In the endeavour to find ways to incorporate technologically relevant educational tools into our teaching practices it is obvious that the iPad is the new go-to item for teachers and parents in 2012.  If you haven’t heard, the most recent launch of iBooks 2 now presents a revolutionary future for textbooks and teaching materials that are multimodal, interactive and able to engage learners in ways that seem almost futuristic!

Not only that, gone are the days of children having to run to class with backpacks filled with textbooks that are more than half their body weight. All they need is an iPad!

You may be wondering how iBooks 2 app, the iBooks textbook Author app and these new textbooks are any different than the previous versions of e-Books that Apple had offered on the iPad, where you simply have a lighter and digital version of a text-based book with the occasional embedded picture. In short, Apple has completely redesigned the modern day textbook!

Personally, I was skeptical and excited at the same time. My fingers were crossed that the demo biology textbook, “ Life on Earth”, which Apple created with the iBooks Author, would be everything I had envisioned that educational tools would become… with interactive pages, the ability to view videos and more. Frankly, the sample textbook by Apple blew my expectations out of the water! Not only did it go beyond the interactivity I would hope for a learning resource, but it engages the learner in multimodal ways, with stunning visuals, the ability to rotate 3D objects, audio and video integration, and the ability to have notes and flash cards manifest based on the reader’s input into the book. “Reader” may be even an archaic term to use when considering how one immerses themselves into this learning experience. It doesn’t even feel like learning at time, as the content can seem like a game you would purchase on the Apple app store, rather than educational content in a textbook.

My brain immediately started considering the educational implications of the iBooks Author and Textbooks. This demo alone was allowing me to engage in learning about insects or plant life, using the intuitive ways that I was already interacting with my iPad and mobile devices. With my own interests in music and arts education, I was beginning to put together the possibilities for how this is going to change everything – especially for fields such as music and visual arts! Knowledge would no longer be limited to what was selected, assembled, edited and sold by overpriced textbook publishers.

No more simply reading about music history, and having to search for a track on the CD that corresponds to the reading about Mozart… It could now be integrated all in one, with the ability to link to various other articles and resources. Even the possibility of using interactive chapter reviews, where learners can answer questions to assess what they learned.

No more static images taken in perfect lighting 20 years ago of Degas’ At The Races painting, with redundant text-based descriptions. Instead, I could take a walking tour through the Musée d’Orsay, transporting myself into Paris, to view the painting from different angles, listening to other people speak about it, and get the chance to consider the magnitude of the artwork. How very different the experience of that painting would be, when I then could immerse myself in this experience, all from my living room on the West Coast of North America.

My initial thoughts on this all were very basic, and not even delving into the monumental capabilities that this format for a “textbook” could contain! Let alone the fact that I would no longer have to carry 50 textbooks with me in their own suitcase when I needed to take a flight and still needed to do some reading. I was more than overwhelmed, and still am with the impressive nature of the iBooks Textbooks. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this sort of interactive resource for education would be launched so soon. Not to sound cynical, but I always thought that I would have my flying jet-pack before educational resources caught up with the intuitive and multimodal ways that young people learn today. I’m happy to be wrong though, as this is only the beginning of the possibilities for the future of education, learning and teaching.

Cheers,

Deanna