Touchable Interactive Textbooks
UPDATE: Congratulations to ecodads for achieving their funding goal of $20,000, with 6 days left to go. So far, there are 69 backers and $20,562 pledged for the project of making Touchable Textbook Apps a reality!
For the past few months, Michael Leifer, a Cultural Anthropologist, has been creating some really fun and Educational (Interactive Textbook) Apps for Kids and Teens, with his friend Jory Prum, (who has worked with Jim Henson / Muppets, Pixar and Lucas Arts).
Here’s a demo video link that they put up to give it a kickstart : Kickstart, is a crowd funding way to help promote your idea or project. Note the deadline is in nine more days, and Michael and the ecodads group is very close to reaching their goal. Currently, their project is 77% funded. It will be funded if at least $20,000 is raised by 8:39AM on Thursday, December 27,2012. They only need $4,535 to make this happen! Your support of this project, can help make a difference in educational needs across the country.
The California next-generation parenting movement ecodads® co-founded by Michael Leifer, have created a new form of fun Interactive Textbook (iBook) Applications for the Apple® iPad® called “Touchable Books.” They target and engage the iGeneration of digital-native students. These iBook modules bring to life classroom units with touch-based local habitat maps, 3d views from atop the Golden Gate bridge, time lapse cinematography, videos from award-winning directors, interactive slideshows, an instantly accessible glossary, flashcards, games and content review quizzes. A demo video of the technology, full description and strategic roll-out plan for the apps can be viewed at the Kickstarter crowd-funding project.
For the 1st set of iBooks, they have selected a landmark CURRICULUM called “Education and the Environment” (which has been unanimously-approved by the CA State Board of Education and is for K-12th graders). It also works with Common CORE and STAR Testing Education Standards, so teachers can easily integrate these apps into their classrooms.
The K-12 curriculum is comprised of 85 units teaching select science, history and social science academic standards. Naturally, the successful elements of this effort could be utilized to benefit schools across our country, AND produce generations of environmental stewards, that learn and seek environmental jobs of the future.
I would like to encourage you to review the video demo and brief plan, and to consider lending your support. What better way is there to give educators a wonderful way to merge experiences in the classroom with enriching activities in school gardens, parks, aquariums, and science centers, than with these interactive apps?
According to CalRecycle Director Caroll Mortensen, “Our biggest challenge in bringing the EEI to teachers and students is the high cost of printing and distribution. The proposed EEI apps will significantly reduce costs and give students an improved and interactive environment-based curriculum.”
If we as a nation are serious about providing our students a world-class education, be it home school or whatever option we choose, we need a plan that leaves no school and no child offline, or left without this option. This is achievable, by making these apps widely available, and by reaching the funding goal.
Together, with your help and support, we can collectively demonstrate a new guiding model for the antiquated textbook publishing industry. This can and will improve both our student comprehensive and education system overall, and it can happen nationwide. Lets invest in our children, their future, and a green future for everyone. Together we are working toward many brighter tomorrows.
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