From the Editor
RTTT for District, Apple's iBooks Textbooks
Anne Wujcik — Friday, January 20, 2012
It looks like one of the next things to anticipate at the federal level will be the roll out of Race to the Top redesigned for districts. In an interview with Education Week, Secretary Duncan indicated that the bulk of the $500 million RTTT appropriation in the FY 2012 budget would go directly to districts. Details, such as the focus of the program or what the districts would be required to do, remain to be worked out. While many districts are likely to find the opportunity to compete for RTTT funding attractive, it might prove of particular interest to districts in states that decided not to participate in RTTT at all. Of course, it could be that districts that have had some experience in planning for their particular roles in the earlier statewide application process will have an edge in this new competition. It is also possible, depending on how stringent the requirements that districts will be expected to meet are, that a number of LEAs decide it's just too much work to apply or to doubt their ability to actually deliver on proposed plans.
Apple announced plans to move into the electronic textbook space today. It's much anticipated NY event introduced three new apps -- iBooks 2, iBooks Author and iTunes U. Apple claims that iBooks textbooks are a new kind of textbook that's dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks feature interactive 3D objects, diagrams, images and captions; videos and photos, easy highlighting and note-taking including a Notes view that displays all notes and highlights organized in one place; searching and definitions, plus integrated review questions and quizzes and study cards. Early reviews say the book are well-designed, very attractive and work as expected. There are eight free sample books available now. Apple announced that Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, DK Publishing will be creating iBooks textbooks and selling them on the iBookstore, with most priced at $14.99 or less.
The iTunes U app gives educators an easy way to design and distribute complete courses featuring audio, video, books, and other content that students can access in one place. Using the app on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, students can play video or audio lectures, read books and view presentations, see a list of all the assignments for the course and check them off as they're completed. When the instructor sends a message or creates a new assignment, students receive a push notification with the new information.
The real winner here, I think, is iBooks Author, an app for Mac OS X that allows anyone to easily create iBooks textbooks and other types of books and publish them to Apple's iBookstore. Pre-designed templates provide a variety of page layouts to choose from and drag and drop tools make it simple to flow in text, graphics, movies, and more. Authors can add text, shapes, charts, tables, and Multi-Touch widgets anywhere on the page with a single click. iBooks Author also supports the creation of accessible books. The table of contents, glossary, widgets, main text, and more are built to automatically take advantage of VoiceOver technology. Authors can add accessibility descriptions to any widget or media - including movies and quizzes - so even those with vision impairments can use them. I'm not a developer or even much of a media creator in any format, so I can't say much about the authoring technology. Many more experienced people have already downloaded the app from the Mac App Store and are experimenting with it and seem to be happy with its capabilities. It seems to me that it should help level the playing field a bit for small publishers who do not have the internal capacity to create all these tools on their own.
How all of this will work for the schools is less clear to me. If iBooks textbooks are priced at $15, then over a typical print adoption period of five years, schools would spend $75 for the books. That seems reasonable and allows schools and districts to budget annually as opposed to the one big, upfront price tag associated with textbook adoption. Clearly it will take some time until the supply of iBooks textbooks matches the current set of print textbooks available across the variety of high school subjects. At lower grade levels it's harder to see what will evolve. The typical 3rd grade math or reading textbook is really a complex system of products - the text itself, the teacher edition, a variety of print and online workbooks and activities, hands-on materials, assessments and more.
But there are two other issues here. One is that Apple is committed to its own proprietary OS and systems. Not every publisher will be comfortable with this and schools may also have qualms about moving so strongly to Apple's technology architecture. And then there is the ongoing problem of access. These new textbooks are being designed for the iPad. And there was no indication in today's announcements that Apple was thinking about a lower-priced iPad. Schools that decide that iBooks textbooks are the way to go will need to quickly build up their inventory of iPads. I know Apple is well aware of the connection, but just how realistic it is to expect widespread adoption remains to be seen.
A final note. Two calls to action crossed my desk this week, both seeking signatures for education-related petitions that had been posted at the White House's We the People site. The site allows people to create or sign petitions asking the Obama Administration to take action on a range of issues. If a petition gathers 25,000 signatures within 30 days, White House staff will review it, ensure it's sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response. The first petition was created by elementary school librarian (and president of the American Association of School Libraries) Carl Harvey, advocating for school library funding to be included in the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The second is from ASCD asking President Obama to create a President's Council on the Whole Child to to help students be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Check out the petitions and if you agree add your signature. The White House site requires that users register before they can sign petitions.
