Before I go on, I just want to say a quick “Happy New Year”. I was quite busy and wasn’t able to blog in the last while. Anyways, I hope everyone will live a successful and happy 2012 (that is if the world doesn’t end ;-)). I also want to wish everyone a happy Lunar New Year (if you celebrate it). Have fun in 2012, the year of the dragon.

School districts in North America are working furiously to catch up with today’s technology. A couple years ago we used blackboards and chalkboard; then came the whiteboards and the projectors; now some schools use crazily high tech Smart boards. They try to catch up by using technology in class. Students type, and sometimes even blog. Schools are encouraging laptops, iPads and to learn the “21st century way”. But why haven’t we changed one of the most important aspect of education, textbooks. As far as my family and I can remember, the world had always been using paper textbooks. Just think about it for a moment. Now even if Steve Jobs isn’t here, someone sure would’ve thought about decreasing the weight of student’s backpacks by putting textbooks online. However, Steve Jobs is here. He and his team at Apple truly reinvented textbooks with the iPad.

For too long our students have been bored out of their minds with textbooks. But these textbooks are different. Using the iPad’s multitouch technology, students are able to interact with these textbooks. A 3D model can be manipulated, a timeline can be animated, the options are endless. But it gets even better. Flashcards are incorporated in to the text book so it is super easy to take notes. There could be lesson checks and best of all, anyone can make their own textbook for free. Now through the Mac App Store and “iBooks Author” anyone can share their knowledge. Imagine the possibilities.

Regular textbooks can cost hundreds of dollars, but these are available from the iBooks store for a much cheaper price.

As we speak, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill Education, and Pearson Education (3 of the top K-12 textbook providers) are developing iPad textbooks.

We are definitely moving forward. This is great, it will help education become better, much better. Technology make the new generation more prepared for their world after 16 or so years of schooling, because in 16 years our world will change dramatically. Apple, thank you, once again.

The link to iBooks textbooks is here: http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks/