February 2012

iBooks Author

• • Recently Apple announced new interactive books for the iPad. They've partnered with publishers to bring $15 textbooks to the iPad.

  • Apple also released a free program for Macs that makes creation of interactive textbooks really easy.

  • We're investigating offering a professional development opportunity in June around iBooks Author and creating interactive text for our students.

  • At the botom of this page is a short(ish) video I made showing off the new iBooks and iBooks Author

CloudOn and DropBox

• • Janinne shared her experience working with the app CloudOn with her students.

  • CloudOn lets you create and edit Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files on your iPad.

  • CloudOn integrates with DropBox, so you'll need to set that up as well to use it. All your documents will be stored in DropBox so you must have an internet connection to use CloudOn.

  • Janinne sets up shared folders for her students to work out of. This way she can collect all their work and have no papers to bring home. She also recommends planning on not getting a lot of work done the first day you use DropBox this way with your students. Plan on doing a lot of troubleshooting the first day with students.

Prezi

• • Prezi is a cool alternative to PowerPoint. The kids enjoy it more, but this may fade over time.

  • Creation and editing must be done on a computer, the iPad is really just for playing them back.

  • The most recent update did add limited editing functions to the iPad app. When I say limited, I mean really limited.