Category Archives: iBooks

Bedford Girls' School, Design, iBooks, iPads

A-Level Psychology Research Methods Published

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Paula put some epic work into her A-Level Psychology book on Research Methods. She drafted the full text in Google Docs, including outlines for the interactive elements, links to videos and recommended texts.

The book was published internally at BGS in late summer 2016, ready for her to teach the A-Level course, but we hadn’t got round to amending certain pages which related to particular models or questions from the course text. We always publish original work on the iBooks Store.

Paula’s book received a lot of interest and requests for public publication so it’s good to get it out there at last. It’s definitely the most detailed book published at BGS so far, and it was an honour to work on the layout. I look forward to working more on the book as she refines it through teaching it.

Download A-Level Psychology Research Methods for free

Apple Distinguished School, Bedford Girls' School, iBooks, iPads, Presentations & Talks, Teaching

Sharing our Apple Story

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It’s been a fantastic couple of days at Bedford Girls’ School. As an Apple Distinguished School we were proud to host over 100 educators from Finland, Poland, Denmark and Greenland. The delegates had come over to the UK to visit BETT 2017, and also visit other schools who use Apple technology to improve teaching and learning.

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As part of the visit we gave some short presentations on our iPad story, as well as how we use iTunes U and iBooks to support learning. I was nervous but excited to explain my part of the strategy as Digital Design Creator.

The highlight of each of the visits was the opportunity to take a group on a learning walk, which is a tour of classrooms. The timetable for lessons remained unchanged and the visitors were joining ordinary lessons across a range of year groups and subjects.

Jo MacKenzie, our Head, also wrote about the visits. The girls were really excited to share what they got up to, and how iPads changed their education.

Not only did we all learn a lot about how other schools approach technology and learning, but we swapped ideas and discovered how anything from the school day structure to how marking and feedback is handled differs.

Apple Distinguished School, Awards, Bedford Girls' School, Design, iBooks, iPads, Teaching

BGS Apple Distinguished School Story

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Following Bedford Girls’ School’s approval as an Apple Distinguished School in late 2016, we published our story to the iTunes Bookstore.

The application process for an Apple Distinguished School is to complete an iBook covering 5 particular areas, using a particular template base. Once an ADS, you are invited to publish the book (subject to extra approval and vetting from Apple for use of product images, logos, etc.) to allow others to read.

You can download the Bedford Girls’ School book here.

Apple Distinguished School, Bedford Girls' School, Design, iBooks, iPads, Presentations & Talks, Teaching

Sharing Our iPad Story with Local Schools

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In conjunction with Apple Education, we welcomed some guests from schools from our county and neighbouring counties today, to share our iPad story.

We explained how we used the iPads, iTunes U and iBooks amongst many other tools to enrich learning, and took our guests on a tour of some lessons.

Some of our guests had sets of iPads, others were considering Microsoft, but we all had common ground in the challenges we face.

Bedford Girls' School, Design, iBooks, iPads

Pythagoras Published

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The first BGS Mathematics multi-touch book is now available to download on the iBooks Store.

Pythagoras is an introduction to studying Pythagorean Theorem, suitable for KS3. Who was Pythagoras? What is the Theorem? How can we use it?

The book will guide you through at every stage with worked examples and questions to complete. The book is full of interactive elements, videos and illustrations. Accessible scrolling view supported.

Download Pythagoras for free from the iBooks Store

Bedford Girls' School, Copywriting, Design, iBooks, iPads

Computer Systems Published

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Our first Computer Science multi-touch book is now available to download for free on the iBooks Store.

Designed for Year 9 students, we explore the different parts that make up a computer system, and how they all work together to allow you to do anything from write a novel, analyse the human genome and allow you to watch hours of cat videos on YouTube…

Download Computer Systems for free

Bedford Girls' School, Design, iBooks, iPads

Discovering Biology Published & Vectors in iBooks Author

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The Bedford Girls’ School Year 6 Biology revision guide has been published to the iTunes Bookstore. It has been renamed ‘Discovering Biology’ and covers cells, microscopes, senses, skeleton, muscles and microbes suitable for keystage 2 or 3 learners.

Download Discovering Biology for free on the iTunes Bookstore.

Under the bonnet, the book demonstrates the turning point in my workflow from constructing diagrams using Adobe Photoshop to using iBook Author’s vector tools.

Whereas the interactive diagrams require a raster image (the microscope was illustrated in Photoshop for example), I now construct the illustrations embedded into the pages without augmentation entirely with vectors within iBooks Author. (Muscles illustration is entirely drawn with vectors within iBA.)

The software doesn’t currently support importing SVG etc, but I was pleased how easy it was to draw. The only drawback is that it can crash out, so I’m conscious to save very regularly. Hopefully an update will resolve the stability (I feel I’ve submitted more than enough reports!)