I remember the soccer game where we made the rival high school team cry. I remember homecomings and prom. I remember AP tests and skipping lunch to go to math tutoring. And, I remember the textbooks: heavy, cumbersome little monsters that lived in my locker and had to come home with me every night. For every two books in my backpack, there was one more making my left arm go numb. I vividly remember my mom weighing my backpack and being astonished when she realized I was carrying 10 pounds up and down the stairs. My high school was never considered a school of means. We had a student to teacher ratio that often exceeded 30:1 and there were never enough textbooks to go around, even in the more advanced AP and college prep classes. We found ourselves sharing textbooks that were old and run down.
High school textbooks haven’t changed much. And my sister, now a high school sophomore, is facing the same challenges I did when it comes to textbooks: too many students, not enough books.
Enter iBooks2.
On January 19, Apple announced its revolutionary venture into the realm of education by introducing user-created textbooks available on the iPad via this new app. We’re not just talking words on a screen or your typical e-book. Apple has created interactive and engaging textbooks, chock-full of multi-media design and functional study uses geared directly at the budding high school student. iBooks2 combines text and interactive pictures, allowing for two different textbook experiences, depending on the type of learner the student is. Users can swipe to highlight text and glossary terms, which automatically become archived (along with any notes taken) and turned into interactive study cards. The glossary and index are made up of links which jump directly to the correct page. Plus, book editions are updated the same way an app is updated, so students can always have the latest version at their fingertips. Once a book is downloaded, it belongs to the user. And, to make it even better, tech-savvy iPhone and iPad users can even create their own books using the program. But not everyone will be able to create these books. Schools need to be able to trust the content of these books. So Apple decided to pair up with the heavy weights of textbook publishing companies: Pearson, McGraw Hill, Houghton-Mifflin, Harcourt and DK Publishing. Not a bad strategy for Apple, seeing as how these champs are responsible for publishing 90 percent of the textbooks out there. Apple has also teamed up with the EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, which will create an iBooks exclusive book titled “Life on Earth.” While the main target group for this new venture is high schools, Apple doesn’t stop there.
But, how much will iBook2 textbooks cost?
As a college student, I am well aware that spending money on textbooks is painful. Universities face the same issue on a national scale: not enough funding and an increasing rise in the student population means less money for textbooks.That’s why Apple has made iBooks2 free to download. Textbooks themselves are available for $14.99 or less, a bargain in comparison to costly print editions.
No doubt this technology is a game changer, but some obvious issues arise. Can schools afford iPads for every student? What about the schools and parents that don’t have the means? Can the low cost of textbooks through the iBooks2 offset the cost of iPads for every student, when the average iPad costs $499?
A local Daytona Beach area high school offers BYOT classes, upper level test only classes for advanced students that mimic college classes, in which students are encouraged to “bring your own technology” to class. These are great classes to include iPads in, but they are small in size and not common around campus. One Daytona Beach area elementary school offers teachers points for collecting classroom items and requires them to take classes in teacher development. Teachers who meet the requirements are entered to win iPads for their classes, an effort that has led to iPads in the classes of children as young as 8 years old. Apple also offers student and school discounts for purchasing iPads through their website. Will this be enough to usher in a new era in education, one where there is an iPad for each child? This will certainly solve the “not enough textbooks” dilemma, but will it create a new “not enough iPads” problem, which is essentially the same thing?
Only time will tell. But for now, Apple will continue to dazzle us with its innovative ways.
