1. William Melton
Creation of an iBook as
an educational
resource

2. Topics
❖ Background
❖ Basic content
❖ Interactive content
❖ Things to think about
❖ Setbacks
❖ Summary

3. Background
❖ 4 week ‘Personal Excellence Pathway’ at the
Manchester Medical School.
❖ Lack of prior teaching on examination of the
cardiovascular system.
❖ Decided to create an iBook to rectify the issue.

4. Basic Content
❖ Majority of the content was explanation using text.
❖ Created using scientific papers, textbooks and common
knowledge.
❖ Shadowed consultant cardiologists in the hospital to
ascertain common practice and explore some of the
more intricate parts of the examination.
❖ Most however was drawn from prior knowledge picked
up during the first few years of education.

5. Interactive Content
❖ iBooks Author
❖ FREE
❖ Intuitive and easy to use
❖ Numerous styles to fit any kind
of book.
❖ Easy to import other content
including movies and ‘widgets’.
❖ Only used to create iBooks, no
other format supported.

6. Interactive Content
❖ Glossary
❖ Useful way of including fine details which are not included in the
main content of the book.
❖ Can include pictures and links to further explain and describe what is
found in the main content.
❖ Links in the text in the glossary can provide a summary without
pictures or can take you through to the glossary where pictures are
included.

8. Interactive Content
❖ iMovie
❖ Basic video editing application
provided on all macs. FREE.
❖ Easy to use and creates basic but
slick videos.
❖ Tip - if you’re creating a lot of video
content use a low resolution.
❖ Can take up a lot of space on
computer - bear in mind before
beginning.

10. Interactive Content
❖ iPhoto
❖ Once again… Apple product.
❖ Only used to edit photos slightly
to enhance and crop the
features being shown.
❖ Useful bit of free software that
supported all my photo editing
needs.

11. Interactive Content
❖ Widgets
❖ Many websites dedicated to creating
widgets.
❖ I chose bookry.com, free to use as
long as you credit their widget with
their logo.
❖ Could employ a slightly easier
method to create widgets.
❖ More complicated widgets than mine
could require more investment of
both time and money.

13. Things to think about
❖ Do you want your iBook to be free? - brings a whole new
range of issues.
❖ Do you want your iBook to be available on androids or
kindles etc.?
❖ Think about purchasing an instructional handbook -
save time on trial and error.
❖ How to control the distribution of your iBook outside of
the Apple store.

14. Setbacks
❖ Finding and creating the interactive content - photos of
clinical signs particularly.
❖ The amount of space taken up by the videos created for
the iBook.
❖ Creating the cover design - required expertise in design
software I did not possess.
❖ For the iBook to be used by the Manchester Medical
School it had to be certified by two consultants.

15. Summary
❖ Educational iBooks can be created by both students and
staff in a relatively small amount of time.
❖ They require very little prior knowledge and experience.
❖ There are a number of useful free applications out there
that can help make your iBook look great.
❖ Prior thought should be given to publishing and
distribution of the iBooks.

16. Any Questions?