For those teachers wondering how they can share an iBooks Author project with their
class this is a simple solution.
Lets say that a student has created a book but you don't want to publish it to the iBooks store. However, you do want to make this book available to other students - to download, share and read it.
- Export the book as an iBook from the Share menu in iBooks Author and the finished book will have the .ibook file extension.
- Next, upload this copy to Dropbox and share the link with your students.
- Place the file into the Public folder in Dropbox, this takes less clicks to download.
- Finally, students need to visit the Dropbox site in Safari on their iPads and click the option to open the file in iBooks.
- All students now have access to the finished book and can read it in iBooks on their own iPad.
Create your own amazing books for the iPad using the FREE app iBooks Author, available for download from the iTunes Store. iBooks Author allows students of all ages to create beautiful multi-touch books - whether its storytelling your after, or maybe factual, report, recount, poetry, instruction or diary writing? .... and then watch the iBooks come alive on the iPad.
Actually building the book is as simple as drag and drop - add text from MS Word or Pages, drag in graphics, flash cards and movie files too, and the great thing for Education is that kids can preview at every stage and improve their work as they go.
When you're finished then export in iBook format and share with anybody using an iPad. And, if its something you're really proud of you could always go world-wide with it and publish it to iTunesU.
To help you get started O' Reilly Publishers have made available a FREE ebook 'Publishing with iBooks Author' - download it now!
...and there's even more - Widgets
In addition to the fantastic tools available in this app, iBooks Author also comes with six widgets to add interactive elements to your iBooks.
Even better news is that this list of widgets is expanding all the time! If you have an idea for a widget let them know by sending them a message.
- Class Widgets - No need to install anything, simply click on the Wizard and download an auto-generated widget.
- Interactive timeline images - Make your own interactive Timeline
- Embed YouTube clips - Play YouTube videos fullscreen within an iBook
- Embed Vimeo clips - Loads a streaming Vimeo video
- Embed Google Maps (coming soon) - View a fullscreen map within your iBook
- Live Polling Widget (coming soon) - Create a live poll within your iBook
Why not have a go today at making your own book!
