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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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PressED: A Global WordPress Conference on Twitter

PressED header

I’m excited to be selected as presenter at “PressED: A WordPress and Education, Pedagogy and Research Conference on Twitter.” PressED is a global Twitter conference (#pressedconf18) looking into how WordPress is used in teaching, pedagogy and research. The focus will be on how university-based educators and their students are innovating with WordPress. See PressEdConference18: Presenters Twitter List

Even if you’re not interested in that specific topic – you should check out this cool way to organize a conference on Twitter. It will take place on March 29th from 10am (BST / GMT+1) to 10pm (BST / GMT+1) onwards. My session PBL with Digital Storytelling Tools will start at 12:20PM (Pacific Time).

The conference is made up of sessions. Each session at the conference is based on 10-15 tweets in a fifteen minute period. Presenters can add videos, gifs, slides, links or whatever they like to their tweets.

Submissions for sessions are closed, but you can also take part by following the hashtag (#pressedconf18) for the day – or at any time after the conference has happened. When a session finishes, there’ll be a chance to ask questions.

 

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Social Media Promised a Voice For All, Instead We Got Troll Farms

This is a remix of UP Tech Talk S06E02: Trolls, Tales, Twitter, and Thoughts – my conversation with cohosts Ben Kahn and Maria Erb of UP’s Academic Technology Services

My preface: I grew up in a different media environment in the fifties and sixties. My information flow was controlled by big corporate media gatekeepers – network TV, record industry, newspapers, magazines, Hollywood.  I taught a media studies class in the seventies and eighties. It was all very McLuhan – how TV was shaping our thought.

When the digital revolution (and later social media) came along, my first reaction: “This is great. The barriers to entry are down and the media gatekeepers are dying off.” I was publishing print on demand paperbacks and later multi-touch eBooks with my students. I was blogging, posting “how-to” videos on my own YouTube playlists and excited to network on Twitter chats with colleagues. I was advocating for my students to do the same – be content creators, not just consumers. 

I thought that social media would emerge as a low-barrier way for people to share information and that the “best content” would rise in a “marketplace of ideas.” But now I realize that because of the algorithms, we’re not in a common media space. We say we’re on Facebook, but the Facebook that I see is different than the Facebook that somebody else sees. The social media business models hype “engagement” and the most outrageous content rises to the top. Trolls and bots further game the algorithms and we end up awash in “junk” news.

Maria, Ben and I discussed the current state of social media, where we’ve been and where we’re heading.

Peter, Maria and Ben

“WW III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.” ~ Marshall McLuhan, “Culture Is Our Business”, 1970, p. 66

Here’s a collection of essential reading on the subject

Made with Padlet

Image credit:  Adobe Spark  – UnSplash / ian dooley @nativemello

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Digital Storytelling with TimelineJS

Digital storytelling with TimelineJS

My University of Portland students recently completed a PBL project, designing curriculum for the Oregon Holocaust Memorial. More here.

Students designed resources to enhance the visitor experience to the Memorial. Here we showcase the work of James Bayless and Kelly Sutton. They used KnightLab’s TimelineJS to support lessons plans to contextualize events surrounding the Holocaust. All events were placed into two categories: the rise and fall of Hitler and the escalation of Nazi repression and murder. See the timeline in context here.

TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet. This opens up the opportunity for groups of students collaborating on a single Google spreadsheet the produces a common timeline.

Here’s more on how to use Timeline JS. 

How to Use TimelineJS from Northwestern U. Knight Lab on Vimeo.

Image credit: pixel2013 / pixabay

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Storytelling with Maps: StoryMapJS and ArcGIS

Storytelling with Maps

My University of Portland students recently completed a PBL project, designing curriculum for the Oregon Holocaust Memorial. More here.

We designed resources to enhance the visitor experience to the Memorial. Two of my students used different online StoryMap tools that invite a comparison. Both are easy to use and do a good job of pairing content with location. The added feature of KnightLab’s StoryMapJS is that it has a built in timeline.

KnightLabs StoryMapJS

David Grabin used KnightLab’s StoryMapJS to tell the story of Menachem “Manny” Taiblum a Holocaust survivor who escaped the Warsaw ghetto, fought alongside the Polish resistance, resettled to Palestine, moved to Brazil, then to New York City and eventually settled in Portland, Oregon.

David writes: I downloaded pictures from websites like Wikicommons and Flickr. These sites have photos that are within the public domain and have usage rights that permit them being re-published. Even though they are public domain, I made sure to cite them if the author requested it. I picked points on a world map that approximated stops on Manny’s journey, and in each location I added an image and blurb containing excerpts and paraphrased info from his interview. After editing the final product, the project was ready to be added to the website. Direct link to map

ArcGIS StoryMap

Nancy Guidry choose ArcGIS Story Map. It’s built into ArcGIS, a leading mapping and GIS platform. It’s available to anyone with a ArcGIS account, but you can also sign up for a free non-commercial ArcGIS public account or sign in with your Facebook or Google credentials. The site provides a variety of templates to showcase different types of stories. Once you have an account, you will get a “My Stories” page to manage your maps.

Nancy writes:  I used ArcGIS Story Maps to create this map of concentration camps throughout Europe. I used data provided by the Oregon Jewish Museum to input location and death data for each camp, and found photos from each camp online. The embedded version does not look as nice as the original; click here for a direct link.

Image source: Couleur / Pixabay