Wisconsin plans to use settlement funds from Microsoft to buy 1,400 iPads for educational use. The almost $80 million in settlement funds came a result of claims that Microsoft was overcharging consumers for software.

The iPads are being paid for with $3.4 million from the funds. With Apple’s educational discounts, the schools should be able to purchase each iPad for around $479 each. They plan on initially purchasing 600 this Spring with plans to purchase an additional 800 in the Fall.

The settlement averaged out to around $85.09 per child. Not all schools chose to spend their share of the money on iPads. Some chose to spend the money on other media including smartboards, laptops, and other technology equipment.

State superintendent Tony Evers is scheduled to release a statewide digital learning plan next week. The district’s director of technical services, Bill Smojver, thinks the iPads are going to be a significant transition for education.

“This is the most significant transition point for having digital learning at the optimal level,”

Apple’s recent education announcement was met with enthusiasm by Smojver, who thinks it’s a significant development. He still believes the schools will proceed cautiously when it comes to replacing traditional media with electronic versions.

There are currently around 50 school districts in Wisconsin currently implementing iPads according to Minnestota-based technology consultant, Naomi Harm. While some schools are going to experiment with students actually having access to the iPads, some are going to allow teachers access to implement them in planning and record-keeping.

iBooks Author has given authors an easy way to put together digital textbooks. iBooks 2 gives those authors a huge marketplace for distribution. Leanna has already stated that she believes this is only the beginning for iPads in education.

Source: Wisconsin State Journal via AppleInsider

Never ones to wait on official Apple numbers, which could be coming as soon as Apple’s Q1 2012 results call tomorrow, analysts are already trying to peg Apple’s foray into the digital textbook market at 350,000 education-centric iBooks in the first 3 days. AllThingsD quotes reports:

According to Global Equities Research, the supply chain markup on textbooks ranges between 33 percent and 35 percent. So there are savings to be had in cutting out that publisher-to-distributor-to-wholesaler-to-retailer process.

Likewise, iBooks Author, a tool used to create eBooks for the iPad, reportedly sold through 90,000 downloads from the Mac App Store during the same period.

Global Equities Research, however, won’t discuss how they get those numbers, so weigh them accordingly. Or just wait and see what Apple says tomorrow.

Source: AllThingsD

Apple has posted the full education event keynote video on its website and placed it on iTunes for download. The keynote video covers all of today’s education announcements including iBooks 2, iTunes U and iBooks Author for Mac.

If you subscribe to Apple Keynote podcasts in iTunes you should find it there when you refresh. If you don’t want to watch it via iTunes, there is also a stream available on their website via the link below.

• iTunes link
• Apple.com link.  

Following up on the education event in New York, Apple has posted an instructional video for the new iBooks Author app available in the Mac App Store.

The video goes over some of the default templates Apple has included, as well as some of the more fluid user-interface elements like drag-and-drop, widgets and deep customization options. One thing I noticed was the built-in accessibility options Apple has included, which makes creating books that people with disabilities can read and experience much easier. You can also preview your book on the iPad to make sure it looks just the way you want it to look.

All in all, the video is very educational and details most of the functionality included in iBooks Author. Check it out!

Source: Apple

No doubt there will be a lot of questions about iBooks Author, and in anticipation of many of those, Apple has posted a FAQ in their knowledge base to address some of the most common. Entries include:

How can I distribute my work? How do I publish my book on iTunes U? How do I publish my book on the iBookstore? I’m an educator. Is course material I create and provide to my students as part of a tuition-based course considered a work I’m selling? I’m an educational institution. Are course materials that I may provide to students as part of a tuition fee considered a work I’m selling? I’m an author (or publisher). Can I distribute this work on my own website? Can I distribute works created with iBooks Author as part of a product or service that charges a subscription-based fee?

iBooks Author for Mac OSX can create eBooks for digital distribution through the iBookstore and is made to work with applications like Pages, Keynote and Word.

• Free – Mac App Store Link

Source: Apple

Today, Apple has been making a bunch of education-related announcements, and one of them is a new app for iTunes U. iTunes U was where recorded university classes were shared on Apple’s media portal. The iPad and iPhone app will include lots of helpful stuff, like professor’s office hours,  class syllabus, access to class materials (including books, apps, documents, web links), teachers can post messages to students, including video and images. During class, students can use the app to take notes, as well as access textbooks. The app can also be used to deliver assignments.

Some big universities are already in on the program, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cornell, Berkeley, and lots of others. iTunes U for iPhone and iPad is available for free starting today.

• Free – App Store Link

Full press release below.

Apple Unveils All-New iTunes U App for iPad, iPhone & iPod touch

NEW YORK—January 19, 2012—Apple® today announced an all-new iTunes® U app, giving educators and students everything they need on their iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch® to teach and take entire courses. The all-new iTunes U app lets teachers create and manage courses including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world. The iTunes U app gives iOS users access to the world’s largest catalog of free educational content from top universities including Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, and starting today any K-12 school district can offer full courses through the iTunes U app. iTunes U has already become an incredibly popular learning tool for students with over 700 million downloads.

“The all-new iTunes U app enables students anywhere to tap into entire courses from the world’s most prestigious universities,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “Never before have educators been able to offer their full courses in such an innovative way, allowing anyone who’s interested in a particular topic to learn from anywhere in the world, not just the classroom.”

Prior to iTunes U, only students in the classroom at that time had access to educational content from top universities. With the iTunes U app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, those barriers no longer exist. Students anywhere can take an entire course with complete access to all course materials right at their fingertips. With the iTunes U app, students are able to access new books right from within the app, and any notes taken in iBooks® are consolidated for easy reviewing. In addition to reading books, viewing presentations, lectures and assignment lists, students can receive push notifications so they always have the latest class information.* The iTunes U app is available today as a free download from the App Store™.

Educators can quickly and easily create, manage and share their courses, quizzes and handouts through a web-based tool and utilize content and links from the iTunes U app, the Internet, iBookstore℠ or the App Store as part of their curriculum. They can also upload and distribute their own documents such as Keynote®, Pages®, Numbers® or books made with iBooks Author.

*Some content is available only for iPad.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Apple has announced iBooks Author at the education event in New York. iBooks Author will allow you to create books within Mac OS X for digital distribution through the iBookstore.

You can select from a number of templates already created for you or import your existing content. iBooks Author is made to compliment and work nicely with applications such as Word, Pages, and Keynote. You can even turn Keynote presentations into widgets within your book.

iBooks Author will be available today as a free download in the Mac App Store.

Free – Mac App Store Link

Today, Apple held their education event in New York, and one of their announcements was iBooks 2, and update on their book store which sets textbooks in the iPad’s sights. The goal was to create portable, durable, interactive, searchable and current textbooks that still include all the great content. Some of the first demos today showed a biology textbook with graphical table of contents, interactive 3D models of cells, along with all of the usual full text. Publishers will have full control over content layout, and even be able to remotely update the text as needed.

Textbooks can include quick shortcuts to glossaries and dictionaries, so you can quickly figure out foreign terms. There’s going to be full-text search with auto-completed suggestions for when you’re looking for a particular passage. Textbooks in iBooks 2 will even include little quizzes, to make sure you’ve absorbed the content from the last chapter. You can also include custom-made flash cards and notes to build your own quizzing scheme.

Not sure if you want a particular iBook? They’re going to offer free samples so you can take a peek inside. iBooks may be a little on the large side… Some that we’ve seen are over 1 GB, so odds are you’ll only be downloading and syncing these over Wi-Fi. Textbooks are available starting today in their own dedicated section of the iBooks store, with prices being $14.99 or less. Wow, that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than textbooks in my day. Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt are just some of the initial publishing partners.

• iBooks – Free – App Store Link

• iBooks Author – Free – Mac App Store Link

Here’s the iBooks 2 Changelog

Introducing iBooks 2 — now with iBooks textbooks.

• Experience gorgeous Multi-Touch textbooks designed for iPad
• iBooks textbooks are filled with interactive features, diagrams, photos, and videos
• Tap to dive into images with interactive captions, rotate 3D objects, swipe through image galleries, watch videos in full screen, and more
• Use a finger as a highlighter when swiping over text in a textbook
• Take advantage of Study Cards to help you memorize important highlights, notes, and glossary terms
• Tap glossary terms to see definitions of key topics and concepts without leaving the page

And here’s the press release.

Apple Reinvents Textbooks with iBooks 2 for iPad

NEW YORK—January 19, 2012—Apple® today announced iBooks® 2 for iPad®, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, fullscreen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, unrivaled navigation and much more. iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, don’t weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore℠ with most priced at $14.99 or less, and with the new iBooks Author, a free authoring tool available today, anyone with a Mac® can create stunning iBooks textbooks.

“Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”

The new iBooks 2 app is available today as a free download from the App Store™. With support for great new features including gorgeous, fullscreen books, interactive 3D objects, diagrams, videos and photos, the iBooks 2 app will let students learn about the solar system or the physics of a skyscraper with amazing new interactive textbooks that come to life with just a tap or swipe of the finger. With its fast, fluid navigation, easy highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, plus lesson reviews and study cards, the new iBooks 2 app lets students study and learn in more efficient and effective ways than ever before.

iBooks Author is also available today as a free download from the Mac App Store and lets anyone with a Mac create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books and more, and publish them to Apple’s iBookstore. Authors and publishers of any size can start creating with Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. iBooks Author lets you add your own text and images by simply dragging and dropping, and with the Multi-Touch™ widgets you can easily add interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote® presentations and 3D objects.

Apple today also announced an all-new iTunes® U app giving educators and students everything they need on their iPad, iPhone® and iPod touch® to teach and take entire courses. With the new iTunes U app, students using iPads have access to the world’s largest catalog of free educational content, along with over 20,000 education apps at their fingertips and hundreds of thousands of books in the iBookstore that can be used in their school curriculum, such as novels for English or Social Studies.* The iTunes U app is available today as a free download from the App Store.

*Some content is available only for iPad.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Apple is hosting an event in New York tomorrow, and if the chalkboard logo is any indication,  we’ll be seeing some new content for educators, specifically new interactive textbooks delivered on iPad through a new file format and publishing system curated by Apple. On top of cutting the hassle of lugging around a bunch of print volumes, digital textbooks would be more engaging, and publishers would be able to update their products as necessary.

iPads in the classroom has been a common image in many Apple ads, and more than a couple of schools have bought  in to the idea. Programs like iBooks and iTunes U are already in place to support a new digital textbook standard, but the real question is, will schools be willing to cough up $500/student for iPads? Will Apple be willing to subsidize the cost, just so they can hook ‘em while they’re young?

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow – stick around for our coverage of the event!

Source: Bloomberg

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple’s iWork VP Roger Rosner has been charged to lead Apple’s entry into the digital textbook arena.

According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Rosner—Apple’s vice president for productivity applications, in charge of its iWork document, spreadsheet and presentation software—is closely involved in developing the new digital-textbook service. Apple last week said it was holding an event in New York City on Thursday for an announcement, which people familiar with the matter have said will be around digital textbooks.

With Apple’s education event happening January 19th, we’ll soon be able to lay to rest all the rumors surrounding what, exactly will be unveiled. It seems, however, that rather then looking to replace textbooks with their digital counterparts right away, Rosner’s team will introduce a new set of tools for publishers to create “iTextbooks”. Apple’s iTunes U podcast section is a critical if not mainstream success, and their iBooks eBookstore and reader already have a small set of textbook publishers participating. If Apple can expand on that existing base with tools to make the transition easier, they could start to get some momentum going.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Clayton Morris has chimed in on the January media event and what Apple may have in store for us.

• This event will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education
• This initiative has been in the making for years.
• The announcement will be small in size but large in scope: a big announcement in a demure space.
• I expect at least two large project announcements as they relate to Apple in education.
• Steve Jobs was intimately involved with this project before his passing. He gave a hat tip to the textbook side of this project in the Isaacson biography.
• This will not be a hardware-related announcement.

It was previously speculated that Apple may be holding a special iBooks-related event, which could definitely hold true in respect to textbooks as Morris has outlined. Check out his whole post via the link below.

Source: Clayton Morris

A recent trial of iPads by the Oklahoma State University has delivered some extremely positive results for the Apple tablet. The trial, which took place in the fall of 2010, showed an increase in pace of the course, reaching traditional benchmarks sometimes weeks in advance.

“We put this powerful and creative tool in the hands of faculty and students and the end result reached beyond enhancing the academic experience of our students,” said OSU President Burns Hargis. “The report outlines a possible decrease to student and administrative expenses, increased productivity, and how the iPad crosses between academic and personal barriers.

Each class was given the opportunity to use the iPad how they wished, but focus was always on specific measurable outcomes. These included expense impact, viability as an e-reader and overall enhancement to a student’s academic experience. After the trial, it was recommended that the university consider full deployment of iPads for all students.

Do any of our readers attend schools or universities that utilize iPads? Do you use your own iPad to help you with your studies? Let us know in the comments!

[Oklahoma State University]

Apple has sent out a note to developers regarding an App Store volume purchase program that allows educational institutions to make bulk purchases at a 50% discount.

We’re pleased to announce the App Store Volume Purchase Program. Education institutions in the United States now have a new way to purchase your apps in volume for distribution to their students and faculty. You can also elect to offer special education pricing on your app when purchased in volume.

Read more about the App Store Volume Purchase Program and how to get started in iTunes Connect.

This is a way for for educational institutions that want to purchase a large amount of licenses for an iPhone or iPad app without the need for countless individual iTunes accounts. The purchasing of these discounted applications is done with the use of vouchers which can be purchased via the Apple Store for Education in $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 denominations. These very vouchers then can be distributed to the program facilitators to be redeemed within the App Store.

Sounds like a great idea if a fairly complicated way to go about it. For the full rundown be sure to check out the Volume Purchase Plan Frequently Asked Questions.

[Thanks anonymized developer for the tip!]

The ultimate in interactive elements has arrived in the form of The Elements for iPad. I was a little late getting to this app seeing as how it came out at the iPad launch, but I am really soaking up what the Elements has to offer now. It’s is basically an interactive book made by the folks at Periodic Table. They make printed books, etc for the education market around the world. This is their first foray into the iPad/iPhone and I have to tell you; wow. I wish they had this stuff when I was a kid.

The way The Elements works is you have a complete listing of the periodic table of elements in front of you. These objects are not just photos of the elements, but actual 3D renders that move. Tap on an element and it takes you to that element’s custom page of discovery.

The element page consists of a big render of the element or an example of it’s use on the left of the screen and all the information you could want to know on the right including the atomic radius, structure, weight, density and more of the element. WolframAlpha provides additional information and proves to be an awesome resource.

The bottom right corner gives you additional navigational tools. Tap the right arrow to bring up more information about the element along with even more 3D renders of the the element or it’s uses. You can spin/rotate all of the element examples in real-time; there are over 500 renders in this app. You also get a detailed history and story about each element to give even more insight. Of course just having interactive 3D renders aren’t enough. No, double tap a render and you are presented with a fullscreen object. Tap the double circle icon and you can view the object stereoscopically. Focus your eyes, you can see a “real” 3D render of the object. Of course, some of us just can’t do that. So The Elements gives you a convenient link to order the special 3D glass for $4.95. That is rather cool. I can imagine students sharing the glasses to examine all of the elements in this way and it is really exciting to see the future of interactive education for students.

Alas, there is always another side to the story and regretfully this app has crashes constantly even with the most recent update. I so am looking forward to a few more updates to make it ultra-stable.

The newly formed company TouchPress is responsible for creating The Elements and are on a mission to make more books like this one. What is on my wish list? The human body and the universe, I can’t wait.

[$13.99- iTunes Link]

Pros

• Fantastic view of the elements in our world
• Unparalleled level of involvement and depth for this subject matter
• Background on the element and its uses
• Wolfram Alpha integration

• Hefty size, almost 2GB
• Crashes constantly

Apple is gearing up their 2009 university student-targeted promotion, and it turns out this year is a lot like last year:

A Mac has everything university students need for school. And now it includes something extra special. When university students buy a qualifying Mac, they’ll get a free iPod touch after mail-in rebate. And they save even more with Apple education pricing. This offer is for a limited time and is available only at the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Campus Stores.

Rumor was we’d see an iPhone option this year, but no such luck. Let jokes about mail-in rebate success levels begin!

(Thanks to everyone who sent this in.)