was an Apple press event regarding Education... there were a few things introduced:- iBooks 2, which introduces textbooks into the mix that have the ability to have interactive features like swiping sentences to highlight them, bring up dictionary for terms, watch videos or interact with 3D models.
- iBooks Author... A full fledge OS/X app that allows anybody to publish an eBook for any genre and makes it as easy as dragging and dropping content into it to create a fully interactive book. Geared toward education, but it can be used for anything.
- iTunes U update... most don't even know about this part of the iTunes Store, but iTunes U has an abundance of college lectures available to download... they will be expanding and updating this and it will have more K-12 educational material on it as well.
They also have a lot of publishers backing them up on this project including McGraw Hill and other notable textbook publishers... this should provide them with the push they need to get Apple adopted into schools everywhere.
~EDITORIAL~
I think this is great... Sure I'm very biased because I love Apple products, but it was certainly wasn't a matter of 'if' it was just a matter of when this technology would infiltrate schools. For a student of any age, but especially High School and College, having all of your learning materials in an iPad instead of carrying tons of books is a relief, not only on your back but also in keeping things organized.
Apple has made a huge step and made the tools for creation as easy as pie... not unlike the way they created Final Cut Pro or Garageband... they are excellent at creating the tools so that creative and intelligent minds can run with it and create great content. This is Apple's way, and I imagine this will do wonders for the education field as a whole.
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