As you know, the upcoming media event for Apple’s smaller, thinner, and less expensive tablet, the as-yet-named iPad Air iPad mini, is being widely reported as happening on October 23,2012.
While the invites haven’t gone out yet, we’re seeing a rumor that the event will focus on iBooks, which makes a ton of sense considering that a smaller iPad is in the same market category as a device like the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is kind of like a souped-up eReader, with media consumption its main purpose, at least from Amazon’s perspective.
While this seems like a plausible rumor, I’m not ready to fully embrace it yet.
Template packs for iBooks Author, help make your ebooks look unique and professionally designed.
Although Apple pitched iBooks Author as a tool for educators, the company fully supports anyone who want to create an ebook using iBooks Author to do so. Apple also lets anyone that creates an ebook with iBooks Author to distribute it through the iBookstore – the catch being that the iBooks Author edition of an ebook can’t be published using another company’s store (though the text of the title can be repackaged using other apps and sold elsewhere). As usual, Apple will take a 30% cut of any sales.
There are, of course, plenty of non-education uses for iBooks Author.
Jumsoft’s latest clipart and pattern pack delivers plenty of impact.
App and template designer Jumsoft announced a new collection of images and patterns for Apple’s iWork suite. The new package, known as Elements for iWork, is the company’s eleventh collection of professionally designed images, templates and stationary designed to help businesses, students, and consumers create stunning documents and projects using a range of Mac apps.
The iPad is engaging students and transforming the K-12 education experience.
During its education event in January, Apple unveiled its plans to revolutionize the K-12 classroom with the iPad, electronic textbooks, a revamped version of iTunes U that supports content for K-12 schools as well as higher education, and tools for educators to create their own digital content using iBooks Author and iTunes U.
In the intervening months, schools and districts around the country have made significant investments in iPads, including the San Diego Unified School District, which invested $15 million in 26,000 iPads for its students. Those sales created a record quarter for Apple in the K-12 education market.
With the back to school season upon us, it’s clear that the massive iPad deployments will give Apple the opportunity to disrupt the classroom in the ways it has whole industries and, in many ways, that’s a good thing.
TED’s new ebook series and ebook app highlights the concern that ebook purchases lock readers into specific platforms.
The TED organization, which sponsors a range of conferences and talks on cutting edge topics recently launched an ebook series known as TED Books. Like the non-profit’s other initiatives, TED Books are “designed to spread great ideas.” Sticking to that ideal, the organization is making the ebooks, which will be released every two weeks, available across a range of ebook platforms including the new TED Books app for iOS devices.
The move highlights one of the challenges about ebooks – the choice of merchant and platform. That’s a particular concern when it comes to Apple’s iBookstore because purchases can only be read on an iOS device.
Jumsoft’s first collection of Word templates give a stunning designer look to any business or personal documents.
Jumsoft has announced its first pack of Word for Mac templates. Named the Inspiration Set for Word, the pack contains 169 templates for almost any document or project from business stationary to canning jar labels – of them beautifully designed by Jumsoft’s team of professional graphic designers.
Jumsoft has made a name for itself with a range of template collections for iWork and other Apple apps including a collection of templates/themes for iBooks Author and two collections for spicing up emails composed using OS X’s Mail app. The company has also produced two packs of clipart that can be used in virtually application.
Erica Sadun writes at TUAW about a new, possibly first of its kind ebook, one that includes American Sign Language (ASL) videos embedded along with the electronic text and pictures.
While bilingual education has been around for a good long while, the concept of prepackaged ASL translation is a relatively new one, as the tools to embed quality video in an eBook haven’t been mainstream enough. Until now, of course, with iBooks, the iPad, and iBooks Author.
Author Adam Stone released his new book, Pointy Three, on the iBooks store last week. From the iTunes description:
Presented in American Sign Language (ASL) and English! The story of a fork who’s missing one of his prongs, but not his brave spirit. Follow Pointy Three on his journey through the land of Dinnertime as he meets characters left and right and looks for a place where he belongs.
Sadun interviews Stone and talks with him about his motivation to do such a book. “I want to show everybody that it can be done easily, quickly, and cheaply,” he said on his blog. “You don’t need to talk to a publisher; you are the publisher.”
Stone works as a first grade teacher at an ASL school in New York. He was inspired by the introduction of iBooks Author and came up with the idea for the story with ASL elements on the way home one day. He typed up the treatment on his iPhone in the Notes app, he says.
When asked why he hadn’t created an app, Stone reveals that he has no skills as a programmer. With iBooks Author, anyone can create an interactive story for their unique audience and situation.
This is the disruptive success of Apple, one that hearkens back to the original computer club and Steve Wozniak. Apple devices are all about empowering people to actually create and do things – wonderful and unique things – with the powerful technologies inside.
Apple is offering free webcasts on using iPads, iBooks Author, and iTunes in education
One of the ways that working in education is different from almost any other industries is the annual summer break. The summer break let’s schools and districts tackle large projects in ways that simply aren’t possible in other fields. Deploying a brand-new network, building an expansion, and taking part in professional development programs are just a few examples.
With the end of the school year, Apple is taking the opportunity to remind schools and educators about a free professional development program that it’s offering. Called the Tune In Series, the program is a series of webcast events covering the iPad and many of the technologies that Apple introduced during its education event in January. The series is running every week through the end of August.
The paperless office is something we’ve been aiming at for at least a decade, if not longer. With the proliferation of affordable yet powerful digital devices like the iPhone and the iPad, the dream may be more in reach that we realize. David Sparks has released an iBook (created with iBooks Author, no less) that will help us all use less and less paper in our lives.
How many 7th Graders can say they best selling authors? Well this group of kids from Woodlawn Beach Middle School in Northern Florida can thanks to their teacher Andrea Santilli and iBooks Author.
Ms. Santilli, a self-professed “die-hard Mac girl”, was looking for a new way to not only challenge her Advanced Life Sciences class, but also leverage technology to make learning fun. Not to mention get some practical experience in the real world of writing, photography, video, and ebook publishing. Just a few minutes with this free ebook and you can see how much potential there is for iBooks Author and iPads in the classroom. Not to mention you’ll probably learn something interesting.
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