Widgets in iBooks Author: An Explanation
Widgets in iBooks Author give teachers lots of opportunities to add interactivity into a book. Here is an explanation of each one:
The Gallery Widget allows you to put multiple pictures in one frame and have students swipe between the pictures. This is very useful for related pictures in that you can have one title but multiple captions. It also saves a lot of space if you want students to look at several pictures all on the same topic.
The Media Widget allows you to insert audio or video files into your iBook. You can also drag and drop the file into the spot you’d like instead of actually selecting this widget. As a warning, video files must be .m4v and audio files must be .m4a. I recommend for video files converting them using QuickTime whenever possible.
The Review Widget allows you to put a short formative assessment into an iBook. Questions can be multiple choice or picture matching. Data for these assessments are not saved, so this is more for the students to check themselves, rather than for the teacher to collect results.
The Keynote Widget allows you to insert a Keynote presentation (the Macintosh version of Powerpoint) into an iBook. If you have Keynote, this is a great way to add interactivity
The Interactive Image Widget allows you to place a picture into an iBook and then have different labels to zoom into different parts of the picture. This can be a great widget, but it is difficult to use so be sure to be patient with it.
The 3D Widget allows you to import a 3D model into your iBook. You will not be able to see a proper preview of the model on the computer, but on the iPad the 3D model will be able to turn and rotate and enlarge so students can see everything about it. 3D models MUST be in .dae (Collada format). You can get these files from Google’s SketchUp Warehouse (now officially called Trimble).
The Scrolling Sidebar Widget allows a teacher to put a text and/or pictures in a box that will scroll down instead of taking up multiple pages of text. This is a new widget and it can be great for giving additional (but maybe not necessary) information on a topic without using a up a lot of space. The text can go on for a long time (perhaps infinitely?), without taking up extra space.
The Pop-Over Widget allows a teacher to add a picture and then have students click on the picture to get additional information about whatever it is. This is similar in many ways to the Scrolling Sidebar Widget in that you can have students go deeper into a subject without losing a lot of space on the page.
The HTML Widget allows a teacher who knows or has great access to HTML5 resources to put an interactive piece of code into the book. This is not easy, so if you don’t know HTML5, I don’t recommend trying this one out. You can do a Google search to find HTML5 apps for iBooks if you are really interested.