Simply Interactive: Making Interactive Books with iBooks Author

Primary Presenter: Aaron Perrell

Organization: Wyoming Distance Learning Center

Role: Instructional Technology Educational Specialist

Track: Hands-On Workshop

Level: For Mere Mortals

Abstract: Textbooks are great, but they have problems, like grabbing students’ attention the way today’s other sources of rich educational media can. But we will change that! This session will introduce you to Apple’s iBooks Author, the quick and simple way to make beautiful interactive ebooks for the iPad. Together we can make rich eBooks that update themselves, engage students, and making learning fun again! iBooks Author requires a Mac & OS X Lion.

Bio: Perrell worked for nearly six years at the University of Wyoming as an Apple Tech doing, among other things, Apple Training. He has spent the last two years working at the Wyoming Distance Learning Center as a Instructional Technology Educational Specialist building learning spaces and helping schools, pro-dev groups, and many state entities integrate new technologies into classes and trainings. It's been busy, but he has been fortunate enough to help lead the charge in bringing Wyoming’s training and educational opportunities up to date, and to the web.

Description: Technology moves quickly, and textbooks need to keep up. Textbooks are bulky, quickly outdated, and lack the ability to grab a students’ attention the way today’s other sources of rich educational media can. But we can change that! In this session I will introduce you to Apple’s iBooks Author, the quick and simple way to make beautiful ebooks for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. In fact, it’s so simple that during the talk we will make, and later freely share, a book full of resources, tips & tricks, and the techniques that will talk about during the session! We’ll talk about easy ways to include rich media like audio, video, or interactive images in your book. Then we’ll talk about how you can update your iBooks textbook at any time with new material or media! Finally, I’ll show you a few simple options for publishing and distributing your book — even how to get paid for it! iBooks Author requires a Mac and OS X 10.7 Lion. While the iBooks themselves are best enjoyed on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, they can be exported by iBooks Author as ePub and/or PDF files compatible with any computer, or with readers such as the Kindle, Nook, and Sony devices. By the end of this talk you will be a rockstar eBook author well on your way to creating the next generation of powerful and engaging textbooks, manuscripts, or even your own novels! iBooks Author is a simple tool to use, and the results are amazing. I hope you'll join us on publishing’s new frontier!