Well, is was supposedly ironic-humor and partly to try to prevent it going that way since it isn't anything to do with politics or shouldn't be. Then I didn't foresee the Creationsts fearing the kids in their States having access to the truth with this and the thread will no doubt go down hill from there
Well done mate! You really derailed this thread, didn't you. So maybe my post to an earlier thread on this subject was very relevant?
You mean like web pages, which are now all heavy duty JS and CSS with jQuery and AJAX and PHP, SQL, etc. There is no simple web project these days.
iWeb was good for beginners and any WYSIWYG development tools made for iBooks will also be usable in a rudimentary way, but to do it professionally I think we will still need the programmers.
I agree that the "new" textbooks will, likely, resemble a well-crafted, interactive web project -- with many, if not all, the components you mention,
I wonder how this will work out...
XCode has a pretty good beginning at storyboarding apps (could be books)
What Xcode lacks is a higher-level abstraction programming/scripting capability. I don't think PHP is the answer as it is too granular. I did a lot of web development using ColdFusion * -- powerful, but too verbose. Then you have all the intricacies of all the other web components.
* FWIW, a few years ago, another and myself created a self-contained ColdFusion package that included everything needed to run a web site from anywhere, on the desktop, from a read-only CD/DVD... It contained all the things you mentioned except PHP and included a DB server, Application Server, Web Server...
The goal was to encapsulate an interactive, database-driven web site as an executable app on the desktop, or CD/DVD. Not quite the same as the "new" textbooks -- but it is eerily similar...
Ideally, the creative author could prepare "new" textbooks on a high level with tools familiar to him,
Maybe, the approach should be to use something like Keynote to storyboard your "new" textbook at a high level -- then use some kind of compiler to generate the ePub (or whatever).
I suspect that this process could be modular so that changes could be made without regenerating and redistributing the entire textbook.
Of course, the author will want to include/interface/create additional content -- like audio, video and apps (say a 3D graphing app) within the text -- that's a whole 'nother set of requirements.
Consider, if you will an interactive textbook on PhotoShop, iMovie or Final Cut... or better, an interactive textbook on how to use the interactive textbook creation tools!
One of the primary sources of inspiration for the project was said to be an e-book released by former U.S. vice president and Apple board member Al Gore. Last year, he and Push Pop Press released "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis" on the iOS App Store
Well I hope the concept works as well for non-fiction textbooks. Guess we will find out.
HyperCard used to be intuitive. Keynote is fairly intuitive. These are examples of the program doing the grunt work so the author/designer/etc. can focus on the content. Web page design is horrible drudgery.
We now have AppleScript and Automator but it's not quite the wonder that HyperCard was. I loved HyperCard, HyperTalk and Danny Goodman's clarity in explaining it all.
Actually, it is quite good if you take the time to explore it beyond the admittedly terse tech notes.
I took the time to learn how to use Pages to create ePub3 and IMHO it is quite good. It could be better and I would love to be able to include APPS with in the iBook which is part of the ePub3 standard.
My biggest grief is there are really no good ePub3 capable readers other than iBooks. iBooks doesn't even exist as a Reader app on the Mac!
IMHO that is an area where Apple has dropped the ball. I hope Thursday fixes some of these irritations.
If I want quick and dirty, ie like most of the ePubs out there I can knock those out in just a few minutes using Mac OS Services for Lion.
I can convert to MOIB but that is only for Kindle and it irritates me to have to do that for such a limited platform.
I also find it disturbing that most ePub Readers for Android leave a fair amount to be desired but that may be a limitation of how Android displays things and the dinky size of most Android tablets. I hope some one has the balls to try a good ePub3 Reader for Android.
Oh no ... Poor you. As an ex science teacher I simply can't take them.
As an ex-science teacher then you may be interested in the story of one of your brethren who converted to brickism. He's no more vocal or opinionated than you are. Interesting read.
Awesome. Our Choice is easily the most well-made app of it's kind on the appstore. I was blown away when I first saw it. The first thing I thought about was interactive textbooks. The fluidity, functionality, usability, and beauty of the app is amazing, regardless of your political views. But I have to admit, the sheer hatred and vitriol towards environmental concern in this thread is pretty shocking. Makes mewant to take a second look on whether I even want to be a member of a forum with such right wing, reality-rejecting mindset.
The Push Pop app was actually very well done as an interactive eBook. I've always been very fond of reading things that are tangental to the main topic and would find this kind of format very fascinating.
In addition, if an author felt that he/she wanted only to keep one thread of thought going, but needed to explain some concepts in greater depth to make them clear, then this sort of interactive experience could make it possible to do so without drawing out the reading experience for those with better understanding.
The only danger, as I see it, is that an author might be tempted to use the interactive elements excessively since they are available and not because they add anything of value.
For everyone who's been victimized inside college bookstores, paying $100+ for a textbook that returns $.50 at the end of the semester, this is good news. I hope Apple turns the textbook business inside out.
Another good thing is it will reduce the weight of backpacks our kids are being forced to carry all over school.
Not really. Evolutionary zealots are just as easily brainwashed as biblical zealots. All he proves is that he can't think for himself but rather needs someone to do his thinking for him, be it a scientist with an agenda or a preacher with one.
Evolution is real, as we can easily see it in action, for example as pathogens mutate and become drug resistant.
Creation may be real as well but there is no proof. In any case it is pretty obvious that it did not happen as stated in the bible. There are just too many inconsistencies with the natural world.
Not really. Evolutionary zealots are just as easily brainwashed as biblical zealots. All he proves is that he can't think for himself but rather needs someone to do his thinking for him, be it a scientist with an agenda or a preacher with one.
Evolution is real, as we can easily see it in action, for example as pathogens mutate and become drug resistant.
Creation may be real as well but there is no proof. In any case it is pretty obvious that it did not happen as stated in the bible. There are just too many inconsistencies with the natural world.
That is your opinion and I respect it as such although I disagree with it. This is the story of someone who was on the evolutionary side of things and did his own "thinking for himself" and found that there was scientific evidence that points to a creator. He saw it after he took the blinders off. But as I said earlier, if one's definition of science precludes the existence of a creator then no amount of evidence would convince such a person.
To me it's not that complicated. Look around. I don't need a scientific study to tell me that my car was designed by an engineer, even though I may not know anything about that engineer. Likewise there are too many moving parts that mesh together in creation for it to have been an accident or random occurance and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that.
Comments
Well, is was supposedly ironic-humor and partly to try to prevent it going that way since it isn't anything to do with politics or shouldn't be. Then I didn't foresee the Creationsts fearing the kids in their States having access to the truth with this and the thread will no doubt go down hill from there
Well done mate! You really derailed this thread, didn't you. So maybe my post to an earlier thread on this subject was very relevant?
You mean like web pages, which are now all heavy duty JS and CSS with jQuery and AJAX and PHP, SQL, etc. There is no simple web project these days.
iWeb was good for beginners and any WYSIWYG development tools made for iBooks will also be usable in a rudimentary way, but to do it professionally I think we will still need the programmers.
I agree that the "new" textbooks will, likely, resemble a well-crafted, interactive web project -- with many, if not all, the components you mention,
I wonder how this will work out...
- XCode has a pretty good beginning at storyboarding apps (could be books)
- XCode supports CoreData for high[er]-level dbms
- XCode supports OAS (AppleScript) high-level scripting
What Xcode lacks is a higher-level abstraction programming/scripting capability. I don't think PHP is the answer as it is too granular. I did a lot of web development using ColdFusion * -- powerful, but too verbose. Then you have all the intricacies of all the other web components.* FWIW, a few years ago, another and myself created a self-contained ColdFusion package that included everything needed to run a web site from anywhere, on the desktop, from a read-only CD/DVD... It contained all the things you mentioned except PHP and included a DB server, Application Server, Web Server...
The goal was to encapsulate an interactive, database-driven web site as an executable app on the desktop, or CD/DVD. Not quite the same as the "new" textbooks -- but it is eerily similar...
ColdFusion Everywhere PART 1
Back on topic...
Ideally, the creative author could prepare "new" textbooks on a high level with tools familiar to him,
Maybe, the approach should be to use something like Keynote to storyboard your "new" textbook at a high level -- then use some kind of compiler to generate the ePub (or whatever).
I suspect that this process could be modular so that changes could be made without regenerating and redistributing the entire textbook.
Of course, the author will want to include/interface/create additional content -- like audio, video and apps (say a 3D graphing app) within the text -- that's a whole 'nother set of requirements.
Consider, if you will an interactive textbook on PhotoShop, iMovie or Final Cut... or better, an interactive textbook on how to use the interactive textbook creation tools!
http://www.chegg.com/etextbooks/
It's written up on NYT:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0.../?ref=business
One of the primary sources of inspiration for the project was said to be an e-book released by former U.S. vice president and Apple board member Al Gore. Last year, he and Push Pop Press released "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis" on the iOS App Store
Well I hope the concept works as well for non-fiction textbooks. Guess we will find out.
-kpluck
HyperCard used to be intuitive. Keynote is fairly intuitive. These are examples of the program doing the grunt work so the author/designer/etc. can focus on the content. Web page design is horrible drudgery.
We now have AppleScript and Automator but it's not quite the wonder that HyperCard was. I loved HyperCard, HyperTalk and Danny Goodman's clarity in explaining it all.
There is an ePub template for Pages but it's not very pretty
Actually, it is quite good if you take the time to explore it beyond the admittedly terse tech notes.
Actually, it is quite good if you take the time to explore it beyond the admittedly terse tech notes.
I took the time to learn how to use Pages to create ePub3 and IMHO it is quite good. It could be better and I would love to be able to include APPS with in the iBook which is part of the ePub3 standard.
My biggest grief is there are really no good ePub3 capable readers other than iBooks. iBooks doesn't even exist as a Reader app on the Mac!
IMHO that is an area where Apple has dropped the ball. I hope Thursday fixes some of these irritations.
If I want quick and dirty, ie like most of the ePubs out there I can knock those out in just a few minutes using Mac OS Services for Lion.
I can convert to MOIB but that is only for Kindle and it irritates me to have to do that for such a limited platform.
I also find it disturbing that most ePub Readers for Android leave a fair amount to be desired but that may be a limitation of how Android displays things and the dinky size of most Android tablets. I hope some one has the balls to try a good ePub3 Reader for Android.
Bricks are far less vocal and opinionated. I have a congregation of them living next door and I never hear a peep out of them.
Oh no ... Poor you. As an ex science teacher I simply can't take them.
Bricks are far less vocal and opinionated. I have a congregation of them living next door and I never hear a peep out of them.
That's nice.
Well done mate! You really derailed this thread, didn't you. So maybe my post to an earlier thread on this subject was very relevant?
My bad.
Oh no ... Poor you. As an ex science teacher I simply can't take them.
As an ex-science teacher then you may be interested in the story of one of your brethren who converted to brickism. He's no more vocal or opinionated than you are. Interesting read.
http://www.icr.org/article/95/
In addition, if an author felt that he/she wanted only to keep one thread of thought going, but needed to explain some concepts in greater depth to make them clear, then this sort of interactive experience could make it possible to do so without drawing out the reading experience for those with better understanding.
The only danger, as I see it, is that an author might be tempted to use the interactive elements excessively since they are available and not because they add anything of value.
Another good thing is it will reduce the weight of backpacks our kids are being forced to carry all over school.
Interesting read.
Not really. Evolutionary zealots are just as easily brainwashed as biblical zealots. All he proves is that he can't think for himself but rather needs someone to do his thinking for him, be it a scientist with an agenda or a preacher with one.
Evolution is real, as we can easily see it in action, for example as pathogens mutate and become drug resistant.
Creation may be real as well but there is no proof. In any case it is pretty obvious that it did not happen as stated in the bible. There are just too many inconsistencies with the natural world.
Not really. Evolutionary zealots are just as easily brainwashed as biblical zealots. All he proves is that he can't think for himself but rather needs someone to do his thinking for him, be it a scientist with an agenda or a preacher with one.
Evolution is real, as we can easily see it in action, for example as pathogens mutate and become drug resistant.
Creation may be real as well but there is no proof. In any case it is pretty obvious that it did not happen as stated in the bible. There are just too many inconsistencies with the natural world.
That is your opinion and I respect it as such although I disagree with it. This is the story of someone who was on the evolutionary side of things and did his own "thinking for himself" and found that there was scientific evidence that points to a creator. He saw it after he took the blinders off. But as I said earlier, if one's definition of science precludes the existence of a creator then no amount of evidence would convince such a person.
To me it's not that complicated. Look around. I don't need a scientific study to tell me that my car was designed by an engineer, even though I may not know anything about that engineer. Likewise there are too many moving parts that mesh together in creation for it to have been an accident or random occurance and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that.