Tech Tips for Teachers

Image via Wikipedia

During its last big event event in New York, Apple made an announcement that it would be getting into the textbook industry and has partnered up with some of the largest textbook publishers in North America. Along with that announcement, Apple also announced a new app that would allow others to create their own etextbooks called iBooks Author.

So what's the big deal? Tablets have been making their presence felt in classrooms all across North America. Students interact easily with this technology and most prefer this type of interface when consuming information. iBooks Author allows anyone who wants to, to create an interactive text for school, or for business. If they want they may even wish to take their material and sell it on the iBooks store.

How easy is the app to work with? Well in a word, very easy. Like most products that Apple has created Pages, and Keynote notably, it comes with a few templates to get a person started with creating their book.

Like Pages (their word processing application) you can add text and insert images. The text flows neatly around graphics giving the look of your book a professional feel. The templates also allow you to keep a consistent design throughout your book as well. What sets the application apart is the ability to add interactive elements to your text such as picture galleries, video, audio, interactive maps, Keynote slide shows and three dimensional objects. Apple calls these elements Widgets.

Now from a teacher perspective what does this mean? It means that I can create my own texts or units using this tool or from a project based learning standpoint have my students develop a textbook that could be used to evaluate their understanding of course materials. 

Now like any new technology what are the downsides to using this? 

1. You are locked into one device.

2. You are locked into one platform.

3. If you publish your work to the Itunes store, Apple will take its thirty percent cut for distribution.

4. You are locked into Apple.

Its a nice neat little loop that Apple has created for itself in terms of driving up demand for its products and services. Naturally this has made some people upset in Education who would rather see a more open approach to curating materials for learning. I would encourage you to read these differing viewpoints.

In my opinion it is an exciting tool to work with, and to be honest I ended upgrading to Lion so that I could try my hand at creating an etext. 

• Apple Announces iBooks Author (techie-buzz.com)
• iBooks Author (elearningstuff.net)
• What's the buzz on all this Apple publishing stuff? (lulu.com)
• Why All the Anti-Apple Sentiment Over iBooks Author? (q-ontech.blogspot.com)