apple iBooks 2, iBooks author, and iTunes U for interactive education

at a press event at new york’s guggenheim museum, apple announces ‘iBooks 2’ with a dedicated textbook section and the  ‘iBooks author’ as platforms towards interactive education

in a series of connected initiatives designed to bring more interactivity to the field of education, apple has announced its ‘iBooks 2‘ platform with dedicated textbooks section, and ‘iBooks author‘ application for the self-publishing of e-books, as well as the ‘iTunes U‘ application that transforms the section of iTunes used for course lectures into a full application for professors and students, usable as a course management system.

the ‘iiBooks author’ application simplifies the creation of e-books

the most innovative element of the announcement is ‘iBooks author’, designed to simplify the creation of digital books. the application offers templates for content like science or math textbooks or cookbooks, and users can drag and drop images, video, and keynote files into their creations. single images can also be loaded to transform to slideshows when activated.

designed for a range of users, ‘iBooks author’ lets technologically-minded creators develop their own interactive widgits in javascript or HTML.

‘iBooks 2’ in conjunction with a dedicated textbook section in iTunes offers interactive education.

new features of ‘iBooks 2’ include the ability to highlight and take notes connected to certain passages and automatically create study cards from them. the emphasis on interactivity is evident in the support for tapping, zooming, and rotating images; clicking parts of a diagram brings up additional information about each component, and tapping on a glossary term shows the definition in the sidebar. in a feature currently in review for release, users can pesonalize their glossaries by highlighting a word and clicking an ‘add term’ button.

the ability to create instant flash cards from highlights and notes isone of the most intuitive helpful features of ‘iBooks 2’ image courtesy gizmodo

even users without iPads can benefit from the dedicated textbook section of the iTunes store pictured above

apple has collaborated with some of the largest american publishers– among them pearson, mcgraw hill, houghton mifflin, and harcourt — to offer interactive digital version of existing secondary school textbooks. currently a range of common books spanning algebra, biology, physics, chemistry, geometry, and environmental science is available, each for under 15 USD.

a new, dedicated ‘iTunes U’ app transforms the section of iTunes used for course lectures from top universities into a full-fledged application for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, providing free educational content, applications, and books. professors can create,  manage, and share handouts and other material via a web-based tool, integrating easily with content from ‘iTunes U’.

apple’s invitation design for the press event announcing the new education platforms, january 19th at the guggenheim museum in new york