Students construct knowledge with their own iBooks

I was recently at Our Lady of the Angels Rouse Hill doing a workshop with them in creating iBooks using iBooks Author.  The Principal Eva La Rocco and the teachers saw the main benefit for the software as a way of students demonstrating their own understanding and knowledge by creating  an iBook that incorporated all their work.  The focus being for the students to create content rather than it being pushed to them via a teacher created iBook textbook.

A group of 7th graders in the USA have done just that  - publishing a digitally interactive field guide of Northwest Florida titled Creatures, Plants and More!

Jessie Chuang from Classroom Aid wrote a recent post that alerted me to  this great student created iBook.  As she points out some classrooms have already 'crafted their own learning materials as a learning process itself, including writing their own textbooks.'


'Andrea Santilli, a teacher at Woodlawn Beach Middle School in Gulf Breeze, Florida, wanted to find a new way to challenge her 7th grade Advanced Life Science students. She wanted to help them develop relevant lifelong skills in addition to their regular studies, so Santilli set out on a unique quest."I wanted to give them the opportunity to be published so they could use this as part of their academic resume and to make what they learn have real meaning," says Santilli.

Santilli saw creating an iBook as an opportunity to have her class become the first group of 7th graders to publish a digitally interactive book, and to have their work available not just locally but to anyone around the world.

For MacLife post for more information on this project: 

Superstar 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore

The book is free from the iBooks store, or click on the book cover image to be taken to the iBook link.