Today, Apple held a rather small press event on education at the Guggenheim museum in New York City. Apple plans to reinvent the textbook with the three things they talked about today.
iBooks 2
One of the first things they talked about is the next major update to iBooks. In this update, there are a nice amount of textbooks available for $14.99 or less. In this initial launch, Apple is already partnered with McGraw Hill and Pearson, among others. This is going to make a big impact on education because the things you can do with a digital textbook as far as teaching goes is fantastic. 3D modeling and built in videos aim for a greater learning experience. Last but not least, the prices. I’m a college student, so I know the pain of how expensive textbooks are, so seeing those low prices make me very happy.
iTunes U
iTunes U has been a huge success as far as college lectures go with over 700 million downloads. However, today it is breaking away from the iTunes Store and getting its own app. This app is great for college students if their school is on Apple’s list. It allows for easy course registration, getting your syllabus, getting your professors office hours and much more. This will make taking a course a little less of a hassle and I can’t wait for my college to get something set up with this.
iBooks Author
Last, but not least, Apple introduced a free OS X app which allows educators to create their own digital textbook and put it in the iBookstore. I’m pretty sure major publishers won’t be using this application, but it is great for teachers who want to compile the content they teach each semester into one, easy to download book for the students in the semesters to come.
What do you think of Apple’s education announcements today? I believe that this is going to really change college courses for the better. I’d like to see your thoughts in the comments below.
