ShowMe and E-pubs
Marko is a ShowMe Ambassador and totally awesome! He’ll be writing all about the tech he uses in the classroom and we’re super excited to have him!
As everyone knows by now, Apple announced last month their new free powerful tool for publishing called iBooks Author. This tool as everyone has already seen has the ability to incorporate videos, 3D images, multiple choice questions and PowerPoint and Keynote presentations right into the book. The software also allows you to take notes and convert the notes into flash cards for review once you are done reading the chapter.
The great thing about the software is that every file is drag and drop. The user agreement that you sign with Apple has some complications; for instance, the book goes to the iTunes account holder not the school district, so as advertised, most districts are not excited about the prospect of purchasing textbooks every year even though the textbooks are only $14.99. This may keep schools from adopting textbooks published in iBooks author.
So what does mean for the classroom, very little. If you own a Mac and have Pages (Apple’s equivalent to Word), you can create your own epubs by downloading the template. Now you can create one file that incorporates your ShowMes and the text of the concept that you are teaching your students. So now students can watch the ShowMe in one place with the text of what you are teaching or notes from your PowerPoint or Keynote presentation in the same file.
The only downside is that your students will need an iOS device. You can then email the file to your students and then they can open the file in iBooks and you then have your very own textbook without the worries of the user agreement.
