With iBooks Author you can create awesome interactive textbooks for use on iPads or Macs. I will walk you through the creation of ebooks that can be used to support classroom instruction, blended learning or a Flipped classroom. We’ll also toss in a little TPACK and rethink what a textbook can be.

Outline and Links:

• Who am I?
• Steve Dickie - Started teaching at Divine Child High School in 2000. I've taught physics, electronics, botany, physical science, environmental science, and genetics. I am now the Director if Instructional Technology.
• @falconphysics
• +SteveDickie
• The tool I've been waiting for? A textbook doesn't exist for my electronics class, so I've been experimenting with making my own. epub was close, but had some key limitations. About five years ago I dramatically changed the way I teach physics. For the last three years that I taught physics I stopped using a textbook altogether.
• My Class Page - Pre-Engineering: Electronics with Microcontrollers
• Electronics with Micro-controllers - iTunes U course hosted on the MI-Learning Channel. Includes iBook versions of the class page.
• My Physics Course - iTunes U course. Very incomplete, but does include examples of the physics iBooks I'm working on.
• Overview of interactive iBooks
• Anthony DiLaura’s Examples (some of them anyway)
• E.O. Wilson’s Book - Life on Earth
• 1812: Who Won the War? encourages teachers to make the study of history a verb; that is, for students to “do history” in the same way that students “do science.” 
• Teacher Created Textbooks
• Traditionally textbooks try to be complete reference books as well as books to teach. Your book doesn’t have to be both. You can leave some parts unanswered on purpose. Traditional textbooks can’t (or won’t).
• You can link to specific sites on the internet and use the web as your reference. That way your book can focus on teaching
• You can match the tool to what you want your students to know and how you plan to teach it! TPACK.org
• Derek Muller on the effectiveness of videos to teach science. Was very enlightening for me. Learning by doing is much more effective than learning by watching.
• Advantages
• Interactive - Can easily include videos and cool interactive elements
• Price* - If you create your own they're free!
• Focused on your Curriculum - You are a content expert. If you’ve designed your own curriculum there probably isn’t a textbook to support it.
• Limitations
• Only iPad or a Mac running latest operating system (Mavericks)
• Files can get huge. If you have a lot of videos these books can get very big.
• You have to do all of the work… Or do you? 
• ck12 - Create a FlexBook as a starting point to make the whole process less daunting. You can even import your finished epub directly into iBooks Author.
• Open Educational Resources - Lots of stuff here
• Five Minute book creation:
• Choose Template and Edit Template
• Add text
• Add images and Gallery
• Add movies
• Add Keynote 
• Creating Open Interactive Books - Awesome iTunes U course for creating iBooks put together for the 2013 iBooks Hackathon.
• Adding Extra Cool Widgets
• Bookry and BookWidgets offer simple ways of adding extra interactivity to your iBooks.
• Create your own with Keynote or Tumult Hype. Check out my tutorials.
• Shameless Plug - iBookHack - June 29th - July 1st in Zeeland Michigan.