Although I hadn’t planned to initially, I ended up watching the entire keynote from New York about the launch of textbooks on the Apple iPad, as well as changes to iTunesU. 

Whether that is the right way to go for an entire school is another matter, and debate continues to rage.  While we carefully evaluate the situation we are laying the groundwork in terms of internet connectivity, wi-fi and running a number of pilot programmes for various different devices, but the presentation from the Guggenheim museum was very interesting. 

One of the reasons I hadn’t planned to watch the whole thing is that I had an idea of what a digital textbook on an iPad might look like.  I expected the text to be nice and clear, good visuals, embedded video, but as always with Apple, there are a few twists and turns.  The note-taking and highlighting looked very straightforward, and the easy conversion into revision flashcards very appealing. 

The ease with which these textbooks are created, using the software that Apple is giving away free (though one is required to buy an Apple Macintosh computer to use it on!) also looked very straightforward.  As a member of the Independent Schools ICT strategy group we have been exploring iTunesU for some time and the changes to that also looked very interesting. 

It remains to be seen what impact this will have on the American textbook market and whether that impact will be the same within English schools.  However, it was certainly an interesting time for Apple to come in and shake things up, and it will be even more interesting to see how the competition reacts in the coming months.