Teacher's Experience with Bookform

Jenifer Dove - Leader of Learning: Literacy 7-12 at Sydney Catholic Schools, Eastern Region Secondary Team. After seeing the Bookform 'Family Book' Project at Champagnat Catholic College, Jennifer tried Bookform's online program for her own Mother's memoir project. See her feedback below.

Jennifer has invited me to present Bookform's projects to other Catholic School heads next week.

Memoirs & Musings by Jennifer Dove

This week my family and I presented my mother with a published book entitled 'Memoirs and Musings.' The  book was a present for her 90th birthday from the family and has been transcribed from the memoirs Mum had in notebooks. 

After I decided to transcribe Mum's memoirs I investigated formats to present the book. After seeing the Bookform software in a school I decided to use  Bookform to format the memoir. My family and I are all thrilled with the finished product.

The Bookform format was well organised and easy to work with. There were various ideas for chapter headings such as 'Early Life' and 'Family Background'. These were significant as they assisted in the sequence and general organisation of the memoir. 

I found the Bookform fomatting options user friendly and relevant to the style of book I required. The voice to text feature was particularly useful as I could read Mum's handwritten notes using the  record feature. This meant  I could check and edit punctuation and some names etc to ensure the transfer was accurate. The voice to text feature saved so much time and was  accurate and easy for me to edit.  

My family found the published book seamless to read as chapters were clearly indicated on the contents page. The photo insert feature offered a variety of layouts which suited the variety of family photos I had to insert. Many of the photos were from Mum's childhood so were decades old however the photo feature ensured I could crop photos to fit the page. This feature ensured old photos could be inserted. This was extremely important as the book was a memoir and a representation of Mum's life. I had the finished product professionally printed and the printer found the bookform pdf well formatted and easy  to work with. We have had 20 of my mother's memoirs printed for the whole family to enjoy.

My mother was delighted and is enjoying reading about and savouring the sentiments attached to such an a significant reflection calling the published memoir ' a labour of love.'

My mother Joan Dove said  ' this memoir is a heartfelt expression of how life ought to be lived. I am so happy to have this record so I can read and reflect on my life on a daily basis. A wonderful idea, I feel very blessed. I have had notebooks full of my musings sitting here for the past 10 years. Now I have these collated and beautifully presented in a book form.'

End.

3 Main Bookform Family Communication Projects:

1. The Favourite Recipe Book: Students bring their family's favourite food & photos together. Example Book
2. The Family Book: Students interview their family members in any language and collect contributions from others into their personalised Family Book. Example Book
3. Community Service: Students go into their community to help others create their memoir or collate precious oral histories into a modern format. Case Study

Register your school for a Bookform Family Communication Project: https://familybookform.com/schools/

Projects are $10 per student for 1 year.