My first few years of teaching, I developed a theory that if I wrote a book by my fourth year I would be famous and have a film made after me (think any major Hollywood film done after a teacher). Cheesy jokes aside, with iAuthor, I knew I had a chance to create an iBook with all of my research and experiments in education and technology. Doing a lot of technology presentations, I wanted to share what I had created as well as show off what this application could do for interactive books.
First, I love the interactive features. I was able to imbed pictures, keynotes, videos and diagrams that could do what I needed at the click of a button. Plus, with the Keynote files, all of my imbedded content and clips remained.
With chapters, it is easy to organize and arrange content for easy navigation. At the beginning of the chapter are special pages to organize content ahead of time while choosing one page or two page layouts.
As I created the book, it was so easy to add content that my book quickly grew. I only added content on resources that I actually used or had experimented with in my class. The best part, as I start to add more and experiment in my class, I could add more, take items out and retype as needed. The book is never printed, so I never have to worry about cost, only my time.
After writing the book I was hit with one conclusion, while I enjoy iAuthor this program would be amazing for my students. Sure, I can create a book with lessons and my presentations for my students, but why not let my kids create that content? I’m already doing project based learning, the end product could easily be an iBook. In that vein, kids are writing, creating video, creating Keynotes, giving presentations and working on verbal and communication skills all at the same time. Plus, at the end of the year, you have a whole library of content that your students would have created demonstrating their learning and understanding.
In the end, we are teaching our students to find content, consume it, and then produce a final product that has value. These are the exact skills employers hope that people have when embarking on a job interview. Kids can learn job specific skills from their boss, but thinking, writing, and application are skills that can be used anywhere.
Cyber Cafe 
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