Apple has expanded iBooks Texbooks and iTunes U Course Manager content beyond North America and into 70 additional countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere around the world.
“The incredible content and tools available for iPad provide teachers with new ways to customise learning unlike ever before,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice-president of Internet Software and Services.
“We can’t wait to see how teachers in even more countries will create their new lesson plans with interactive textbooks, apps and rich digital content.”
iBooks Textbooks bring multi-touch textbooks with dynamic, current and interactive content to teachers and students in 51 countries now, including Ireland, Brazil, Italy and Japan.
The technology provides iPad users with flick-through photo galleries, tap-to-play videos and more than 25,000 educational titles created by major and independent publishers, as well as by teachers themselves.
iTunes U Course Manager allows educators to create and distribute courses for their own classrooms, or share them publicly, on the iTunes U app.
“iPad is so much more than just a textbook or just a notepad for students – it’s a powerful educational tool, a study partner, a window into the past and a glimpse of the future,” said Sophie Post, fourth grade history teacher at Falkner House School in London.
“Teaching history was once a static timeline of events. In leveraging the entire educational ecosystem of iPad, creating my own iBooks Textbooks and iTunes U courses, and pulling in apps like History: Maps of the World, studying history has suddenly become a creative, dynamic and truly transformative experience for my pupils.”
