Apple’s Education Event In New York City [Live Updates]

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7:00am: Phill Schiller takes the stage, “We’re proud to help students learn”…and “Students are being introducd to the iPad”

7:03am “I get discouraged when students don’t graduate… knowing that we failed them.”

7:06am “There is a lot that’s talked about that might be wrong in education, and no one person or company can fix it all.”

iPads were #1 on kids wishlists this holiday season. The source wasn’t cited, but we’re guessing Santa has started his own research fun

There are over 20,000 education and learning applications for the iPad, things like The Elements, Frog Dissection, Virtual Rome, Art Authority…

“We want to help it to accelerate, and make it even easier to integrate the iPad into the curriculum.

7:08 am “This is starting to take off, but we want to make it even easier. Today we want to tell you about two things to help this out.”

7:08 am “Reinventing Textbooks”

7:08 am A demo now of the new iBooks 2.

The book starts with a dramatic intro movie.

7:10 am “You can see 3D models and see inside a cell.”

7:12 am “Authors have total freedom in terms of laying out text and graphics.”

There is a cross-section of a cell, and you can swipe a slider to adjust the visual density.

7:13 am “Of course, sometimes you just want to focus on reading the text. You just rotate, and we re-layout the book.”

“If I want to get to the TOC, I just pinch, and there you are. So really our books have two different reading experiences, and I can choose whichever suits me best. But we’ve just scratched the surface.”

7:15 am Finger works as a highlighter, you can also change colors, all through section called “Notes”

7:20 am In the iBookstore there is a new category called “textbooks”.

7:21 am Phil Schiller takes the stage again. “So iBooks 2 is an application you download to your iPhone or iPad, and it’s free. Available today.”

“So you’ve seen how amazing these books can be. But what you haven’t seen is how easy it is to create these books. We have a new application — we call it iBooks Author.”

7:22 am A Mac app for authoring books.

Available free in the Mac App Store, provides interactive graphics widgets. Allows you to import from other iWork applications.

”Interactive Experiences without any programming necessary” 

7:35 am Textbooks are available today for $14.99 from publishers like PEarson, McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin.

7:40 am Playing video.

7:45 am For the next, I want to invite up Eddy Cue.” Eddy!

7:46 am Eddy is talking about iTunes U. Introduces new iTunes U app.

“We want to let teachers do more. We want them to do everything you need to take a class. The syllabus, everything. So we’re introducing a new iTunes U that let’s teachers do everything on their iPad.

7:48 am “So let’s take a look at the new iTunes U app. If you’ve ever used iBooks, iTunes U is going to feel very familiar.”

7:48 am “It has a beautiful mahogany bookshelf.”

“Teachers can customize these topics, and give you things like office hours.”

Posts — this is where teachers can post messages to their class and give assignments.

And then there’s the Materials tab, which shows all the books, videos, audio clips, documents and everything you’ll need for the course.

7:52 am “And that’s the all new iTunes U app.”

7:56 am Phil is back.

“We hope that educators are going to look back on today’s announcements as fondly as our earlier work.”

“iBooks, reinventing the textbook. iBooks Author. iTunes U.”

7:58 am “I hope you’re as excited about these announcements as we are.”

Phil is done, lights are up. that’s it for today!

[via The Verge, Engadget]