VisuaLoop
Publishing in the Digital Era:
written by Greg Swanson at AppsinEducation on 1st May 2011
How will schools and more importantly teachers respond to the changing paradigm that is digital publishing. We have recently completed a survey at our school of all the textbook suppliers we use and only two textbooks were still unavailable in digital format. This means that as the roll-out of new devices occur these digital texts will all be preloaded on the mobile devices. This is one of the major incentives for schools to move towards 1-to-1 laptops or iPad programs. The ease by which students can access their textbooks on the mobile device is, not surprisingly, also a selling point for parents, as the cost of textbooks and the weight of schoolbags continue to increase.
The major textbook companies have also been active in developing textbooks beyond simple PDF copies of the paper based text. Inkling's iPad textbooks are a testament to this type of interactive text development and it is promising to see some of these same publishing companies buy into the digital start-ups who already have the technical know how and the existing technologies in place.
Here are some examples of publications and the tools you could use to do this today.
Digital Textbooks:
Created in Pages on the Mac or Illustrator on PC
E-zines:
Created in Pages on the Mac or Illustrator on PC
Blogs:
Use your blog as a class textbook or a place for your students to locate their next activity
Twitter Feeds and RSS Readers as Texts
Flipboard:
Retweet interesting sites or articles back to a class account that is added to their Flipboard mag
Paper.li:
Have your class subscribe to a twitter feed daily or weekly online newspaper
Website Reader:
Surfboard
Read a website in the format of a e-magazine
written by Greg Swanson at AppsinEducation on 1st May 2011
How will schools and more importantly teachers respond to the changing paradigm that is digital publishing. We have recently completed a survey at our school of all the textbook suppliers we use and only two textbooks were still unavailable in digital format. This means that as the roll-out of new devices occur these digital texts will all be preloaded on the mobile devices. This is one of the major incentives for schools to move towards 1-to-1 laptops or iPad programs. The ease by which students can access their textbooks on the mobile device is, not surprisingly, also a selling point for parents, as the cost of textbooks and the weight of schoolbags continue to increase.
The major textbook companies have also been active in developing textbooks beyond simple PDF copies of the paper based text. Inkling's iPad textbooks are a testament to this type of interactive text development and it is promising to see some of these same publishing companies buy into the digital start-ups who already have the technical know how and the existing technologies in place.
Inkling announced that it'll be receiving financial backing from two of the largest names in textbook publishing -- Pearson and McGraw-Hill. What sets Inkling apart from other companies testing the textbook waters is it's approach to creating truly interactive books that go beyond just making an electronic version of a book. Many e-textbook publishers simply make a PDF file of the content in an existing textbook and leave it at that.
Coupled with this, is the ease with which individuals can now publish professional looking online articles, worksheets, e-zines and even textbooks. This means that the availability of these types of online publications allow for real and meaningful individualised learning. Teachers and or students can receive differentiated coursework, resources or reading materials that are specifically designed for both their chosen area of interest and their achievement level in the course content. Nobody is saying that this is a quick task but it is not impossible, and in fact it is not even that hard.Published at http://www.tuaw.com on the 3rd of last month
Here are some examples of publications and the tools you could use to do this today.
Digital Textbooks:
Onswipe:
OnSwipe is a platform that makes it insanely easy for publishers of all sizes to make their content and advertising a beautiful experience on touch enabled devices via the browser.
E-zines:
Created in Pages on the Mac or Illustrator on PC
Blogs:
Use your blog as a class textbook or a place for your students to locate their next activity
Twitter Feeds and RSS Readers as Texts
Flipboard:
Retweet interesting sites or articles back to a class account that is added to their Flipboard mag
Paper.li:
Have your class subscribe to a twitter feed daily or weekly online newspaper
Website Reader:
Surfboard
Read a website in the format of a e-magazine
Hi, Greg, just wanna thank you for publishing our infographic, on such a great post!!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work!!
Cheers!
@TSSVeloso / @visualoop
This blog just shows the plethora of information and that is available to use within the classroom! It's exciting for me as a prospective teacher to learn about iPad publishing because it is going to be used in future classrooms. One statement that stuck out to me was, "We have recently completed a survey at our school of all the textbook suppliers we use and only two textbooks were still unavailable in digital format." WOW!! If every school were to look into this and do a similar survey, they would realize where the use of digital books is heading. Even knowing that two of the major textbook publishing companies is providing interactive textbooks makes students want to read and discover new ideas.
ReplyDeleteOverall, students are going to have a yearning for learning more than they ever had before with these interactive texts. As a teacher, this is going to help lesson planning and allow students to work independently and achieve success for themselves without having a step by step instructions. Creativity in schools is a bit stale, but the iPads allow students a broad range of advancement in all creativity levels.
I also thank you for pointing out that "Teachers and or students can receive differentiated coursework, resources or reading materials that are specifically designed for both their chosen area of interest and their achievement level in the course content." This will help teachers with diverse learning students. Blogs can help structure the format of the classroom with available daily checklists that they have to accomplish. The use of the iPad is limitless and it is exciting for a person like myself to see classrooms going in this direction. Schools are going to find that they are going to save money on bulky textbooks and have more interaction in the classroom of learners.
I wonder what librarians in schools think of the direction of iPad's and using them instead of hardcover thick books for reading? I'm curious to know.
Digital publishing on iPads offer ease of use to people because all they need to do is to search, select, and swipe. Pretty handy indeed! :)
ReplyDelete