Turn Web Pages into eBooks

One of the best features of Maverick, the new Mac operating system, is the availability of iBooks on your MacBook. Before the Maverick operating system, you could only view iBooks on mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. iBooks has tons of applications in the classroom! You and your students can highlight, type notes and leave bookmarks in an iBook, making it great for close reading activities and studying.

There are two ways you can turn web content into an ePub file, which can then be viewed in iBooks on your Mac. First is dotEPUB, a bookmarklet that turns single web pages into a downloadable ePub file. To install the dotEPUB bookmarklet, head over to dotEPUB and drag the logo to your bookmark toolbar. Make sure to check the box “ask at conversion time” for the Immersive Mode. Immersive Mode removes all the links and images from the article being converted. Finally go to a web page you want to read in iBooks and click the bookmark. The page will be downloaded as an ePub file that you can view in iBooks. You can then save that file to your computer and upload to a website for students to access. It is that simple! View a sample eBook I created. Checkout the tutorials below to learn more.

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Readlist is another tool you can use to turn web content into ePub files. The process is simple:

Step 1: Go to Readlists
Step 2: Paste URLs of web pages into the site
Step 3: Give your readlist a description and title
Step 4: Download your readlist as an ePub file or share via social media

This tool could be great to create course packets that can be downloaded into iBooks. You can even create a list that allows other users to collaborate and add additional content. Here is a readlist I created that covers the benefits of twitter for teachers. Watch the tutorial below to learn more.