Year 9 Exam Revision
Using iTunes U and iBooks for Revision
Employing features that support revision
Following a discussion with my Year 9 mentor group, I realise that you may not be aware of features of iTunes U and iBooks that can assist with your revision for the coming examinations. Here are some suggestions to help you make the most of the resources your teachers have provided.
Search in an iTunes U Course
Let’s say you want to revise a particular unit of work or theme that you’ve studied. Or maybe you just want to see examples of a word that you don’t fully understand.
You can search across a course, including posts and materials. This can be useful if you want to focus on a specific theme that you’ve studied, or if you’re looking for clarification of a word or theme.
iTunes U searches for instances of the word in all posts and in the descriptions of materials (but not the materials themselves).
Highlights and Notes in iBooks
If you use an iBook in one or more of your subjects you can build decks of study cards to help memorise key points or definitions. Here’s how…
- Any word or phrase that is highlighted in an iBook can also have a note attached. My suggestion is that during revision, you should highlight a key word or phrase and then add a note or definition — this will become the flip-side of the study card.
- To view notes and study cards, tap near the top left of the screen to display the Library, Contents and Notes icons, and tap the Notes icon.
- Tap Study Cards to view the notes as flip cards.
- The front of the card is the highlighted word or phrase.
- The reverse of the card is the note you’ve made — probably the definition or explanation. In this way it works just like the flip-cards in Quizlet.
- All highlights and notes in a book can be viewed simultaneously or you can select by chapter. Clicking the page number of a note takes you to that page.
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Study card: Word
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Study card: Definition
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Tap on the page number of a highlight or note to go to that page.
Viewing Highlights and Notes in iTunes U
Any highlight or note added to an iBook will also appear in the Notes section of the iTunes U course from which the book was distributed. In other words, if you’ve downloaded an iBook from a course, your annotations will also appear in the course.
This means that course-related material is contained within the course itself, which should help with organising your resources. And of course, any work that has been submitted and marked will also be in the course, along with your teacher’s feedback.
Linking back to the iBook
Note that the highlight and note made in the iBook appears at the top of Notes in the related iTunes U course (above). Tapping on the blue View in Apple Books link takes you to the page on which the highlight or note was made.
Using these features should help you to connect key words and phrases to the contexts in which they were used, and help with understanding their meaning better.