BioBook, A Gates-Funded iPad Textbook, Would Create A Free Database For Customized Learning Since the launch of the iPad, colledge educators have been seeking an inexpensive alternative to paper textbooks that could leverage the collective knowledge of teachers and students. With a $249,000 grant from the Gates Foundation's Next Generation Learning Challenge, Dr. Daniel Johnson of Wake Forest University and education technology firm Odigia might have found it. Their BioBook, an iPad and web-enabled interactive biology textbook, creates a fully customizable experience for both students and educators. For educators, the BioBook allows professors to track individual student progress and develop their own textbooks from a national database of professor-generated, mix-and-match chapters. Threaded Learning "Every learner brings unique prior knowledge, misconceptions, and pre-existing mental models to the process of learning a new concept," Dr. A National Database Dr.
The Student Guide to iPads and iOS 6 I have bookmarked over the last couple of months 5 great iPad eBooks that I will be sharing with you in a separate post probably next week, However the title I have included here today can not wait any longer.This is a practical guide to help both teachers and students learn more about iPad and iOS 6 from the basics to the more sophisticated features. This eBook is completely free so you can jump right in and start downloading it. This eBook is designed in such a way to make it easy for users to easily navigate its content . Both the font and interface are reader friendly and most important of all the tutorials and tips it contains are things every teacher and student need to know about particularly when using iPad for educational purposes. Click Here to access and download this free guide.
7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore. It explains the project in more detail. "Each student has to choose an organisms they wanted to study and were required to submit their topic for approval. Andrea collected work from 69 students and entered it into iBooks Author. iBooks Author is free but only works on Macs running 10.7 Lion or higher. iBooks Author is a fantastically powerful tool. There are some disadvantages to using iBooks author for crafting your own learning materials. Check out what Andrea and her students say about writing their book. I think the comment by CNEBBY in the Customer Reviews of Creatures, Plants and More sums up the project well: "This is an awesome example of what kids can do when they are properly motivated by a skilled teacher."
Step-by-Step: How to Create a Collaborative Class eBook Previously, I have published the following posts about creating eBooks: More and more classrooms are wanting to take their already created content and turn it into an eBook to share with parents, grandparents and the community who own eReaders. Here are some possible ideas to create content: Any Unit of StudyBook Report AnthologyPoem AnthologyVisual Quotes CollectionCreate your own TextbookEssay Collection about a Specific TopicDrawing/Painting CollectionPortfolio So, how do you create a collaborative CLASSROOM eBook? Here is our Step-by-Step procedure (we are using the BookCreator app). 1. To get images into the gallery, students can: search for public domain or creative commons images on the web (via Safari) and save the image to the iPad Photo Gallery by holding a finger for a few seconds on the image until a drop down list pops up > choose “Save Image”. To insert an image into the BookCreator app, tap the icon on the top right of the app and choose the image from the camera roll. 4. 5.
More reasons to love iPad with iBooks Author iPad Published on February 29th, 2012 | by Mark Anderson You won’t have failed to notice the big launch by Apple a few months ago with various links to education. They released 3 big education related items that have (if they hadn’t already) made educational establishments really sit up and notice the iPad as a serious learning tool. iTunesU app was released which gives amazing access to hordes of online courses from universities from all over the globe. For free. iBooks2 which included developments in interactivity within the books you can read within the app. Finally and I think perhaps more importantly, they introduced the new iBooks Author app. The following hits are reasons why iBooks Author tied with iBooks2 is a complete win for schools, particularly in 1:1 type scenarios. Teachers can easily (yes, easily!) The possibilities for fantastic books to be created for all subject areas is immense. Tags: #edtech, #iPad, learning About the Author
How To Be A Terrible iPad Teacher I published this off my site: teachingwithipad.org about a month ago. I hope you enjoy the read. Please leave any comments that may be useful. The following is a list, written in the first-person, of ideologies or stances from a Terrible iPad Teacher: 1. 2. 3. 4. Above: A search for "Education" in the App store yields over 10,000 results. 5. 6. Above: Explain Everything records visual and audio for your classes Above: Haiku Deck offers beautiful (and free!) 7. 8. Above: While the pre-installed apps on an iPad are great, there is just so much more available 9. 10. All of us have been guilty of at least some of the list at least once. Further reading: iPads: Creation vs. iPad is right for PE! iPaddiction: Creation Apps Used on the iPad Do you have any other tips for iPad teachers? Did you like this post? Authors: Steve Lai (@sly111) is a French Teacher from Richmond, British Columbia, Canada in his twelfth year of teaching.
Beyond the Book: Infographics of Students' Reading History A high schooler's reading history infographic. Photo credit: Sarah Mulhern Gross I'm an evangelist. A book evangelist, that is. I hand out books to students and colleagues, booktalking them in class, at lunch, and even in my email signature. Recently, I've also been fascinated by the way the human mind interprets visual symbols. When I found this lesson about reading histories, I was inspired. Getting Started I began by having the students brainstorm a list of books they've read. The next day, we began to explore some online tools for creating infographics. In pairs, students experimented with the tools by creating sample infographics based on data pulled from an article in that day's newspaper. Reading History Infographic The next day, we started to work on our own infographics. But instead of holding their hands as they walked through the project, I encouraged them to explore some mentor texts. The Final Product I was blown away when the documents started arriving in my inbox.
Thoughts on iPad Fluency and Workflows For me, iPad workflow has to do with fluency. It is: the fluid movement between appsthe unconscious decision what app to use in order to accomplish any given task The workflow is almost like Grammar in a language. Grammar helps you put components of a language in the proper order, grammar rules help you use the right tense, remix word to create new meaning, the correct vocabulary words attached in combination with pronouns and conjugation help you communicate exactly what you had intended. Workflow= Fluency of iPad Grammar Using iPads in the classroom with your students is more than choosing and letting them use Apps. I have written several posts about how I envisioned and then observed our students develop iPad Fluency (Fluency of iPad workflow takes time to develop!). We are starting to see more and more examples of students developing iPad fluency, as they I created the following iPad Workflow chart below for receiving and handing in sharing work. Related
How Interactive Ebooks Engage Readers and Enhance Learning The invention of the tablet PC has created a new medium for book publishing. Interactive books are everywhere, and have revolutionized the way people consume the printed word. With the recent software available to allow easy creation of interactive books and with the race to bring these products to market, there seems to be a more and more dilution of quality and a loss for the meaning of interactivity. It’s important to understand the distinction between apps and eBooks, as it's something that often confuses both publishers and consumers. eBooks were the first to appear on devices such as the Kindle, and have very limited interactivity. Enhanced eBooks (ePUB3) are a new digital publication standard that allows easy integration of video, audio, and interactivity. This video was released by Apple to promote the iBooks Author: Grimm's Rapunzel ~ 3D Interactive Pop-up Book Interactivity for the Sake of Interactivity Interaction for Value
Notetaking Apps - a comparison of some popular ones Notetaking apps are a great way to get organized and keep track of everything electronically. There are a lot of different ones out there, so I thought I would go through some of the more popular ones and list some of the features they have. Click on the links for more information on each one also. 1. Evernote - this is the note taking app that I use the most. It is free, available on all platforms (web, Mac, iOS, Windows, Android, webOS, and more), easy to use, full featured and high quality. 2. 3. 5. 6. Assessing Student Progress Using Blog-Based Porfolios Editor’s note: Kathy Cassidy is the author of a new book from Powerful Learning Press, Connected from the Start: Global Learning in the Primary Grades. During a recent webinar (free archive here), Kathy shared many ideas from Chapter 5 of the book, “Using Blogs as Digital Portfolios.” The webinar was rich in content and full of great discussion — so much so that there simply wasn’t time for Kathy to share her thoughts, in depth, about where formative and summative assessments might fit into this digital blog/portfolio model. So we’ve asked her to write this article. A Great Tool to Continuously Assess Progress by Kathy Cassidy In my classroom, each of my grade one and grade two students has their own blog. The children have these online portfolios for many reasons, including an authentic audience, parental engagement, and the opportunity to create an online community. Formative Assessment I am continually doing formative assessment in my classroom — that is, assessment for learning.
8 Powerful Apps To Help You Create Books On The iPad Want to self-publish a novel? Get your classroom materials into the hands of others? Share your brilliant insight and call yourself an author? So try out some of these apps and it should hopefully inspire you to become a digital author sooner rather than later. Book Creator Book Creator is simple way to create your own beautiful iBooks, right on the iPad. Book Writer Book Writer is useful app to make books with iPhone/iPad! StoryBuddy 2 Create stories with drawings, photos, text, and audio recording! Scribble My Story Scribble My Story is a junior version of the popular Scribble Press App. StoryKit Create an electronic storybook with StoryKit . Picturebook: School Edition Create and share your very own illustrated stories in a few simple steps! Story Creator With Story Creator you can easily create beautiful story books containing photos, videos, text, and audio all in one gorgeous collection. BONUS!