Apple turns teacher as it brings iPad to the classroom. iBook 2, announced yesterday, are education textbooks for iPad, complete with animation, diagrams and video.
iBooks 2, announced yesterday, are education textbooks for iPad, complete with animation, diagrams and video.
The iPad textbook is “an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive” Apple said yesterday at the launch in New York.
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Pupils can also highlight text, take notes, search definitions, plus the iBook app gives lesson reviews and study cards, and lets students study and learn more efficiently, says Apple.
Education book giants including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson are jumping on board with Apple’s classroom venture.
iBooks will be sold from the Apple iBookstore and “most” are priced at US$14.99 and will only be available in the States, for now.
However, considering the steep price of iPad 2 (over $500) and the cost of each text, an Apple education appears to be fairly pricey, unless Cupertino dramatically drops the cost of its tablet, a la Amazon.
There are over 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions and, the iPad is “rapidly” being adopted by schools in the US and worldwide, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Marketing, declared yesterday.
“Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”
The iBooks 2 app is available now on free download from the App Store.
A new iTunes U app giving educators and students content on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to teach and take study courses, and was also announced yesterday.
Students using iPads have access to the world’s largest catalog of free educational content from top universities including Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, along with over 20,000 education apps at their fingertips and thousands of books in the iBookstore that can be used in school curriculums.
The free app has already become an “incredibly popular” learning tool for students with over 700 million downloads, Apple said.
“The all-new iTunes U app enables students anywhere to tap into entire courses from the world’s most prestigious universities,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior VP of Internet Software and Services.
“Never before have educators been able to offer their full courses in such an innovative way, allowing anyone who’s interested in a particular topic to learn from anywhere in the world, not just the classroom.”
