Yesterday, Apple introduced three products aimed at the Education market: iBooks Author, iBooks 2, an updated version of iBooks that allows for interactive textbooks, and the iTunes U app. Much has been written (already) about iBooks Author, but there seems to be some confusion about what it is and what it’s for.

What is iBooks Author?

According to Apple’s website:

iBooks Author is an amazing new app that 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.

There are a few things in that description that are noteworthy: “for iPad”, and “galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more…” iBooks Author is not intended to be a general purpose tool for creating standard e-books in the ePub format. It’s intended to create interactive, media-rich books for the iPad. Currently, there’s no easy way to create interactive, media-rich books (for any platform). On the iPad, there are stand-alone interactive books distributed as Apps. That’s all well and good, but creating iOS apps is not easy…not by a long shot. There are also stand-alone interactive textbooks from companies such as Inkling, but again, these are apps, not books available through the iBook store, and there’s no way for users to create their own content. That’s where iBooks Author comes in.

It should be noted that while iBooks Author is free, it requires Mac OS X Lion, so if you’re still using Snow Leopard (or older), you’ll need to upgrade in order to use iBooks Author.

The current state of e-books

Currently, e-books are mostly text, and are available on a wide variety of e-book readers. Most of these e-book readers also support static images, but not multimedia. There are several competing formats for e-books, but one standard that most adhere to, called ePub. Most e-readers, such as the iPad, Kobo eReader, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, and many others support the ePub format. The only major holdout is the Amazon Kindle, which uses its own proprietary format.

There are, however, media rich e-books available (as previously mentioned), but they tend to be stand-alone apps instead of ePub or some other standard.

There are tools available to create standard e-books, but none are perfect. Judging from the numerous reviews available, you could safely sum up the state of e-book creation as of early 2012 as “frustrating”. One of the most highly regarded e-book editors is Sigil, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Another popular option is Calibre, which can convert a wide variety of formats to ePub (and other formats). It’s also possible to convert MS Word files to ePub files, generate ePub files from Apple iWork, and other programs. The problem with these creation and conversion tools is that it’s difficult to retain advanced formatting, and adding advanced features requires knowledge of HTML and CSS.

Until Apple unveiled iBooks Author, there were no tools available to easily create interactive media-rich e-books.

iBooks Author: the good

There’s a lot to like in iBooks Author. Apple has made it easy to create interactive media-rich books, and while the focus so far has been on creating textbooks, there’s no reason you couldn’t use the tool to create interactive cookbooks, baby books, etc. (Tip of the hat to Joe Wood for those suggested uses.) [Update: here's another article looking at various iBooks ideas.]

iBooks Author allows you to embed a quiz in your text, making this a great tool for education, as long as the students have access to an iPad.

iBooks Author: the bad

The most obvious downside to iBooks Author is it requires an iPad to fully take advantage of media-rich content. iBooks Author can, however, export a static version of your book as a PDF, so it IS possible to view the book on any device that can read PDF files (which includes most e-readers). You’ll also need a Mac running OS X Lion in order to use iBooks Author.

Another downside is that currently, Apple allows you to SELL your books created with iBooks Author in the iBooks store, but not anywhere else (such as Amazon.com or on your own website). You can give your books away for free anywhere you want, you just can’t sell them anywhere but the iBooks store. There’s a chance this may change, though, if there’s enough push-back from the community. In some ways, though, this makes sense. Since these aren’t standard ePub files (they’re actually ePub files wrapped in a proprietary HTML 5 wrapper), they’re not going to work on other devices…only on the iPad. So, it makes sense that they would only be available in the iBooks store. Note: you can also give your files to anyone with an iPad and they can load it directly, rather than going through the iBooks store…as long as you give them away for free.

UPDATE: On February 3, 2012, Apple revised and updated the EULA to clarify the selling of books in other ebook stores. Only the .ibooks formatted file must be sold in the iBooks store (which makes sense) and Apple has no rights over the content. You can sell your book in any other store, in any other format (Kindle, EPUB, etc.) to your heart’s content. Source: http://www.padgadget.com/2012/02/03/apple-updates-ibooks-author-and-includes-revised-eula/

Some have complained that iBooks Author isn’t using non-proprietary HTML 5 so that these interactive media-rich books could be used on a variety of devices. The problem is, there’s such a wide variety of support for HTML 5 of different devices, such a tool would be very difficult to create, at least at this point. Maybe that’s something for a future update? Speaking of future updates…

iBooks Author: the wait-and-see

It’s important to remember this tool is version 1.0, and has been released for just over 24 hours at this point. If you look back at the history of other Apple products (iMovie, Garage Band, iWork), you’ll notice they tend to add functionality as they go. To expect iBooks Author to evolve and expand is a reasonable assumption. So, what might (or might not) happen in future releases?

• The ability to export directly to ePub format would be great. While you’d lose the interactivity (as you do with the current export to PDF function), it would save users the step of having to convert the PDF to ePub using another tool.
• It would be great if Apple relaxed the restriction on selling e-books in other stores.
• The ability to create books compatible with the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch would be great.

• Students Contribute to Wikipedia Content and Credibility

  The subject of using Wikipedia in school has always sparked intense debate among teachers, students, and even parents. Too often, though, the arguments against using Wikipedia are rooted in ignorance and misinformation. This article talks about a growing trend of teachers assigning their students to write and edit Wikipedia entries, which is a great way to teach important digital literacy skills.

  One of Butler’s students, Timothy Hatfield Jr., 17, spent months combing through scientific journals, articles and books to help write and edit a 5,200-word article on the loggerhead sea turtle. He analyzed reference material from several countries and attained permission from photographers to publish their work on the site.

  Hatfield made 476 edits to the article, all tracked on the Web site, and the article eventually earned featured status, a designation fewer than 1 percent of all entries receive.

  Learning how to research reputable primary sources and properly cite an article are great skills to learn.

  As is often the case with online articles, you can find some great additional info in the comments section. In this case, a teacher put together a lesson plan titled “Teach Wikipedia Literacy With The Odyssey“, and shared it online.

• Teachers: Please stop prohibiting the use of Wikipedia

  While we’re on the subject of Wikipedia, here’s an article from a year ago explaining why banning Wikipedia is doing students a disservice.

  Rather, this plea is for those who, instead of teaching students about Internet site credibility, fact checking, verification, and crowdsourcing, choose to simply prohibit the use of Wikipedia.

  Students are going to use Wikipedia, if not for a class assignment, then for looking up things that interest them. Do just about any Google search, and the Wikipedia entry for those search terms will be at or near the top of the results.

  Yet all that junk that we worry about on Wikipedia also gets used by students who haven’t been taught to correctly verify sources or to understand the reliability of web materials. Without a thorough understanding of its powers, pitfalls, and how to determine both, students won’t be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

  The ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, determining if an online source is credible or based on opinion, is one of the best skills we can teach students.

  We don’t need to teach our kids not to use Wikipedia. We need to teach them to make those extra few clicks and decide for themselves if the Wikipedia entry has merit. It’s a skill that is broadly applicable in an age of information overload and Google’s billions of search results.

• Danish pupils use web in exams

  This article is from a couple years ago, but is still relevant today. The article discusses how Denmark is allowing students full access to the Internet during final exams. The ultimate form of an “open book” test.

  Sanne Yde Schmidt, who heads the project at Greve, says: “If we’re going to be a modern school and teach them things that are relevant for them in modern life, we have to teach them how to use the internet.”

  Is using the Internet during a test cheating? Depends on how you define cheating. In all walks of life people use the Internet to look up information every day – for work, or for personal reasons. The ability to quickly find information then determine if the information is credible is something everyone should know how to do. Is it cheating for a lawyer to look something up in one of their numerous law books? Is it cheating for a doctor to look up potential drug interactions before writing a prescription? Do we expect professionals from all walks of life to have everything about their chosen profession memorized? No. So why, then, should we memorization over research when it comes to school tests?

  The teachers also think the nature of the questions make it harder to cheat in exams. Students are no longer required to regurgitate facts and figures. Instead the emphasis is on their ability to sift through and analyse information.

• In Math You Have to Remember, In Other Subjects You Can Think About It

  Another oldie but goodie, discussing why our current methods of math instruction are failing.

  Mathematics is a way of thinking about problems and issues in the world. Get the thinking right and the skills come largely for free.

  The author believes that focusing on improving basic math skills is the wrong way to go about fixing the problems with math instruction in the U.S.

  Numerous studies over the past thirty years have shown that when people of any age and any ability level are faced with mathematical challenges that arise naturally in a real-world context that has meaning for them, and where the outcome directly matters to them, they rapidly achieve a high level of competence. How high? Typically 98 percent, that’s how high.

  The author spends about half the article discussing research by Jo Boaler, a math professor at Stanford University and former Marie Curie Chair in Mathematics Education at the University of Sussex in England. Boaler’s research followed seven hundred students through all four years of high school, drawing from three different high schools. One of the schools, in an urban neighborhood, used a very different approach from the traditional methods of teaching math.

  The other two schools Boaler studied along with Railside were in more affluent suburban settings, and the students started out with higher mathematics achievements than did those at the urban Railside school. Since those two schools adopted a traditional form of instruction, Boaler was able to compare student outcomes over the entire four years of high school. By the end of the first year, she found that the Railside students were achieving at the same levels as the suburban students on tests of algebra. By the end of the second year, the Railside students were outperforming their counterparts in the two suburban schools in both algebra and geometry tests. By their senior year, 41 percent of Railside students were in advanced classes of precalculus and calculus, compared to only 23 percent of students from the other two schools in more affluent neighborhoods.

• The Seven Golden Rules of Using Technology in Schools

  Tina Barseghian takes inspiration from a longer piece by Adam S. Bellow (The Tech Commandments) in this article about using technology in schools.

  Technology should be like oxygen, Bellow said, quoting Chris Lehmann, the founding principal of Science Leadership Academy: Ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.

  Why hide technology in a special room or lab? Technology should be ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible. I agree.

  “The world is not a sterile place. Kids need to learn how to deal with it.” And because kids have access to every kind of information at any time, they need to learn about things like Creative Commons and copyright rules. “We’re doing them a major disservice if we don’t teach them good digital citizenship,” he said.

  I whole-heartedly agree. Fear should not drive decision making. Don’t ban what you don’t understand or hope to control. Instead, educate. Digital citizenship and Internet literacy should be taught early and often.

• The Value of Educational Technology

  Good article with some tips on converting reluctant colleagues to lifelong learners and users of technology, by showing how educational technology can help teachers and students.

  My physics classes do not have a textbook because I use two free online physics texts, three great websites, and a free downloadable pdf version of a physics textbook. Savings of $140 per student. (the textbook we have is very old and out of date)

  Just one example of how one teacher is using technology in the classroom, and saving money at the same time.

  I could not put a numeric value on educational technology. I know I save money, I know I save time, I know I offer my students labs and experiences that I couldn’t otherwise (due to budget issues), I know the students have fun, I know that they are creating instead of just consuming, I know I am more efficient and more organized, I know I learn a lot from my PLN, I know my students learn a lot from the class and their work. How do you put a price on that? I think it is priceless.

  Nice summation.

• Digital Native Myth Buster

  This topic is one of my pet peeves, and this article from Tom Whitby is the latest. Every time I hear an excuse that uses the busted myth of “digital natives” or “digital immigrants”, I want to scream. It’s a copout, and there is no shortage of articles poking crater sized holes in the theory.

  It is true that when it comes to Technology stuff, kids approach it differently. They are less intimidated, and less concerned with breaking something. They are more intuitive when it comes to technology use. Most devices and applications now have many more common bells and whistles that carry through to other devices and applications. Of course this behavior in tech use is learned through repetitive actions, as a result of this commonality of devices and applications and may suggest or give an appearance to a non-tech user that it is an example of a native intelligence for technology. However, it is, in fact, very much a learned behavior. It is that very attitude however, that is misleading to many educators.

  I teach technology use to teachers, and let me tell you – Tom is 100% correct: tech use is a learned behavior, and anyone can learn it, not just kids. The only thing stopping you is an artificial barrier – the misguided belief that you can’t learn technology because you didn’t grow up with it. Hogwash. My 80 year old grandmother learned to use a computer to do online genealogical research. That was over 20 years ago.

The LibreOffice Start Center

LibreOffice is a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. Or, as they say on their website:

LibreOffice is a comprehensive, professional-quality productivity suite that you can download and install for free. There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide, and it is available in more than 30 languages and for all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, …).

Why LibreOffice?

Before I go into more detail about LibreOffice, you may be wondering: what’s the point? Why should I use LibreOffice? Here are a few reasons to add LibreOffice to your arsenal:

• LibreOffice is 100% free, always. No more licensing issues or expensive upgrades.
• Your students may already be using it. Many students/families cannot afford to purchase Microsoft Office, and will instead use whatever came with their computer – often Microsoft Works. LibreOffice can open MS Works files, which is nice, but you could also let your students know about LibreOffice, which is far more powerful than Works.
• LibreOffice is compatible with Microsoft Office (and other applications), so you can open existing documents and even share documents with MS Office users. And since it’s closer in feel to the MS Office many people are used to, there’s less re-training involved.
• LibreOffice runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, so all users can be using the same software, regardless of what computer they’re using.
• Using LibreOffice will make you a better computer user. While it’s very similar to MS Office, so it’s familiar, it’s just different enough that you’ll train your brain. Learn concepts (cut, paste, etc.) not specific applications.

LibreOffice is OpenOffice…but not

Before we go any further, I should explain the relationship between LibreOffice (which you’ve likely never heard of) and OpenOffice (which you may have heard of). OpenOffice was an open-source application suite originally released as the open-source version of Sun Microsystem’s StarOffice. Sun was later purchased by Oracle, and in April 2011 Oracle announced they would no longer be supporting development of OpenOffice. Prior to the announcement, many of the former major contributors left the project to work on LibreOffice, a direct fork of OpenOffice not controlled by Oracle. Since then, LibreOffice has seen far more activity and updates than OpenOffice.

So, in a nutshell: LibreOffice is the new OpenOffice. Got it? Good. Let’s move on.

Compatibility

The first thing people ask when I start talking about an alternative to Microsoft Office is: “Is it compatible?” The answer is: yes.

LibreOffice uses an industry standard document format called OpenDocument Format (ODF). By default, word processing files have a .odt (OpenDocument Text) file extension, spreadsheet files have a .ods (OpenDocument Spreadsheet) file extention, and presentations have a .odp (OpenDocument Presentation) file extension.

As of Microsoft Office 2007 (Service Pack 2), MS Office has also supported ODF and can read and write documents created in this format. In fact, you can now set MS Office to use this file format by default, instead of Microsoft’s proprietary (but de-facto standard) formats (.doc, .docx, .xls, etc.). Conversely, LibreOffice has the ability to read and write documents using various Microsoft formats, including the new .docx/.xlsx/.pptx and older .doc/.xls/.ppt. You can save documents in MS formats one at a time, or set those formats as the default file format.

In addition, LibreOffice can handle some file types that Microsoft Office often has trouble opening, namely Microsoft Works (.wps) and WordPerfect (.wpd).

I’ve been using LibreOffice (or OpenOffice, previously) for over three years, and have had no problems with compatibility. Most people I send files to have no idea that I’m not using Microsoft Office. Every now and then I experience minor formatting issues when opening an MS Office doc, particularly an older one, and the same can sometimes be true when opening an ODF document in MS Office. In fact, this is the exact same issue you may encounter when going from one version of MS Office to another, so really this isn’t any different at all. This isn’t really an issue if you’re not collaborating on a document – simply save the document as a PDF before sending it to someone. LibreOffice has the ability to save as PDF built right in. Also, if you’re collaborating, you may want to look at Google Docs.

Features

LibreOffice is a productivity suite comprised of the following applications:

• Writer is the word processor. The layout is very similar to the pre-ribbon versions of Microsoft Word. It has many features, including while-you-type auto-completion, auto-formatting, automatic spell-checking, and more.
• Calc is the spreadsheet program. Calc includes a full suite of charting and analysis tools, a fully-integrated help system for entering formulas, can connect to external databases, and more.
• Impress is the presentation program, similar to PowerPoint or Apple Keynote. Impress includes some built-in templates, but you can also download and install additional templates, or create your own.
• Draw helps you build diagrams and sketches from scratch, including dynamic 3D illustrations and special effects.
• Base is a database front-end for the LibreOffice suite. You can use imported and linked tables and queries from MySQL, PostgreSQL or Microsoft Access and many other data sources, or design your own data source with Base.
• Math is an equation editor that lets you lay-out and display mathematical, chemical, electrical or scientific equations quickly in standard written notation.

Extensions

LibreOffice supports the installation of extensions, which you can find at the LibrePlanet web. Additionally, several popular extensions have now been included as standard features:

• PDF Import: Import and modify PDF documents, then re-save as PDF.
• Presentation Minimizer: Reduces the file-size of presentations.
• Presenter Console: Allows you (the presenter) to see a different view on your laptop than what the audience sees on the projector. You can see the upcoming slide, your slide notes, and a presentation timer.
• ReportBuilder: Build good-looking database reports.
• Non-Linear Solver: Allows Calc to do non-linear programming.
• Wiki Publisher: Create Wiki articles on MediaWiki servers without having to know MediaWiki markup language.

Who else is using LibreOffice or OpenOffice?

Here’s a sample of sites using LibreOffice or OpenOffice. (Note: since the switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice is still so new, this list makes reference to existing OpenOffice installations.)

• Morris Brandon Elementary in Atlanta Georgia has 250 desktops running OpenOffice.
• DeWitt Public Schools in Michigan saved over $48,000 in licensing fees by switching the entire district to OpenOffice.
• All of Portland Oregon’s middle schools and most of its elementary schools have Linux workstations and are using OpenOffice.
• Glenwood School for Boys and Girls uses OpenOffice exclusively for all students, including 200 desktops on campus, and have distributed installation CDs to students to install on home computers.
• Windsor Unified School District in California: 5,200 students and 250 teachers all using Linux computers with OpenOffice.
• Every middle school student in the state of Maine uses OpenOffice.
• San Diego Unified (8th largest in the US) has 100,000 student laptops running Linux and OpenOffice.
• Denmark – all government agencies.
• All Visions Charter School EDGE students are using OpenOffice (soon to be LibreOffice).

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, The History Channel has released The Civil War Today – an app exclusively for the iPad. The app presents a newspaper-like layout with tons of interactivity hiding just beneath the surface, including thousands of original document scans, photographs, maps, diary entries, quotes, and full newspapers for each day of the 4 year war.

The amount of information presented in the app is enormous, but what makes the app most interesting is the ability to experience the war as it unfolded, one day at a time, in real-time. Actual newspaper articles, diary entries from various figures, a running total of casualties for both North and South, and much more make this the most compelling Civil War application I’ve seen.

Check out the gallery below for some additional screenshots from the app:

Here are some videos about the project:

Art Project Preview:

Art Project Visitor Guide:

I found the first two articles in a blog post by Emily Alpert at voiceofsandiego.org, titled The 7 Fascinating Education Ideas of the Year:

• How Einstein Started Solving Its Math Problem

  This article looks at how one school (Einstein Academy), and the San Diego Unified School District are tackling the problem of kids who were doing well in elementary school math suddenly started struggling once they started learning algebra.

  Yet when they hit algebra, their scores plummeted. Three years ago, just 9 percent of eighth graders in its sister middle school were proficient in algebra on state tests — even kids who seemed to be math whizzes before.

  What they discovered was that kids were learning too many shortcuts for basic math, not actually developing an understanding of what they were doing or a feel for how numbers relate to each other.

  What teachers at Einstein realized was that children could calculate like the dickens because they used tricks they’d been taught. Mathematicians call them algorithms: a neat series of steps that lead to solving a problem. For instance, when dividing a number by a fraction, a teacher might remind students, “Don’t ask why — invert and multiply.” But kids didn’t understand what they were doing.

  Read the rest of the article to learn how Einstein Academy changed their math textbook and curriculum to encourage problem solving and understanding instead of drilling with algorithms to help bring algebraic reasoning to the earlier grades.

• The Problem? English. Could the Cure Be Spanish?

  This article looks at how many long-term English learners fall short of fluency after five or six years in U.S. schools, and why biliteracy education may be the answer.

  They’re called “long-term English learners,” students who still fall short of fluency after five or six years in U.S. schools. Like Rodriguez and his classmates, they can gab easily in English, but run into trouble with more sophisticated reading and writing in school. They make up almost 60 percent of English learners in California middle and high schools, one study found, belying the idea that newcomers are the big problem.

  Many experts believe that a failure to continue teaching an English learners native language hinders their understanding of English.

  The idea is that once tweens better understand the grammar and structure behind Spanish, they can better translate that savvy to English. Principal Julie Martel and her teachers found that many of their students who were behind in English were also weak in Spanish, even though they speak it at home. Most had never been schooled in Spanish at all.

  “They’re illiterate in their native language,” Martel said.

  When the kids are coaxed to write in Spanish, some drop the “h” off “hacer” and spell “que” as “ke.” Many shy from writing at all. In both Spanish and English, their vocabulary stops short of the academic words that pepper textbooks, words like “conduct” or “complex.”

• History for Music Lovers

  A couple history teachers in Hawaii have put together a series of music videos, using popular songs with new lyrics, to help enhance history lessons. Like the “Schoolhouse Rock” videos of the 1970′s, these aren’t meant to replace existing lessons, but are a good supplement.

• My Love Affair with TED (.com)

  A good post by Heather Wolpert-Gawron about the democratization of information, using TED.com as an example.

  Now think about the possibilities in the classroom. Just imagine beginning your week on Monday with a 15-minute lecture, for free, on the topic that you are covering as taught by the geniuses of our current historic and scientific era.

  There are so many great videos at TED.com, you really should spend some time checking them out. Heather links directly to a few of her favorites, and others point out their favorites in the comment section.

• The Cooks Source Scandal: How a Magazine Profits on Theft

  If you missed the hullabaloo over New England cooking magazine “Cooks Source” stealing content from various online sources, you missed the power of the Internet to band together and root out wrongdoing. This saga is a perfect tie-in to teaching about copyright, intellectual property, and fair-use.

  Gaudio, who identified herself to me over the phone as “an amateur medieval enthusiast,” went home last Thursday and discovered that an article she had written on Gode Cookery, which contained a clear copyright notice at the bottom of the webpage, had been reprinted on Page 10 in Cooks Source‘s October 2010 issue.

  Gaudio isn’t alone. Various Internet sleuths have uncovered at least 7 articles that have been copied, from such sources as Simply Recipes, The Food Network, Martha Stewart, and more. The number keeps growing.

  “Well, it was on the Internet,” replied Griggs by email. “Didn’t you want it published?”

  The response by Cooks Source editor Judith Griggs shows her complete lack of understanding copyright and fair use. Monica Gaudio published the entire email response from Griggs on her livejournal page. The best gem from Griggs’ email is a real head scratcher:

  But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!

  No, Ms. Griggs, the Internet is not public domain. You’ve been stealing copyrighted articles (and images) and profiting from them in a print magazine. You should be ashamed of yourself.

IF is also being used in the classroom, from elementary school through college, as both a reading tool and as a writing tool.

IF can be used, for example, by high school students to design historical simulations for a World History class, or by middle school students to write an interactive children’s book that elementary students can then “read”.

Getting started with IF

Here are some resources to help you get started with Interactive Fiction:

Reading Interactive Fiction: Interpreters

The program you use to “play” an IF file is called an interpreter. There are many available, all of them free. There are also many different file formats for IF files, generated from a host of different programs. The best interpreters will understand and play most (if not all) of the available file formats. Here are the most popular for each operating system:

• Mac: Zoom (Use the download link to the right of the page)
• Mac: Spatterlight (Another good Mac application that supports a wide variety of IF game files. When I’ve run across files that won’t open with Zoom, Spatterlight usually comes to the rescue.)
• Linux: Zoom (A Linux/Unix version of Zoom…)
• Windows: Windows Frotz (Windows Frotz only supports the z-machine format of game files. Luckily z-machine files are very popular and widely available.)
• iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad: Frotz for iPhone (Available from the App store. Information here: http://code.google.com/p/iphonefrotz/wiki/FrotzMain )
• Online/web browser: KindleQuest (There have been several articles recently about “interactive fiction for the Kindle”, but in reality you can play online with any web browser on any device – including the Kindle.)

Download an IF game to get started

The best place to start with IF is to dive into an already existing story, of which there are many.

• Bronze, by Emily Short: Bronze is a good example because it includes a great manual in PDF format that will introduce you to IF in easy to understand terms, give you a list of terms usable in the game (although other games may have more than this), and even a good example of interacting with a game. READ THIS MANUAL before doing anything else. There’s also an excellent “making of” PDF that I highly recommend reading.
• Baf’s Guide to Interactive Fiction Online: An online repository of free, user-submitted Interactive Fiction for you to download.
• Classic Infocom titles: Infocom was/is the gold standard of interactive fiction. The company name and titles are now owned by Activision, but they seem to have completely abandoned them. Please read the copyright disclaimer on the previously linked website to decide if you should or shouldn’t download the titles that are available.

Here’s a tip: when playing/reading interactive fiction, it’s best to take notes and draw a map of locations as you go. Some of these stories are a bit complex, and you’ll save yourself a lot of time by taking notes and drawing a map.

IF Writing tools

If you want to actually *write* Interactive Fiction, you’ll need a tool to do so.

• Inform 7: The Inform 7 site is loaded with information, including links to download Inform for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Note that the Mac version is the most robust, but the Windows and Linux versions are fine. Also notice the most RECENT version for Mac (I7_6E72_OSX.dmg) doesn’t quite work right for Leopard (10.5.x) or Tiger…it’s really best for Snow Leopard (10.6.x). So, if you’re using Leopard or Tiger, download the previous version by clicking on the “6E59″ link near the top of the Downloads page.
• To learn how to write IF using Inform, I highly recommend going through the built-in documentation. You can also find tutorials and examples here:
  • http://if1.home.comcast.net/~if1/inform_7.htm
  • http://historicalsimulations.org/simulation-design/inform-7/ (Read the Whitepaper, Tutorial, and Design Reference)
  • http://www.musicwords.net/if/i7hb.htm (A more detailed/comprehensive manual in PDF format)

Teaching with IF

Some resources that look at IF from an educational perspective.

• http://if1.home.comcast.net/~if1/teaching.html
• http://if1.home.comcast.net/~if1/kidintro.html
• http://computersandcomposition.osu.edu/archives/v9/9_1_html/9_1_1_Moulthrop.html
• http://www.brasslantern.org/editorials/teaching-critical.html
• http://historicalsimulations.org/simulation-design/inform-7/inform-simulation-assignments-and-rubrics/
• http://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/teaching-if/

There you have it – an introduction to interactive fiction. It may seem daunting at first, but I promise it’s not. You can be writing your first IF title in minutes. Give it a try!

It’s time to do things a better way. By exploring. By collaborating with friends. By charting your own course. Follow your curiosity into a more engaging experience. Inkling isn’t just a book on a screen. It’s an entirely new way to learn.

Inkling allows you to highlight, create and share notes, see term definitions, and more.

Inkling books include everything from the textbook, plus integrated videos and quizzes, interactive features such as highlighting, note taking, sharing of notes, bookmarking, and advanced searching capabilities. So far, the books available from Inkling, such as Raven Biology (9th edition) are less expensive than the printed versions, and can be even cheaper if you don’t need the entire book by allowing you to purchase individual chapters.

For now Inkling only supports higher education books, with a small number available right now and more on the way. It’s only a matter of time before someone does the same for K-12 textbooks.

If you have an iPad, download the free Inkling app. You’ll get a free book (Elements of Style) to help teach you the features plus you can download one free chapter from each of the textbooks they offer.

If you don’t have an iPad, you can view several short videos on the Inkling website. Have a look. Is this the future of textbooks?

Additional screenshots

Each book has an easy to use chapter list that allows you to jump directly to the chapter or section you want.

With Inkling you can take notes at any point in the text and even share your notes with other students, your teacher, etc.

Inkling includes quizzes throughout each textbook, with instant feedback of right/wrong answers.

Navigation is easy using the Places menu. From Places you can jump to a specific page, your list of bookmarks, notes created by you or your contacts, highlights, or the glossary.

Some chapters include reviews questions at the end, with the correct answer just a click away.