Georgia Parks and Natural Resources & The possibilities of Electronic textbooks in your classroom Dr. Chris Greer Georgia College www.drchrisgreer.com @drchrisgreer

Available as a free download in iBooks Store First Digital Text in 2012 Available as a free download in iBooks Store Created by 10 graduate students First student-created book to be accepted into Apple iBooks Store Downloaded over 10,000 times

Also available as a free download in iBooks Store Latest book Also available as a free download in iBooks Store Graduate students helped to create this as well First digital textbook on a state park system here in the U.S. Features video of biologists, historians, and interpretive rangers

Georgia Parks and Natural Resources: A Guide for educators Available in ePub as well as iBooks Completely free FULL of video interviews with experts from around the state of Georgia A great supplement to your traditional science or history textbooks

Let’s Get Sidetracked for a second Virtual Reality Georgia Subscribe to the YouTube Channel, tons of content is coming

Students as Consumers Traditional method of learning Teacher is the “sage on the stage” and delivers content to students through websites, textbooks, videos, and other material Students play a less active role in the classroom, are less likely to stay engaged throughout the lesson Remembering material delivered in the manner can be more challenging to many learners

Students as Producers Students take more responsibility for their learning Can be done individually or as group work Creativity is encouraged Students feel ownership of the content Promotes digital literacy in many different ways

Book Creation Having students create their own book is a “textbook” example of changing their role from consumers of knowledge to producers Is not hard to do There are a multitude of ways that it can be implemented across all content areas

Book Creator Software can be run on a PC or tablet Very simple interface allows for book creation at all grade levels ePub files ensure universal compatibility All you need is an iPad or a laptop running Google Chrome Browser

IDEAS Digital Journal Science/lab book Literacy/creative writing (Sentence starter) Simple “How-to” books Non-fiction (History, Biography, Science) Photo book (scavenger hunt, field trip)

IDEAS Math? Create a cookbook Collaborative book (combine books feature) Create a book in a different language Create an informational video with accompanying text

Let’s take a look at Book Creator

iBooks Author The most powerful book creation software, combines professional look with intuitive interface Free! Only on a Mac Supports ePub!*

iBooks Author You really only need a single Mac (if price/availability is a concern) Students create their content in word processor and then transfer it to the Mac Book Creator books can be imported into iBooks Author

Let’s take a look at iBooks Author

Email: chris.greer@gcsu.edu www.drchrisgreer.com