My second podcast with Mark Hofer and David Carpenter for their series Ed Tech Co-Op was just posted. Go to Show 27: Peter Pappas and iBook Publishing (Dec 23, 2012) via Web | iTunes.
We focused on getting started with using iBooks Author (iBA) in the classroom. Here’s a synopsis of our discussion with some time markers to guide your listening.
We began with some comments on my iBook Why We Fight: WWII and the Art of Public Persuasion (screenshot above from iBook Author). (1:30) Mark noted how the book exemplified three key elements of universal design for learning – multiple representations of content, active learning strategies for students, and relevance for the learner. (5:30)
We discussed how an iBook can be designed to guide students in examining essential questions. (7:17) David noted content-curation advantages of teacher-produced iBooks over other learning management systems. (11:02) Then our discussion turned to iBA workflow specifics. (12:42) We discussed how to guide students in producing their own iBooks (17:30) and how student can find a more authentic audience beyond the classroom by sharing their book with their community and the world via iTunes. (19:32).
iBooks author projects are more than writing. They offer students the chance to create video, audio and visual content used in the iBook. (21:07) They also exemplify the best aspects of project-based learning and put a premium on preplanning and production-oriented decisions (25:40)
I had a great time recording a podcast with Mark Hofer and David Carpenter for their series Ed Tech Co-Op. Go to show 26: Peter Pappas (Dec 9, 2012) via Web | iTunes
If the art teacher taught art, the way I taught history, his students would be sitting there watching him paint.
Mark led off by asking me to reflect back on my some of the driving themes in my career. I confessed that as a novice teacher, I mimicked my experience as a high school student and taught primarily via lecture mixed with an occasional “guess what the teacher is thinking” whole-group discussion.
But I recalled an “aha” moment after repeated visits to the art class in the classroom next door. I realized that if the art teacher taught art, the way I taught history, his students would be sitting there watching him paint. I remember that got me thinking …
Our podcast continued with a lively discussion about what works in the classroom. Below are a few of the prompts they tossed at me. No ed theory or brain research in my responses. Just my candid and unrehearsed thoughts ranging from “why teaching should be the opposite of magic” to “how schools are not teaching good digital hygiene.”
Can you talk a bit about how you shift responsibility for the learning to the students.
How did you support a constructivist model is information-laden, high stakes courses like AP / IB?
Did you get much push-back from your students and how did you deal with it? How do you deal with parents and administrators?
What do you say when teachers tell you “I’ve got so much to cover, I don’t have time for more student-based approach?”
Tell us more about your post “Why Johnny Can’t Search?” and how librarians and instructional technologists can partner to improve student information skills.
How is the analytic process different in different subjects – say science vs history?
See these posts for more on subjects raised in the podcast:
Stay tuned to Ed Tech Co-Op – a collaborative effort between the College of William & Mary, Alexandria Country Day School, and other educators interested in technology integration in K-12 classrooms.
There’s a great new iBook that I highly recommend as a source for project based learning and team building activities for middle school students through adults. “Innovation Challenges – Mind Workouts for Teams” is available free at iTunes.
It tells the story of a great program at Saint Louis University, designed to promote creativity, innovation, and the entrepreneurial mindset through novel challenges. The book is a detailed how to for 22 challenges – team supplies, facilitator supplies, tips, learning outcomes and variations. It’s a treasure trove lavishly illustrated with photos and videos. Challenges run the gamut from STEM to marketing and sustainability. The iBook also details how to replicate the competition at your institution.
The books notes :
The goal of the innovation challenges is to promote the entrepreneurial mindset through multiple exposures to innovation process in a competitive, multidisciplinary, team-based, creative environment. Just as everyone is encouraged to exercise everyday to keep the body fit, innovation challenges are designed to keep the mind fit. It’s a mind workout. The Innovation Challenges help participants to exercise their creative side, work in multidisciplinary teams, and experience the team dynamics. They learn to tackle a novel situation under intense competitive time pressure, while networking with others outside their disciplines, and most importantly, fine-tuning their entrepreneurial skills.
Here’s more about the Weekly Innovation Challenge at Saint Louis University from their website:
Every Wednesday, Saint Louis University students have a chance to compete in the Weekly Innovation Challenge from 12-1pm in the Rotunda at Parks College. Students must form teams of three—these teams must include at least one engineering student and up to one faculty member. Most importantly, all participants must be from different majors/disciplines. The students are given an impromptu challenge and have one hour to compete. Whichever team completes the challenge successfully first wins $300 ($100 per teammate). Additionally, participants are asked to submit a weekly reflection on the challenge and one winner will be rewarded an additional $100.
The events are sponsored by the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network, the Coleman Foundation and Saint Louis University. The goal of the competitions is for students to exercise their minds and creativity, just as they would their bodies. Challenges have included a wide variety of topics—from designing the tallest free-standing structure using spaghetti sticks to creating a “green” toaster box design. Winning teams have been from all sorts of disciplines. The first team to win was three female sophomores, including an aerospace engineering, political science and investigative medicine major.
Image credits: iBook / Innovation Challenges – Mind Workouts for Teams
Note: Since I first publishing this post, I took the leap and updated to iBA 2.0. (Of course, I had to because iTunes only accepts new books created in iBA 2.) I published three books in the new software and was also able to successfully open iBA 1.0 files in 2.0 and even copy widgets and other content from 1.0 to 2.0.
I still haven’t upgraded to iBooks Author 2.0, so I cannot verify any of these claims. But this information adds to my prior posts detailing issues with iBA 2.0.
When we opened our .iba file made from the version 1.0 series (It was last opened on Aug. 23, 2012) in version 2.0 on Nov. 24, 2012, we immediately got a flag warning from the software saying that the image on page 156 was too large. Thumbing through the book also showed that iBooks Author 2.0 had messed up multiple widgets we’d laid out perfectly in version 1.0. They were compressed into a tiny size and were sitting at the left sides of pages. Several of them we’d laid out to encompass an entire page. Version 2.0 messed all that up and required us to repaginate several places in the book.
… A dialogue box appeared and said an image that worked fine up until Oct. 23, 2012, was no longer any good in our book for iPad.
… Things got even wonkier after that. There were multiple widgets in the book that got totally screwed up by iBooks Author version 2.0. …. some of them got zapped in size and then moved to the top left portion of a page, completely affecting the pagination within a chapter. More
Next some chatter from the Apple Support Community boards:
MrBlobby1970 begins a discussion about problems with iBA 2.0 by writing ….
Upgraded to iBooks Author 2.0 and it has rendered my book file unusable. Is there a way to download iBooks Author 1.0/1.1 after you have upgraded to 2.0?
I have tried the book file with a friend’s iBooks Author 1.1 and it still works, so it’s something with 2.0 that just doesn’t like my files. More
In another Apple Support discussion Patrick-betterthanworksheets writes
Updated iBooks Author to 2.0 but can’t seem to load the iBook I was perviously working on (says cannot load document). Still loads fine on my other Mac using the pervious version of iBooks. Happen to anyone else or is this just a glitch with my file? Not a huge deal since I can use the pervious version to finish it off but just wondering. More
OK readers, its your turn – Is anyone else having compatibilty issues with iBA 2.0 and 1.0?
Note: Since I first publishing this post, I took the leap and updated to iBA 2.0. (Of course, I had to because iTunes only accepts new books created in iBA 2.) I published three books in the new software and was also able to successfully open iBA 1.0 files in 2.0 and even copy widgets and other content from 1.0 to 2.0.
Over the last few months I’ve been blogging regularly about my iBooks Author (iBA) learning curve and the production of my first iBook. Along the way I have come to rely on the advice of Dr. Frank Lowney Projects Coordinator, Digital Innovation Group @ Georgia College.
BTW – Frank published The Coming ePublishing Revolution in Higher Education on iTunes. It’s an insightful guide to etextbook revolution – winners, losers, and the factors that will determine the outcome. (67 pages, 20 graphics, 28 media files, 25 video files and 5 interactive widgets.) A bargain at only $0.99!
Frank’s been most generous with his time and advice on technical aspects of formatting videos for use in iBooks Author. Recently he contacted me about some troubling features in the new iBA 2.0 which I summarized in a post – Read This Before You Upgrade to iBooks Author 2.0. As a result of that post, I was contacted by Jay Welshofer (Apple’s Senior Product Manager for iBooks Author and Keynote) who has been working with Frank to better understand the video encoding issues with iBA 2.0.
Rather than expose my veneer of understanding of video technology, let me quote some of my correspondence with Frank so that others can benefit.
I begin with three questions I posed to Frank about iBA 2.0 video optimizer ~ Frank’s replies:
1. Does it do an acceptable job on quality? (a bit of a change from your earlier appraisal) ~ Yes, the quality is quite good if the source is good. I haven’t yet done a lot of testing with lower quality source but that’s on the todo list.
2. Does it increase file size ? ~ Absolutely. The bloat is up to three times the size of what Handbrake outputs with no appreciable difference in video quality.
3. Does it wipe out subtitle tracks ~ Every time. Alternate audio tracks and chapter tracks too. Of course, chapter tracks are not relevant to iOS video except in the Videos.app which has an interface for chapters that is separate from playback. Older versions of quicktime presented chapters as a drop down menu in the controller which lends itself to all kinds of neat pedagogical uses.
To reinforce his point Frank ran a test video conversion comparing iBA 2.0 and Handbrake and supplied a video sample of each. He writes:
Dear Peter and Jay,
I have been unable to reliably replicate my initial report where video quality was significantly lessened by the IBA media optimizer. Actually, this optimizer does a pretty good job of maintaining video quality no matter what you throw at it.
However, there is still the problem of file size bloat that started this whole line of investigation back in the IBA v1 days. As you’ll recall, IBA would reject many videos and recommend re-encoding in QuickTime Player and that would create files 2-3 times larger. This was a concern to many IBA users due to the 2 GB limit on iBooks in the iBookstore.
Back then, the workaround was to tweak the output of more efficient systems such as Handbrake such that IBA wouldn’t reject them. Now, with IBA v2, the use of QuickTime is no longer optional and the file size bloat issue is with us again. The new workaround is to use the video replacement surgery tactic that I described earlier. It’s a bit more daunting than the earlier workaround because you could break the whole iBook just by getting the name of one video file wrong, a typo for example.
As promised, I’ve constructed a hardball case documenting this issue as follows. An executive summary in the form of a screencast comparing the iBooks Author encode to the Handbrake encode will have more general interest. Here it is:
The source file came from a “pro” level HD DV camera and was provided to us as a ~16 GB DVCPRO HD file at 720p. As you can see from the video, iBooks Author encoded this as a 1.5 GB file (causing a warning about the 2 GB limit) whereas Handbrake 0.98 (Apple TV 3 preset) produced a 532 MB file, a third of what IBA produced. Also evident in the video should be the fact that there is no discernible difference in size or quality.
BTW, I used QuickTime Player 7.6 for this demo because it can play two or more videos sychronously allowing much better qualitative analysis. QuickTime X Player cannot do this.
