First Time with iBooks Author - Student Saves the Day

On Wednesday some of my administrators asked me to prepare a presentation for a group of parochial school (K-8) principals who would be visiting on Monday. They wanted me to show how were are currently using technology in the classroom.

And they wanted to see the first draft of the presentation by Friday.

And I wasn't going to be at school on Thursday because a group of us were going to visit a school that has already implemented a 1:1 iPad program this year (we are doing it next year).

And someone suggested that I use Prezi, which I've seen, of course, but never actually used myself.

And someone else suggested I include something about iBooks Author.

I thought that last part was kind of funny.  I mean, iBooks Author is like 2 weeks old, right? Luckily, as soon as it was announced I scrambled around campus for a computer that I could install it on (my classroom computer runs Snow Leopard, not Lion yet) and started playing with creating books.  The next day I took about 20 minutes to show a student (Jake) how to use it and asked him to start playing around with the program. This student has one period where he is an assistant in our tech office and whenever it looks like they don't have much for him to do I try to steal him to help with my stuff.

So I spent about an hour on Wednesday learning how to create a Prezi and collecting some work samples to use for my presentation on Monday.

Then on Thursday, as we are in a van driving up to visit the other school, someone bring up iBooks Author again. I realize that if I'm going to present something about it on Monday I'll need a sample.

From the back of the van I emailed a friend in the tech office back at school and asked them, "if Jake isn't busy, can you have him make an iBook?" It could be about anything, as long as I would have a sample to share. 

Well, good ol' Jake came through for me. He created an iBook about how to use iBooks Author. It's simple, highlights some of the key features of the program, and best of all, was done in less than an hour. (Download Jake's book here - you'll need an iPad to view it).  By the time we got back to campus he was ready to show it to me.

In order to show it in the Prezi I made a short video of myself flipping through the pages:

I think its important to point out that Jake is not a computer geek. He's plays ice hockey and manages his friend's band.  Jake does not normally spend a ton of time in front of the computer. I think he signed up to be a tech aide so he could do his homework at school. And yet he was still able to pull this together for me.

I think this shows just how easy iBooks Author is to use.  I can't wait until I have time to start creating my own books with it.