iBook annuoncement by Apple

This is being talked about a great deal, so you should all read this so you know what the idea/plan is with the announcement of iBooks from Apple. It’s about giving publishers a consistent tool/format to transform their textbooks so they are truly interactive, not just PDF versions of the paper books. But how fast publishers will get on board is always the question.

The thing to focus on is not that it’s Apple, but rather the concepts such as interactive galleries, audio/video, annotating/highlighting, study cards, 3D images with rotation, and many things we currently must supplement our “old school” textbooks would already be part of the books! Now they’re talking sense. I’m projecting that the same ideas would be produced in non-apple formats as well so focus on the concepts here.

http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks/

Comments

Anatomy online

www.zygotebody.com used to be Google Body using Zygote's imagery... now Zygote owns it. Use FireFox!!! You can switch from male to female, select a body system like skeletal, cardiovascular, etc. Rotate and zoom... The left side has sliders to move from one system to another, or slide horizontally to turn on and off systems. You can have several on at once. You can search for things by name, and pin them so they stay put when switching systems. I noticed that when a pin or label has a blue + sign, clicking it expands that label to more sub-labels that you can pin. Try this with the brain stem! The program requires WebGL, which seems to not be included in IE...and doesn't work on iPad's safari browser either. But works fine in FireFox!

Infographics - "More than words can say"

We've seen man eye-catching and engrossing infographics lately. Here's a great one... http://www.studyblue.com/projects/infographic-mobile-studying-online-flashcards-on-smartphones/ and here's "40 useful infographics " that present a range of styles and topoics . http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/40-useful-and-creative-infographics/ Here's a mini course on infographics in education, designed by the NY Times: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/ And here's a great list of infographic information and samples: http://www.delicious.com/jkrauss/infographics As a teaching tool, here's a list of infographic sources: floating sheep: www.floatingsheep.com cool infographics : www.coolinfographics.com GapMinder : www.gapminder.com information is beautiful: www.informationisbeautiful.net But what about having students CREATE infographics as projects? Here's a great article! htt...

LanSchool does Polling!

All teachers should be using LanSchool to monitor and restrict what students are doing in class... there are other more appropriate times to shop for prom dresses, work on art, and look at pictures of their favorite stars. But POLLING is a really great way to engage all of your students, and for you to use formative assessment. Simply use the VOTE button on LanSchool to send everyone a question, and you see the anonymous results as they are submitted. You can even prepare questions ahead of time and load on the fly so you are not typing them in while students wait. Please ask Laura or David (or Jamie!) how to do this. Or give it a try in class, it's simple. We have other ways to poll students , like PollEverywhere .com, but they take more time to setup. However PollEverywhere can be a web link that students access 24/7 for out-of-class polling.

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