Can American Schools Afford Apple’s iBooks Textbooks Initiative? By Lory | January 26, 2012 | 2 comments With last week’s education event from Apple, the big news was the addition of textbooks to the iBookstore.
Apple has teamed up with some of the largest suppliers of traditional textbooks to bring digital interactive learning tools to students in K-12 education. With this new way of teaching children, one glaring question still stands out, who will pay for it? There have been arguments for and against the use of iPads in K-12 public schools since the device first launched. Some school districts have already successfully implemented a “one iPad for every child” program. The problem goes much deeper than any individual’s tax dollar. At the minimum cost of $499 per iPad a district would need to come up with nearly $750,000 just to have an iPad for every student at one average-size high school of 1,500 students. The need to fund public schools is only part of the problem. Additionally, the $15 price tag is not all it is cracked up to be. Apple announces iBooks 2, a new textbook experience for the iPad at Education Event in NYC.
Among industrialized nations, the US has fallen well behind, coming in at 17th in reading, 21st in math and 23rd in the sciences, globally. ”No one company can fix it all,” said Apple’s Head of Marketing Phil Schiller.
“One place we think we can help is in student engagement.” Today, at an education-focused event in New York City’s Guggenheim Museum, Apple announced the debut of iBooks 2, a “new textbook experience for the iPad.” Traditional textbooks are expensive, physically cumbersome and prone to becoming obsolete. Whereas an iPad is interactive, searchable and can be updated. iPads in the Classroom. iPad a solid education tool, study reports. Apple's new iBooks 2 app is demonstrated for the media at the Guggenheim Museum on January 19.
Pilot study done by textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and AppleMiddle school students studied from 2010 to 2011 using HMH's Fuse: Algebra I appDuring study, iPad seemed to help students better connect with the content (WIRED) -- More and more schools are jumping on the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the classroom. Apple's education-related announcements last week will no doubt bolster the trend, making faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible. But today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. The study was conducted at a Riverside, California, middle school from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011 using HMH's Fuse: Algebra I app. Coolcatteacher.visibli.
Apple's education announcement: what you need to know. Today's education event was a reasonably small one, so far as Apple pressers go, held at the Guggenheim museum in New York City, with a smattering of media representatives in attendance.
It arrives on the tails of some already hearty numbers for the company, including the existence of 20,000 learning-themed apps and 1.5 million iPads currently in use for education. But Cupertino's plans for the future of learning are grand indeed, including the desire to "reinvent the textbook" via iBooks 2. And while our expectations weren't particularly grandiose going into this morning, we were, indeed, pretty impressed with what we saw. So, what did you miss if you happened to sleep in late today? Find out, after the break. iBooks 2 The second coming of iBooks marks a much larger push toward education for Apple's already crazy-popular tablet. iBooks Author. iPads revolutionizing Flagstaff classrooms.
The iPads whispered and blinked to life, then loaded the afternoon's work: a website chock full of long addition, long multiplication, long division, even word problems.
Except for the cartoon badges awarded for success, the IXL.com problem set didn't look much like a game. But the fifth-graders in Kamalene Nelson's classroom at Thomas Elementary maneuvered through the site as if it were. Daniel Samano looked thoughtfully at a long division problem on his iPad screen and hit on a concept that teachers have repeatedly said makes mobile devices a revolutionary classroom tool: Engagement. "It kinda wakes me up more than paper and pencil kinda stuff," he said.
From Thomas fifth grade to Knoles third grade, Sechrist preschool to Coconino 10th grade, students can't get enough of the iPads, or their pocket-sized predecessor and still-popular sister, the iPod. Flagstaff Unified School District has about 500 new touch-screen mobile devices around the schools. In Mrs. SmarTots - We recommend the Best Educational Apps for your Child. 8 Burning Questions About iPads in Class (Answered!) I recently received an email from a media and tech teacher from a school district in Wisconsin.
The questions she has asked are awesome and could be helpful to others. My answers to her questions are followed with actual video clips from my classroom. Enjoy and may this be helpful! Questions are in bold! How has it (implementation of iPads) gone for you and the students? Since then, we couldn't live without them! It has been a challenge to truly integrate the iPads and there many uses. 50 really useful iPad 2 tips and tricks.
An absolute gem of an article by John Brandon and Graham Barlow from MacLife on 30th March over at TechRadar.
This is going to become my iPad manual from here on in.