An iPod Touch in Every Classroom by Kelly Croy

2nd February 2009

These are my notes from “An iPod Touch in Every Classroom: Even More Innovative Techniques for Using iPods to Reach Students” by Kelly Croy at the eTechOhio 2009 conference on Feb 2nd. MY REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The presenter, Kelly Croy, is an Apple Distinguished Educator and has a personal website: http://mrcroy.com His presentation resources for this session is available on his site. I got to this session a little late.

Parental Controls on the iPod Touch
- expanding opportunities to access web content is exciting
- you can hide applications on the Touch
- you can limit/control download capabilities
- nothing can be added or removed without teacher approval

HERE AGAIN WE SEE THE ISSUE OF CONTROL RAISED: TO WHAT DEGREE SHOULD WE “LOCK DOWN” IPOD TOUCHES THAT STUDENTS USE?

We use “old school” fuzzy headsets for lots of reasons, mainly health

It would be great if there was a site that evaluated iPod Touch / iPhone apps

I’M THINKING OF TONY VINCENT’S LEARNING IN HAND WEBSITE FOR WEB APPS AS A GREAT RESOURCE. ANYONE HAVE OTHERS?

gFlashPro is commercial flashcard application
- kids love flashcards
- they can review the same things on their own

We have a game show competition between classes
- this lets kids

Complete works of Shakespeare available for free

When you buy one application, you can put that same application on a

Google Earth Preso yesterday I saw was fantastic
- now we can access Google Earth on the iPhone, and it’s free

Cram application is $9.99, it is a flashcard program
- also a quiz generator

I AGREE SOME OF THESE APPLICATIONS CAN BE GREAT FOR REVIEWING. USING THE LENS I DISCUSSED IN MY KEYNOTE, HOWEVER, I’M REMINDED THAT USING FLASHCARDS FOR REVIEW IS AN ACCOMODATING AND NOT A TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY USE. THE NAME OF THIS APP IS EVEN “CRAM,” WHICH IS WHAT CHRISTENSEN CALLS THE WAY SCHOOLS HAVE TRADITIONALLY INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY.

Show commercial dictionary

Math Quizzer is a 99 cent app to practice math facts
- IM ACTUALLY GOING TO GET THIS APP FOR MY KIDS I THINK. ANYONE HAVE ANOTHER FREE SUGGESTION FOR A MATH FACTS IPOD TOUCH APP?

rollercoaster app called “RC Physics”
- uses built-in accelerometer to make graph
- problem is I don’t know what all that data means

MY THOUGHT: GET YOUR KIDS TO FIGURE OUT THAT GRAPH! WHAT A GREAT WAY TO USE TECHNOLOGY IN A TRANSFORMATIVE WAY. I LOVE THIS APPLICATION AND I’M GOING TO ACTUALLY GET IT!
- I ALSO FOUND THIS ACCELEROMETER GRAPHING APP ONLINE, I DON’T THINK THIS IS THE ONE HE SHOWED THOUGH (IT’S NOT, I ASKED AFTER THE SESSION AND HIS APP IS “RC PHYSICS.”

How to test drive an expensive application for free
- I told developers I was a teacher and presenting at eTech, and wanted to evaluate their app, they all
- some of them gave me a code to redeem in iTunes
- most of them gave me a free code

THIS IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF A CLASSROOM TEACHER BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR

How do you get video onto the iPhone
- TubeSock
- iTunes University
- Flip Video
- use iSight camera

I like the flip video: it’s a lot like an iPod, it just has 1 button
- the big red one is the main button
- if you can’t figure it out, your kids will
- www.theflip.com
- I recommend the Flip Mino HD (David Pogue likes it too, did a nice comparison with a $500 camera)

Use TubeSock to

From the audience: A good way to get around YouTube is to use ZamSar
- “we can do it through our filter if you know the URL” [FROM YOUTUBE]

I did take attendance today, and I better have because that is the most important thing I do all day [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

Now he is demonstrating recording with the iSight camera

“I don’t change the way I teach, but I just record it. It is no hassle.”

HMMM. LANGUAGE LIKE THAT DOES APPEAL TO TEACHERS AT THE ACCOMODATION LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION.

Everyone should have a Dazzle Box
- I work with some teachers who show DAYS of videos
- that can often be covered in 10 minutes, you don’t need 8 days
- Dazzle lets me bring in video and insert myself: stop the video and cut it up
- you can tape ANY source and make it digital

We had a teacher at the high school that wanted a filmstrip converted, we used the dazzle box to convert that.

WOW. FILMSTRIP CONVERSTION.

Look at iTunes and audiobooks are so expensive
- free video and book are offered every month

Are podcasts on there
- have to create an account

HE IS SHOWING SOME EXAMPLES OF STUDENT WORK NOW. I REALLY WISH I HAD INTEGRATED MORE STUDENT WORK

Grammar Girl is one of my favorite podcasts
- she has made some video podcasts too
- playing it so we can see the audible.com advertisement
- she used the video of Sarah Palin being interviewed with a turkey being butchered behind her as an example of irony

Profcast (www.profcast.com)
- I don’t need ProfCast because I’m using Keynote
- captures slides and timing, and it just has 1 button (record)

Keynote allows you to do this via Share – Send to iTunes

Other features I like on iPod Touch
- Presenter Tools: both Keynote and PowerPoint over WiFi (“remote” app)
- Remote: control your Mac
- Calculator (both standard and scientific, and many others available too)
- Notes (bell schedules, class lists, rules, notes, etc.)
- email
- calendar (keep a class calendar)

Just have 1 iPod Touch in Mr Croy’s classroom now
- now it is getting passed around among literary groups in class

How are iPod Touches being dealt with in our building:
- Hear no podcast. See no podcast. Speak no podcast.

I run into teacher classrooms and sometimes record sessions

What if you put an iPod Touch in your classroom?

Other great sessions
- recommends the Sentio Clickers session
- EarthQuests Teaching Earth Science, Topography and Geography Using Google Earth by Patrick Kania
– I REALLY WANTED TO GO SEE PATRICK’S SESSION THIS MORNING! IF ANYONE HAS A LINK TO NOTES OR A RECORDING OF THAT SESSION PLEASE LET ME KNOW, OR EVEN JUST A LINK TO HIS RESOURCES / WEBSITE. HE IS SHARING IT AGAIN TOMORROW HERE AT ETECHOHIO BUT I’LL BE GONE.

SO AMAZINGLY, THERE IS NOT ANY WIFI HERE AT THE ETECHOHIO CONFERENCE. OF COURSE THAT IS NOT REALLY UNIQUE, WE DID NOT HAVE WIFI EITHER AT OUR OUR OTA CONFERENCE.

Technorati Tags:
ipod, itouch, touch, education, classroom, learning, iphone, school

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 11:53 am and is filed under apple, distributed-learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On February 2nd, 2009, Jenni said:

Some of the attendees are also bummed that we didn’t have much wifi access at the conference either. There was a wifi hotspot in the old cafe in the mid-section of the main hallway.

2 On February 2nd, 2009, Wesley Fryer said:

I totally missed the fact that there was no WiFi for participants at the keynote, Jenny! At least there may be some solace in the fact that Ohio isn’t alone in missing WiFi at the state edtech conference. Oklahoma didn’t have it either at OTA last year. Our conference is next week, and I’ll be happily surprised if we have it there.

3 On February 5th, 2009, Paul McMahon said:

Wes, I really hear the comments that you are making about the degree of control over the student devices limiting true transformation in schools. Here in Hong Kong many International Schools have recently discovered 1:1 computing via some very heavy marketing from Apple. The schools are viewing the devices a little like jet engines for stagecoaches, to borrow from Papert. Here http://librarygrits.blogspot.com/2009/01/name-of-game.html is a recent post from a librarian in one of these schools as an example of how “controlling” the schools are. I think we will see a lot of this as schools try to bring in technology to support what they have always done rather than let it “Transform” as you so rightly mention.
I continue to look for more ways to convince educators that they have to “let go”. Problem is that it will be a rollercoaster and sometimes it might be messy with kids off task but at other times it will be truly fantastic. The big issue in the International School scene is “accountability” and the leadership here thinks that if kids are seen to be coming to school with a game on their laptop then they will look like they are asleep on their watch.
I think we need to do a lot more to support leadership to understand the change that technology can allow in our schools and to embrace it properly. See http://xpatasia.edublogs.org/2009/02/02/is-strong-leadership-in-education-coming-anytime-soon/

4 On February 5th, 2009, Wesley Fryer said:

Paul: To a large degree I think these struggles over control and “instructionist” teaching versus truly student-centered, differentiated instruction which is focused on inquiry and self-direction is the same struggle Paulo Friere, John Dewey, and other reformers fought in. The arena is the same, but now it has a digital face. There are more points to the agenda, I do think the digital landscape presents different learning opportunities as well as needs for collaboration, but the CONTROL word you identify is at the center of the struggle.

My very limited experiences with “international schools” abroad suggests that many parents, like US parents, have very traditional expectations for students. I think one of the most important aspects of all this that we’re not talking about enough is ASSESSMENT. We’ve got to replace the current high school credits system based on seat time with more authentic measures of student knowledge and skills. Some of the most important work which needs to be done is in this area, I think.

Thanks for the links, I’m following them now…

5 On February 7th, 2009, Creating Custom iPhone and iPod Touch Flashcards with gFlash and Google Documents » Moving at the Speed of Creativity said:

[...] past week, I attended most of Kelly Croy’s eTechOhio 2009 presentation, “An iPod Touch in Every Classroom.” Two of the applications Kelly mentioned during his presentation were gFlash+ and gFlashPro, which [...]

6 On February 7th, 2009, Ryan Collins said:

Am I the only person that sees dedicated “clickers” for student response systems a big waste of money when there is a way to use iPod Touches as a SRS with sites like pollanywhere.com?

7 On February 27th, 2009, To Touch or Not to Touch…. « Ubiquitous Thoughts said:

[...] An iPod Touch in Every Classroom by Kelly Croy, from Wes Fryer’s blog. Lots of odds and ends here. [...]

8 On May 14th, 2009, George Churchwell said:

We have a fantastic product to involve children in iPhone programming. We set up a site license so your students can create an iPhone “Spirit” application for them and your school