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Text Books on iPad

M

miamijim

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 26, 2010
359
2
As a teacher I am wondering when Text books will be available on the iPad, I envision a soon to be future where students will not need to carry heavy text books but just the iPad to read, study and produce their work then email the work to me which I can then grade and email back to them, creating a truly free paper free school system.

The future is looking bright to my eye's
 
miamijim said:
As a teacher I am wondering when Text books will be available on the iPad, I envision a soon to be future where students will not need to carry heavy text books but just the iPad to read, study and produce their work then email the work to me which I can then grade and email back to them, creating a truly free paper free school system.

The future is looking bright to my eye's
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I understand that is either already in the works or on it's way. Kind of makes me want to be a student again. Actually the future you envision may not be that far away ;)
 
miamijim said:
As a teacher I am wondering when Text books will be available on the iPad, I envision a soon to be future where students will not need to carry heavy text books but just the iPad to read, study and produce their work then email the work to me which I can then grade and email back to them, creating a truly free paper free school system.

The future is looking bright to my eye's
Click to expand...

With a statement like this, I just have to ask, what subject do you teach?
 
Yes. This is most worrying for the education of young ones if teachers don't have a basic concept of apostrophes.

I think the textbook thing will take a long time to happen. Ipads are expensive and valuable - if they were handed to a group of kids, I'd be interested to see how long they'd last. I spoke to a choir master yesterday, who is thinking of building iPad stands into the choir cloisters to put all the sheet music on. The idea of linking all the books wirelessly to one person controlling them, and notes and annotations being able to be added across the board is very exciting.
 
The reason it will take a long time is it seems the textbook producers are taking the same low road that magazine producers are taking, charging a higher cost than just buying the print version.

Take coursesmart for example, they offer a "subscription" service where you can download an ebook for 180 or 360 days, depending on the course length. After that period of time you have to "resubscribe" or you cannot access the material any longer. There is a decent discount from the print version doing this, but I'd rather have the book forever as if I bought the print version. It is a cheaper alternative for the student though, but I'll bet that it's still more expensive than getting a used copy of the printed book.

Still, you can't argue with the incredible convenience of having all your books in a little 2lb. package to carry around with you, annotate, bookmark, etc. Just don't expect it to be cheap.
 
The only way they would take any remote care of them is for them to be their own.

Also, there'd better be some awesome control software to ensure the only things the kids can access are school related material whilst in class.

It is an awesome idea and I really can't wait for text books to go onto the iPad.
 
miamijim said:
Apologies to the grammar police :)
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Don't feel too bad. I've seen people blasted for typos . . . Unfortunately, it comes with the (forum) "terror-tority" :D
Yep, I made up a word and put it in quotes . LOL
 
ngenerator said:
Sorry you took my comment offensively, I was just asking a simple question.
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If I had taken it offensively I would not have added the smiley.

To answer your question today I taught woodwork and did stage prep for a local schools spring concert.
 
miamijim said:
As a teacher I am wondering when Text books will be available on the iPad, I envision a soon to be future where students will not need to carry heavy text books but just the iPad to read, study and produce their work then email the work to me which I can then grade and email back to them, creating a truly free paper free school system.

The future is looking bright to my eye's
Click to expand...

and in the eyes of everyone else, that can see where this is headed. Revolutionary??? OH YEAH!:cool::p:apple::apple::apple:
 
When I first heard of the Ipad that was my first thought. Text book and class management. I think a school would simply have to setup a wifi network with limited access to the web.

Also there's already apps for class managements.

The Ipad got me eager to go back to university :)
 
miamijim said:
As a teacher I am wondering when Text books will be available on the iPad, ...
Click to expand...
That depends on the publisher. One of my publishers is already there. My suggestion is to call the sales people for the publisher(s) that interest you and ask.
 
A lot of (college textbook) publishers already have ebook version together with the printed version, which usually costs about 75% of the printed version.

They are not that popular because most eBook readers does not offer annotation, and students don't usually buy the eBook even if it is available for that reason. Students like to be able to write notes on the textbook.

Maybe with the iPad's popularity, students will be more inclined to use eBook instead of printed textbook if they have the choice.

Another reason is that textbook publishers are into making money. An average college textbook costs $100, but they have to sell it at a lower price for eBook (even though they don't have overhead printing cost, yet they are not making enough money for it.)
 
AJsAWiz said:
Don't feel too bad. I've seen people blasted for typos . . . Unfortunately, it comes with the (forum) "terror-tority" :D
Yep, I made up a word and put it in quotes . LOL
Click to expand...

I've seen you defending the helpless on other threads as well. You are like an online forum superhero.

"Need mo like ya!" - Ole Otis, Martin 1995
 
As a part time grad school professor (still have a day job), I would hate to see hard copies go away. They are invaluable as a learning tool, though I like to have electronic copies as reference. As much of a technology nut that I am, I hope the day does not come where hard copies become less prominent than electronic versions. I have electronic copies of many books and hundreds of papers that I reference, but I will always go to the hard copy if available. Just my taste though.
 
Textbooks on iPad

Textbook on the iPad is an idea whose time has come. I hated dragging heavy texts around when I was in school and my own students (high school) regularly complain about their aching backs and bulging bags. I put my texts on my iPad and will scan more if I can't get them in PDF form from somewhere. One of my texts was available to students as idx files on a CD ROM. I just changed the suffix from idx to pdf and transferred it over to my iPad. Worked like a charm!
 
I could see college text books one day. But no high school or junior high (or earlier) books. iPad for children would be a bad idea.
 
I'm waiting for B&N's Nookstudy to come to the iPad. Their desktop app is good so if the app is better, I may have to buy and iPad.
 
nickhutson said:
Yes. This is most worrying for the education of young ones if teachers don't have a basic concept of apostrophes.
Click to expand...

I've wondered about this new apostrophe disability while reading student papers, and also why many people can't spell 'lose' anymore (as in 'loose my ability to punctuate'). The culprit seems to be spellcheck and autofill (i.e., Word). So what we really have is a proofreading problem?:eek:
 
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