Recommended Reading & Links From Apple Executive Briefing

In February, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend an "executive briefing" at the Apple HQ in Cupertino, California. I'll be presenting on it at the Reference Committee meeting tomorrow, but I wanted to post my list of readings and links from briefing, in no particular order.

iBooks Author (digital book creation app)
http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author

Abelard to Apple : The Fate of American Colleges and Universities
http://gilfind.gpc.edu/vufind/Record/366378

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
http://gilfind.gpc.edu/vufind/Record/305584
(We also have a copy of this at Newton & in eBooks on EBSCO)

7 Things You Should Know About Challenge-Based Learning
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutChall/244525

Apple Distinguished Educators Program
http://www.apple.com/education/apple-distinguished-educator
Created to recognize K-12 and higher education pioneers who are using a variety of Apple products to transform teaching and learning. ADEs work closely with Apple, participating in and often presenting at education events.

ACOT2: Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow - Today
http://ali.apple.com/acot2
This is the evolution of the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) project which started in 1985 to study how routine technology use influences teaching and learning. In 1995, it was replaced with the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow-Today (ACOT2) program, with the stated goal “to help high schools get closer to creating the kind of learning environment this generation of students needs [sic], wants [sic], and expects [sic] so they will stay in school.”

GPC’s iTunes University Site (in development)
https://eapps.gpc.edu/itunesu

Enabling Desktop Notifications in LibraryH3lp

LibraryH3lp's recent upgrade added a couple of snazzy features to the webchat client, one of which is Desktop Notifications.

This feature is native in the Google Chrome browser, so all you have to do to us it in Chrome is log into webchat, open the Actions menu in the top right of the screen, and click "Enable Desktop Notifications".

Desktop Notifications will also work in Firefox, but you do have to install an add-on. (You should not have to be an admin to do this. We've tested it on a power user machine and it worked just fine.)

Go to this page and click the "Add to Firefox" button.

Just follow the prompts after that. You must to restart Firefox to enable the add-on.

After Firefox has restarted, log into LibraryH3lp webchat, open the Actions menu in the top right of the screen, and click "Enable Desktop Notifications".


At some point during the process, you will also be notified that libraryh3lp.com is asking for permission to show desktop notifications. Click "Allow".


At the moment, Desktop Notifications don't work at all in IE. So, remember, don't click on the blue E!

If you have enabled Desktop notifications correctly a little window with the blue LibraryH3lp question mark should pop up in the lower right hand corner of your monitor, if there is chat activity and the webchat client is minimized or not on top. Don't worry about the "Options" menu on those notifications. It's under-the-hood stuff, not cosmetic. Just leave it at the defaults.

Just email Tessa with any questions!