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Bookboon is a free service offering free full-length textbooks, travel guides, and business books in digital form. The textbook section of Bookboon offers more than 500 digital textbooks. On Bookboon there are etextbooks available for twenty-five subjects, but the bulk of the etextbooks are focused on Economics, Engineering, and IT.

"Inkling is a platform for interactive textbooks, built from the ground up for iPad. It turns paper-based textbooks books into engaging, interactive learning experiences while staying compatible with the print book for classroom use."

Nice interactive app that schools with iPads should consider exploring as a replacement for traditional textbooks.

Platform for interactive books. Conversion of books to iPad. Add video and QA to content. Purchase chapters or textbook. McGraw Hill platform.

"Here's how to create a digital textbook and strategies for involving the students in its development in three steps." Some other useful resources also mentioned by commenters

Aggregate, Curate and Create Your Own Textbook

3rd graders create their own Textbook on LiveBinders

"From Reading to Interacting. Turn your vision into reality by creating your own version of an existing PDF or textbook. Give it a dynamic touch, jot down notes, add video/audio clips, and discuss materials with your readers within your interactive content. Use Active Textbook to learn, teach or simply share your documents online - it's easy! "

Quite a few things listed in this post. "Open Educational Resources are learning tools like textbooks, lesson plans, and other media that are in the public domain or openly licensed, meaning that use you can freely use and adapt them. Unlike online resources that are free but not openly licensed, you can adapt OERs as much as you like to your own needs, which makes them an infinitely flexible tool. For example, you could take a geography textbook and add examples and landmarks from your own region. Or you could take a storybook and translate it, as a class, into another language. Or your art class could create new illustrations for an existing story."

"Japan will soon start trialling electronic textbooks in primary schools, enhancing the role of IT in the classroom for a generation of "digital natives" born in the wired age. Under the "future school" project, 10 elementary schools will give all their under-12 pupils tablet PCs and fit their classrooms with interactive electronic blackboards starting as early as next month."

Interesting development in Japan with a pilot Tablet computer project.

Another interesting article

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." -- Audre Lorde Well here we go, after months of speculation -- beginning with the publication of Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve jobs -- we now know about Apple's plans to "transform the textbook industry."

This post is in response to Apple's textbook announcement. When I was in Year 9, American History was a compulsory subject, being Australian in Australian school, American History wasn't relevant to me and I coasted through as best I could. Subsequently my knowledge of American History is extremely poor, it was a wasted year.

These strategies will help you design an eBook implementation districts increasingly move to digital content, many school leaders are chucking printed textbooks in favor of the more interactive content that eBooks and digital texts can offer.

These strategies will help you design an eBook implementation districts increasingly move to digital content, many school leaders are chucking printed textbooks in favor of the more interactive content that eBooks and digital texts can offer.

"Open Textbooks Adapted and Created by BC Faculty"

"Apple has just unveiled their latest attempt to rethink an entire market. It's not a new tablet, phone, or even a device at all. Today at the Guggenheim, Apple announced how it will essentially get more school districts to buy iPads. But it's not just about the money, there's some amazing software that's rethinking the tried-and-true textbook publishing model. Below are excerpts from the world's best news sources who are live-blogging and in attendance at the event. From them you'll be able to understand exactly what the new software is, what it does, and how it will affect you and your classroom."

"Free education resources for Teaching. Standards-aligned and customizable." Free Online Textbooks, FlashCards, Exercises, RWA's, Simulations

Conference presentations Feb 2013. All of this impacts textbooks and education.