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Health & Fitness

Apple in Education: iBooks Textbooks on iPad

Apple's big initiative to modernize classroom learning at the high-school level with it's "most revolutionary device", the iPad.

“Education has always been apart of Apple’s DNA. And that’s because we really believe technology can make a profound difference in the way that teachers teach and kids learn.” –Eddy Cue, Senior VP of Internet Services at Apple

This morning in NYC at their education event, Apple announced an innovative update to their eBook app called “iBooks”, where iDevice users can purchase and download a wide variety of books to read at anytime. Dubbed "iBooks 2.0", this new update is jam-packed with features educators can use in their classrooms.

Starting today, big-name textbook publishers, such as Pearson©, McGraw-Hill Education Company© and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt©, are making available interactive-electronic versions of their high-school textbooks for the iPad users. At such a low price per textbook, packed with interactive and innovative features, these electronic textbooks could make their way into thousands of local school districts that have been entertaining the idea of having available a class-set of iPad tablets for students to use.

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iBooks 2.0 brings learning curriculum to a whole new level, in that the information being taught from these textbooks is current and can be updated (great for History/Social Studies books), web-friendly – where students can link directly to web pages listed in the book that have extra online features – allow for checkpoint quizzes throughout the sections to make sure every student achieves in learning the material effectively and also including the option to take little notes on each page that will allow students to determine what they need to go back and review and can later become flashcards at the end of the chapter to study for a test or quiz on the material.

What's really unique about an electronic textbook on the iPad is the optional video or audio media and other animations associated with the material given to better understand certain topics, such as cytokenosis in Biology. “The material comes to life on the iPad where it just can’t on the static-printed page,” Cue said.

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A selection of textbooks are available for download today (such as Algebra I, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Physics) at the low price of $15 per textbook on the iBookstore (within the app) or in iTunes. No school code or web codes are necessary to purchase.

Also available to Macintosh-users is an application called “iBooks Author”, a free program (available to download today on the Mac App Store) that allows anyone to create a textbook on their computer in the most simplistic way and publish it directly to the iTunes/iBookstore for users to purchase, opening up the pathway for many new future authors to teach curriculum for a wide range of students.

For more information about Apple's announcement on education, check out the video on their website here.

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