Podcasts And Tutorials | Box of Tricks

Reviewing Apple’s iBooks Author

Posted by José Picardo on January 22, 2012

Apple recently announced the launch of its free iBooks Author desktop application, which – they claim – “allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.”

This post takes you through my humble first attempt at making my first iBook using iBooks Author. The gallery below contains screen captures of all the aspects I will cover in this review:

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First Impressions

When Apple announced the new iBooks Author app, my first reaction was to say about time! The iPad was clearly a powerful tool for content delivery in schools but, prior to the announcement, content creation and sharing was very much the realm of the professionals, which I was clearly not. Yes, you could use Pages to create multimedia documents which you could then export as ePub files, but the results look positively amateurish compared with what iBooks Author can deliver.

Using iBooks Author

iBooks looks very much like a cross between Pages and Keynote (Apple’s answer to Word and Powerpoint respectively). As a regular user of both, I felt I knew my way around iBooks Author instinctively from the word go. Even if you are not familiar with other native Mac applications, the ready-made templates and the intuitive tools and layout allow you to start writing your iBooks straight away.

An important aspect for someone, like me, who has lots of older word documents already saved in my hard drive, is that importing into iBooks author is as easy as dragging a word document into the application. It then automatically creates an iBook with it with the correct titles, chapters and sections. The same process applies to images, video and sound clips. This is a massive time-saver.

Teaching and Learning with Social Media: A Case Study

Posted by José Picardo on December 31, 2011

In my role as teacher of languages, I have sought to study and understand how the social aspect of Web 2.0 can be harnessed to strengthen the teaching and learning of MFL. Most interesting to me was the transformative potential of blogs, Web 2.0 applications and social networks, not only to enhance existing practice, but also to create new technology-based tasks which would have been previously inconceivable¹, a process depicted below:

However, in order to assess whether learning socially online can truly have a transformative and positive impact on learning outcomes and curriculum delivery as accurately as possible, it is important to moderate any inherent positivity and open up the field of study to all viewpoints², discarding any preconceived notions that may bias the conclusions of this case study and taking care not to avoid any evidence that may be counter to those notions³.

One iPad… to start with

Posted by José Picardo on September 25, 2011

Many of us look at schools in which there is 1:1 iPad or Netbook implementation and drool with envy. “If only our schools were as innovative” or, let’s face it, “as rich, as these other schools” we think to ourselves.

However, the other side of the coin is that many teachers also see iPads as nothing more than overrated books that glow. Is there no middle ground?

I think there is. Our department is currently assessing the potential impact of iPads in the classroom and, in order to do that, we have bought one. Just the one. For now. See how it goes.

You see, we feel that iPads are a great idea but we think that we need to develop pedagogically sound strategies and good practice before we consider buying any more. Our only iPad is currently used as part of teacher-centred activities (boring, I know, but there’s more: read on) and as part of a carousel of activities in which students work in groups through a number of activities, one of which includes the use of our iPad.

The comic above, for example, was created in one of these activities using Comic Life, a fantastic and very reasonably priced iPad app.

It’s still very early days and our iPad’s use is obviously limited by its uniqueness, as we only have the one tablet. However it is already showing great promise, not only being used in lessons, but also in allowing us to explore and develop different and innovative ways to provide our students with relevant content.

Creating a blog video task with quiz

Posted by José Picardo on July 5, 2011

I am a real fan of WordPress, which is, in my opinion, the most flexible and reliable of all self-hosted blogging platforms (hosted WordPress is also available). One of the reasons why WordPress is so flexible is that there are thousands of plug-ins offering additional functionality.

On this occasion I will be using a video shot with our Flip Camera HD and hosted at Vimeo and a plug in called Quizzin that allows you to create quizzes, that is to say, self-marking exercises within your blog posts.

From reluctant learners to creative film makers

Posted by José Picardo on March 27, 2010

Earlier this year, my Year 9 class and I embarked on a project that aimed to turn a really boring topic – classroom vocabulary – into something a little more memorable: the making of a short film.

What you need :

A camera
Basic film editing software
A classroom full of stars in the making
The drive to make lessons fun, interesting and engaging

The project only took two 40-minute lessons and this is how we did it:

Lesson 1

Using a variety of teaching strategies ranging from the traditional repetition and kinaesthetic approach to interactive whiteboard based memory games and listening exercises, the class was introduced to the target classroom vocabulary and expressions such as stand up, sit down, I need a pen please, etc.

Once they had become familiar with the vocabulary I announced to great excitement that our next lesson would be dedicated to scripting the dialogue for a film which we would record and then publish on our departmental website.

Lesson 2

It was great to see students arrive to our next lesson in very good spirits practising the vocabulary we learned in the previous lesson, eager to get started on the script and looking forward to filming.

During the first 20 minutes of the lesson, and with my only intervention being that of moderator and occasional adjudicator, the group (21 students) discussed what they would like to see happening in the film, drawing from the vocabulary and expressions they had learnt recently.

Boys would suggest expressions and scenes and then they would decide which to script in and in what order. Once agreement was reached all students would write down the same script.

The last 20 minutes were dedicated to actual filming using our Flip Video Mino digital video camera. My students had scripted their own film and they then took turns to act out, direct scenes and film. As you can see above, at this point I was simply another actor following the script the boys had written for me.

The hardware

We used a Flip Video Mino Digital Camcorder, which is extremely easy to use for both students and teachers. One big red button to press to start recording – the same big red button to stop.

The Flip camera used for this filming was not high definition (HD). Our department has since acquired a Flip Mino HD and I have to say the little extra cost is perfectly justified given the fantastic quality of its output.

The software

Only basic film editing software is required to achieve results such as the above. We used Apple’s iMovie on this occasion but PC users could just as easily use Windows Movie Maker.

I edited the film from the raw footage provided by my students. However, if you are not familiar with film editing software, you shouldn’t be discouraged from taking on a project like this one, as I am sure your students would gladly edit the film for you.

We will probably not win a Bafta or an Oscar for our efforts but we certainly succeeded in learning vocabulary and expressions from a topic which is otherwise dull and uninspiring in an imaginative, stimulating and creative way.

What do you think? Is this something you can see yourself trying?

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