Harry Potter

Harry Potter
Even the world's best super spy needs a little help from assistive tech!

Friday 5 October 2012

Textbooks make the leap to the 21st century!

Yesterday,  I had the opportunity to play with an excellent app, IBooks Author. It's very cool and will cause a lot of educators and publishers to re think their entire knowledge base and revamp their skill set.

Excuse the hyperbole, but this is serious folks.

These text books are so cool: interactive, full of videos and ready made tests that it made me itch to create one for a Shakespeare play, or for a history module or for my study skills group. It would work for every learner in the classroom and allow everyone to access the information. Better yet, if those students who need AT have their own digital copy then the teacher can have their own copy as well and use it for the rest of the class. Universal design for learning anyone? It will be a game changer, if we get the funding and the support from the DOE!

And yet...all the fancy stuff can't take away the fact that the IBooks and the tech needed to support them are expensive and all from one company which isn't the one that all the schools currently use...more expense to re-place and re-train and yes, I know that you can use Apple products on PC's but let's be honest: they never work as well and they always freeze up when you need it the most.

Once again, this class has made me rethink and wonder about the world of assistive tech, which I suppose is a good thing in the long run.

An excellent article on misgivings about the apphttp://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2012/01/ten-reasons-i-cant-recommend-or-use.html

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