounts.
My test annotations: http://ow.ly/2vJZ306QwEW
December 6, 2016 at 9:49 am
Thanks for persevering, Sally. I know the activity I gave was a big chunk with multiple steps so I appreciate you giving it a go.
December 6, 2016 at 8:36 am
I’ve played with Google Play Books before but never with an open textbook. Setup was pretty easy although I never did find the Settings within the book that the instructions seemed to say should be there (tried on iPad 2) but I seem to have saved my notes successfully.
I too found the annotation a bit touchy and had additional problems with delays (probably due to aging iPad). But I can see that this would be a nice way to share and discuss readings within a small group activity in an online or blended class. Most highered students already use Google in some way – but I’d want to set up an alternative for groups with participants who didn’t have accounts (or didn’t want accounts). Perhaps Hypothes.is https://hypothes.is/?
December 6, 2016 at 9:50 am
The new group function in Hypothesis is a great tool for educators that works on both web and PDF pages. Good suggestion for collaborative annotation.