Last week colleagues at birmingham City University held a Technology in Education event, and I was invited to talk about our approach to building iBooks to support classes. The presentations were pecha kucha style, and I wasn't thrilled at having to cram a topic that ordinarily takes at least 20 minutes to explain into just 6 minutes and 40 seconds, but I thought it might be fun to try.

Aside from the process of compressing the material which I'll write about on another occasion, my main take-away from the event was a realisation of just how many of my colleagues across the University have begun actively developing iBooks for iPad. The projects vary in intent and scope, but we've moved a long way from when I was talking iBooks last early summer, and meeting quite a lot of resistance.

I'm going to be digging into the specifics by talking to some of the people running these projects on a new education/tech/design podcast we're preparing now, but a quick poll seems to indicate that the widespread ownership of iPads and the extended usefulness/connectedness of these devices in the classroom are major factors. I'll have some figures to share soon.