As part of their ‘reinvention of the textbook,’ Apple yesterday unveiled three new applications for use in the digital educational under their  Apple in Education program: iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U. The tools are designed to allow for interactive textbooks, digital textbook creation, and open-access educational resources from top universities, respectively.

Specifically, the iBooks 2 app for the iPad will improve on the original iBooks app with the capacity to host digital textbooks – ones which are

“an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive.”

Presumably these would take greater advantage of the iPad’s multi-touch functionality, as the iBooks Author App allows e-books to be created for the iPad with anybody with a Mac.

Which is fine and dandy and makes the future of education look crazy exciting, but right now Apple’s only looking to ‘revolutionize’ education for a very small subset of rich American students, given that their textbook deals are chiefly with American textbook publishers, issues of copyright law would keep it that way for at least a few years, and there’s the part where not that many students can afford iPads.

Also I can’t scrawl rude drawings in my iPad’s margins.

[Source: Apple]