Category: Publishing

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Did Pages Replace iBooks Author?

Did Pages replace iBooks Author

Quick answer – no.

Here’s more – Apple’s March 27th education event announced that Pages could now create ebooks using a variety of templates for fixed-format and free-flowing ebooks. (See templates below). The updated Pages can be used on Mac desktop, iPad and iPhone to create ebooks that combine text, images galleries, video, audio and sketches.

This week, some blogs announced that the Pages upgrade [from ePub 2 to ePub 3] replaced iBooks Author – “iBooks Author is Gone, And it’s Been Folded into Pages.” 

Wrong.  Apple hasn’t dropped iBooks Author (iBA) –  it’s still a free download in the MacOS App Store.  iBA continues to be the best app for designing eBooks that are truly multi-touch.

Pages ePub book templates

Here’s the best features of creating an eBook in Pages

  • Use the familiar iWorks toolbar and format commands
  • Work on both MacOS and iOS (both iPad and iPhone)
  • Support team collaboration on the same file.
  • Use the Apple Pencil (or your finger) to draw right in the app.
  • Produce a ePub3 file that can be viewed most any device / platform except a Kindle – including Macs, iOS, Windows, Android, ChromeOS.
  • Create eBooks that can be offered on Apple iBookstore

Here’s the iBooks Author-only features that Pages can’t match

  • Create eBooks with chapters and sections. (Pages’ ePub 3 book are one continuous document).
  • Include intro media, enhanced table of contents, thumbnail page view, glossary, study cards and note taking.
  • Add interactive iBA widgets – Keynote presentations, pop-overs, scrolling sidebars, 3D, interactive images and review questions.
  • Choose from multiple view / play options for audio and video imports.
  • Use 3rd party HTML 5 widgets (for example from Bookry)
  • Choose from more templates, layouts and page options.
  • Directly upload to iBook Store

Serenity Caldwell tweeted after speaking to Apple:

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Exploring History Vol V: Six Document Based Lessons

Exploring history Vol V

I’m very pleased to share a new multi-touch iBook just published by my Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland. Exploring History: Vol V was our PBL capstone and is available free at iTunes in 51 countries around the world. It features these World and US History lessons:

  1. WWII Propaganda: Close Reading by Nancy Guidry
  2. The Limits of Leadership by Paxton Deuel
  3. African Imperialism by Kelly Sutton
  4. The Harlem Renaissance by Taran Schwartz
  5. Western Expansion Text Set by James Bayless
  6. An Account of The Red Summer by David Grabin

This book is the fifth in a series of “Exploring History” titles designed by my UP preservice social studies teachers. The books have been very popular – with over 30,000 downloads from nearly two dozen countries. Writing for an authentic and global audience has been one of the prime motivators in this on going publishing project.

Interactive iBook version ~ Free at iTunes
Download Static PDF version (10 MB)

It features six engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. The units draw from a fascinating collection of text and multimedia content – documents, posters, photographs, audio, video, letter and other ephemera. “Stop-and-think” prompts based on CCSS skills guide students through analysis of the primary and secondary sources. Essential questions foster critical thinking. All documents include links back to the original source material so readers can remix the content into their own curated collections.

All of my student’s wrote for a public audience on our class blog and pursued three class goals:

  • Learn to think like a historian.
  • Become a skillful instructional designer
  • Develop technical skills for production, reflection, growth and professional networking.

The lesson design process began early in the semester when students designed lessons in historical thinking skills based on the work of Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). They focussed on three key skills – Sourcing, Contextualizing and Corroborating. Then students identified essential questions worth answering and gathered documents to explore the question.

Here’s a post (from fall ’13 class) that describes our project workflow (including how we utilized iBooks Author). The Exploring History includes four additional volume

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Fight Fake News with Critical Thinking

Lessons in Critical Thinking is now available free at iTunes. It includes critical thinking lessons in science, math, literature and media literacy. This new iBook is a collaborative project by my ED 424 ~ Computers and Educational Technology. During our discussion of digital literacy and “Fake News,” we realized that our middle and high school level students need more practice in the critical evaluation of information. So our edTechMethods class of senior pre-service teachers decided to develop engaging lessons which promoted critical thinking skills in their content areas using the edtech tools of their choice. Then, using iBooks Author, they compiled the lessons into this iBook .

For more on this class, visit our course blog edtechmethods.com

Student-designed lessons include:

  1. Dihydro-What? Science Lesson by Kristen Turner
  2. Using TV Ads to Teach Persuasive Writing by Jennifer Upchurch
  3. The Choice is Yours: integrating a “choose your own adventure” into math class by Eli McElroy and Tamalin Salisbury
  4. How to Read Between the Lines of Research by Hannah O’Brien
  5. Do You Believe It To Be True Or False? by Jeremy Jon Reyes Pingul
  6. Civically Sublime by Kurt Anderson, Bekah Kolb, Ryan Greenberg

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WWI and the Human Costs of Total War

My Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol IV. It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. For more info on our project and free download of a pdf or multi-touch iBook version click here.

To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post.

WWI: The Human Cost of Total War by Anna Harrington
Find Anna at LinkedIn

Image credit: Gas Mask WWI by Paul

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Exploring History Vol IV: Eight Document Based Lessons

I’m very pleased to share a new iBook just published by my Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland.

Interactive iBook version free at iTunes.
Static pdf version (5 MB)

It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. The units draw from a fascinating collection of text and multimedia content – documents, posters, photographs, audio, video, letter and other ephemera. “Stop-and-think” prompts based on CCSS skills guide students through analysis of the primary and secondary sources. Essential questions foster critical thinking. All documents include links back to the original source material so readers can remix the content into their own curated collections.

All of my student’s wrote for a public audience on our class blog and persued three class goals:

  • Learn to think like a historian.
  • Become a skillful instructional designer
  • Develop technical skills for production, reflection, growth and professional networking.

The lesson design process began early in the semester when students designed lessons in historical thinking skills based on the work of Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). They focussed on three key skills – Sourcing, Contextualizing and Corroborating. Then students identified essential questions worth answering and gathered documents to explore the question in an extended lesson design process.

Exploring History: Vol IV was our PBL capstone and is available on iTunes in 51 countries around the world. Here’s a post (from fall ’13 class) that describes our project workflow (including how we utilized iBooks Author). Here’s Exploring History: Vol I created by my fall 2013 class. And Exploring History: Vol II designed by my fall 2014 class. Exploring History: Vol III created by my fall 2016 class

I’ll be doing a future blog post that features each student’s DBQ, but for now here’s the US and World History lessons in chronological order:

  1. Mysterious Bronze Age Collapse by Sam Hicks
  2. From Revolution to Government by Valerie Schiller
  3. Imagination, Innovation & Space Exploration by Molly Pettit
  4. The Real Romanovs by Kelly Marx
  5. World War I: The Human Cost of Total War by Anna Harrington
  6. Collectivization and Propaganda in Stalin’s Soviet Union by Clarice Terry
  7. Holy Propaganda Batman! by Karina Ramirez Velazquez
  8. The Nicaraguan Literacy Crusade by Scott Hearron