Apple’s iBooks Textbooks to bring educational content to India

iBooks Textbooks would now be available in India with Apple's announcement yesterday that it was expanding into 51 countries including India, Brazil, Italy and Japan.

The company has also made iTunes U Course Manager available in 70 countries including Russia, Thailand and Malaysia.

''The incredible content and tools available for iPad provide teachers with new ways to customise learning unlike ever before,'' said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a release.

''We can't wait to see how teachers in even more countries will create their new lesson plans with interactive textbooks, apps and rich digital content.''

iBooks Textbooks have gained immense popularity among students in the US and UK as  almost the entire US high school core curriculum is covered in the books as also the UK's General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) syllabus.

iBooks Textbooks provide students captivating fullscreen textbooks which feature interactive animations, rotating 3D diagrams, flick-through photo galleries and tap-to-play videos.

They can be updated with the unfolding of events and do not need to be returned. There are now nearly 25,000 titles from publishers like Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Hodder Education.

NDTV quoted Peter Marshall, managing director, ELT Division at Oxford University Press as saying, Oxford University Press was using iBooks Author for Headway, Oxford's all-time best-selling English language series, to create engaging iBooks Textbooks for iPad.

He added, in releasing 13 new iBooks Textbooks, including 'Headway Pre-Intermediate,' the best-selling level in the series, the ELT division was enriching the language learning experience for students around the world.

iTunes U Course Manager allows educators to share their knowledge and resources directly with their class or with a global audience on iTunes U. With the free iOS app learners can access to an online catalogue of free educational content from top schools, leading universities and prominent institutions.

With iTunes U Course manager, teachers can integrate their own documents as part of course curriculum, as also content from the internet, iBooks, iTunes U collections, or iOS apps.