Never before have the walls of our classrooms been so transparent. The Internet- digital cameras- audio recorders- editing software- and an emerging global conversation are combining to redefine the classroom. This presentation will expose participants to a range of wizardry for capturing and cooking digital content for teaching and learning. (a longer description is available here: http://goo.gl/YABIK)

Arithmetic plays a central part in our digital landscape

This presentation is different from my normal ‘linear’

We live in an information environment of sharing

One of the best things you can walk away from this conference is a group of people you can keep asking questions from

going to start with video
- starting with a video clip of a bird flying away after being perched on a ledge
- can turn on AV controls to make it play at half speed
- so this can make some things which were INVISIBLE now VISIBLE
- we can even (in some cases) make things that didn’t exist, exist!

There’s no problem with you seeing me struggle up here / relearn and learn how to do something
- your students will be fine seeing you struggle with things, and helping in that process

My expectation today isn’t that you’ll walk out of here knowing how to do all these things
- I want you to better understand that because information is made of 1′s and 0′s, it’s something you and I can manipulate and transform!

Basic skill now: look for tutorials on YouTube about different topics

example video David’s son made reversing a clip of tearing up a cup

Images:
- many of us are now walking around with cameras in our pockets

showing examples of images of things in motion/flight that are captured in amazing ways

now showing examples of HDR images in Flickr from his set “Post Processed”

iPhone app recc from David to transfer photos from an iPhone over to your computer: Wifi Photo Transfer

Pixelmator (I used to use PhotoShop Elements, but it takes a long time to load)
- using a similar pixels selection tool and varying the tolerance to remove the background

Intellectual property owners may be less likely to plagiarize the works of others

now using Audacity and showing how to do some basic audio editing
- recorded some sample audio
- using findsounds.com to import some audio files

American Memories project has all the past issues of “Stars and Stripes” from WWII

Many Eyes is a data visualization tool from IBM
- showing the “phrase net” tool
- shows relationships between words

Tag clouds are an example of tools that let us learn about ourselves NOT Through the media and publishing industry, but rather through tools we can manage and manipulate

TwitScoop is the coolest thing on the net! (alternate Twitter client that

iPad Music app reccs from David:

Music Studio (for music making – $15)
miniSynth ($2)
Virtuoso Piano Pro Classic (99¢)
NLog MIDI Synth ($5)
PocketGuitar (99¢)
MiniPiano (free)
Drum Meister Grand ($2)
Sylo Synthesiser (free)
iSequence ($5)
Rockmate (great for making music together! $3)
Pocket Organ C3B3 ($3)

Technorati Tags: creativity, david, education, ipad, otaem12, warlick, dwarlick

Harnessing the Digital Landscape by David Warlick originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

Our next meet-up will be Tuesday, March 6th from 6-7 pm at The Div. (Register for free via Eventbrite) Last night we were NOT able to webstream live because of hardware reconfigurations at The Div, but we will be able to for March. If your schedule permits, come for our iPad App chat in person next month and plan to stay for the “Social About Social” at the Div which starts afterward at 7.

Technorati Tags: app, edmond, ipad, okc, oklahoma, meetup

Learning About Notetaking on the iPad at @thedivorg via @ipadwithwes originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

A Ponca City mother is outraged. She says her son has been accessing pornography….on a laptop that was issued by the school….and she says school officials are partly to blame. “I was angry, I was really angry at first,” Judy Ferguson said. Judy found her teenage son watching pornography on his school laptop. “When I caught it I took the computer and turned it back in to the school,” Ferguson said.

Life is about choices, and students face a multitude of digital choices when they get online or connected with any device including a laptop, a phone, or other communication tool. This is one reason Oklahoma schools sending laptops home with students not only have parents sign an acceptable use agreement (AUP) addressing SHARED responsibility between parents, students and school officials for student use of technology equipment, they also hold parent training / information sessions when this specific issue is addressed. I’m not sure if Ponca City mother Judy Ferguson signed a form like that and attended an informational session about shared responsibility for student behavior on laptops, but she should have.

In the initial years of the Texas Immersion Pilot Project (TxTIP), I heard multiple stories from school officials about issues and incidents involving student access of pornography and inappropriate material. Any school employee involved in a 1:1 program knows this is an issue which must be addressed. The strange twist to this Ponca City Schools story was that school officials reportedly issued a laptop to the same student who previously got in trouble for accessing pornography right after Christmas break. Again according to the News4 article:

The Tech Director [of Ponca City Schools] said the software the school uses tracks every key stroke and they could see the student attempting to get into x-rated areas but their records show he was never able to access it. Ferguson became even more upset when the school gave her 9th grader another laptop after she requested he complete his assignments another way. School administrators admit that was a mistake. “When they came back from Christmas break inadvertently he was issued another laptop when that was discovered that second laptop was taken away,” Dr. David Pennington, Superintendent of Schools.

I’m wondering how school officials “inadvertently issued a laptop?” (I’m also wondering if they run key loggers on all school computers…) It would be great to see a school response with more information, background, and quotations on this than La’tasha Givins (the KFOR-TV reporter) provided for this article. It is reasonable to conclude the mother of the student saw her child accessing pornography at home: It is highly doubtful she would raise these embarrassing charges regarding her own son otherwise. Understanding this, the technology director’s response which denies inappropriate content was EVER accessed by the student on a school laptop seems unreasonable. Perhaps this was a misquote?

Responsibility for teen behavior when it comes to life online as well as offline lies primarily with the STUDENT. Yes, parents as well as educators share responsibility for guiding and supervising student actions. Ultimately, however, in our society we hold individuals responsible for their behavior rather than institutions. It would have been helpful (from a community education perspective) if reporter La’tasha Givins had provided some of this context. I’m not sure if school officials provided this or not.

When a high student chooses to have sex and gets pregnant, does the local TV affiliate run a segment blaming school officials? Hopefully not.

One takeaway from this article (and others like it which paint 1:1 laptop programs as evil / not worthwhile) is the importance of school officials “telling the story” of positive 1:1 learning impacts early, consistently, and through multiple media channels. In most school districts today, we have barely started to leverage the power of social media to ‘tell our story’ and communicate with parents as well as others in the community about the great things happening in our buildings each day. An example of why this is important is the result for a Google keyword search for “Ponca City laptop” today. Guess what link is the “non-promoted” search result #1?

A second takeaway is the importance of school officials using consistent language with students, parents, members of the community, and media when it comes to laptop learning. We must emphasize “digital citizenship” and the responsibilities which we share to help students learn to make good choices.

Should Ponca City School officials have been more careful to not issue Judy Ferguson’ son another laptop computer after the Christmas holiday, since his mom had specifically asked that he NOT work on a laptop to complete his assignments? Probably. (I say that conditionally since I’m sure there is ‘more to this story.’)

Should KOFR reporter La’tasha Givins have ignored the fact that Judy Ferguson’ son CHOSE to find and look at pornography on a laptop of any kind? Absolutely not. Too many people in our society want to ‘pass the buck’ when it comes to responsibility, and the primary people responsible for these “inappropriate content access actions” were the STUDENT and the PARENT.

Yes, teachers and school officials share responsibility for helping students learn and learn to make good choices. We don’t “pass the buck” entirely to parents and students for everything which happens during school and in some cases, even for things which happen after school. Schools DO bear some responsibility for helping inform and support “good choices with laptops” when they send them home with students. Ultimately, however, “the buck should stop” with the student and the parent when it comes to inappropriate website access at home.

I hope La’tasha Givins will investigate these issues further and write a follow-up article which provides more context for this situation and the people as well as organizations who are involved.

Technorati Tags: city, laptop, ponca, ethics, responsibility, parent

Don’t Blame School Officials if Your Child Chooses to Look at Porn on His Laptop originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 4, 2012.

In this episode of “iPad with Wes,” author and digital learning consultant Wesley Fryer explains how to create a custom digital newspaper on your iPad using the free application Flipboard. The video is 9 minutes, 17 seconds long

Referenced links in this episode include:
http://flipboard.com
http://google.com/reader

Screenshot by Wesley Fryer, Flipboard photo from photography.nationalgeographic.com

Please follow @ipadwithwes on Twitter and “like” iPadWithWes on Facebook! Mark your calendar to attend monthly “iPad App Coffee Chats” the first Tuesday of each month either face-to-face in Oklahoma City or via a free webcast on Ustream. Please spread the word about my upcoming workshop “iPad Training for Productivity Training” in Oklahoma City on April 19, 2012, in Oklahoma City.

Technorati Tags: flipboard, google, ipad, training, newspaper, reader

Create a Custom Digital Newspaper on your iPad with Flipboard & Google Reader originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 21, 2012.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out Apple’s official 7 minute, 20 second video overview of iBooks Author. I think this was shared yesterday during the official event in NYC. As you’d expect from Apple, it’s highly polished and impressive. It even features an educational leader / rock star I know, Chris Lehmann: the principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia! Chris is the co-author of “What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media” (2011) and the Co-Chair of the EduCon conference coming up next weekend.

Make no mistake: I love Apple’s products and have been transformed in my professional career as an educator not only through the use of those products, but even more through opportunities Apple has directly provided to me to be influenced by other passionate educators. I AM very excited and positive about this week’s announcement about iBooks Author.

However, as we see corporate advertising messages like the video I’ve linked above, let’s keep a critically important thing in mind: TEACHERS make the biggest difference.

Yes our students need access to digital devices.

But TEACHERS make the difference.

Yes our schools need robust, smart networks with great connectivity to a world of content and a world of connections.

But TEACHERS make the difference.

Yes, we need to shift from “adopt on a 5 year cycle,” heavy and unsearchable paper-based textbooks and embrace dynamic, searchable etexts.

But TEACHERS make the difference.

We’re in the midst of some huge changes in our society as well as our schools. There are lots of opportunities we have amidst many challenges. As we face these disruptive changes together, let’s keep one thing crystal clear in all our minds.

Good TEACHERS make the biggest difference.

Technorati Tags: leadership, apple, ibooks, ebooks, mac, macs, change, schools, mobile

Remember TEACHERS Make the Biggest Difference, Not Devices originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 20, 2012.

1. Grand View Public Schools (Oklahoma) Digital 1:1 Project
2. Grand View Public Schools, Oklahoma
3. Michelle Barnes, 2011 OTA Technology Leader of the Year
4. Michelle Barnes on Twitter: @MbarnesGV
5. Grandview Tech Blog
6. Mrs. Barnes’ Class on Twitter: @MrsBarnesClass
7. LoTi: Levels of Teaching Innovation
8. Implementing 1:1 Prepare Our Students for Their Future… TODAY! (Nov 2010 ILI presentation by Cheryl Beaman and Michelle Barnes)
9. NewNet 66: Delivering Technology to Oklahoma Schools (Grand View Schools’ networking partner)
10. K20 Innovative Learning Institute (Norman, Oklahoma)
11. K20 Center at the University of Oklahoma
12. Fuel for Educational Change Agents (Wesley Fryer’s supplementary podcast channel)

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Podcast386: Implementing 1:1 Classrooms in Grand View Schools, Oklahoma originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 22, 2011.

My three best recommendations for organizations which provide helpful information about not only “selecting a device” but more importantly addressing the myriad issues which come up with 1:1 programs are:

• The Anywhere, Anytime Learning Foundation (AALF)
• The One-to-One Institute
• Educational Collaborators (EC)

Full disclosure: I’m a ‘collaborator’ with EC.

Going 1:1 is far more than choosing a ‘device’ to purchase and support for all learners: It should be framed and supported as a whole-school learning initiative which will challenge as well as improve the ways ‘we do business’ at all levels in school. It’s critical to not only ask and answer a long list of questions about the “whats” and “hows” but also the “whys.” There are plenty of schools ‘out there’ who have gone 1:1 for the wrong reasons, and without a guiding vision for blended and differentiated learning programs do falter and fail.

In terms of the question about research focusing on 1:1 impact, Project Red is one of the most well known initiatives to check out. Their list of linked research articles about 1:1 programs is a good start.

Here’s my HUGE problem with Project Red, however: They are charging and arm and a leg for access to some of their research reports. This is WRONG. Academic research, which is viable research, should be freely available online without cost. See my February 2011 post, “Academic journals should not have paywalls- Support Open Access Publishing!” for more on this. Plenty of publishers as well as organizational leaders are misdirected today about “monetization schemes” for educational research. If it’s academic research it should be free, it should be open, and it should be accessible for everyone. Project Red is charging “$1,299 [for a] Multiuser license only for distribution within the purchasing organization” for alleged ‘research’ published by “the authors of America’s Digital Schools.” These fees and this paywall are ridiculous. If this is legitimate research, it should be available free.

I understand a bit about nonprofits and the need to pay bills. AALF also provides a wealth of “1-to-1 Research and Resources” but to access them, you must join and pay.

Despite my sentiments about open versus closed access to academic research, I think each of these organizations is worth checking out and can assist as schools consider options going 1:1. When it comes to the device, however, remember it’s not about the device. That’s not the right question to lead with. The right question is, “What do you want learners at your school to DO?” When you can define what you want students and teachers to DO as learners, that should help define what device (or devices) you decide to put in their hands.

I also encourage educational leaders considering 1:1 programs to not fixate on “a single device.” We are all products of a 20th century factory model of education, so we tend to think in terms of “a solution for everyone and all situations.” I’m going to be very interested to watch the renewal of Maine’s MLTI contract with Apple next year, especially to see what offers Google makes them with Chromebooks. The Open 1 to 1 Project has plenty of testimonies about why ‘a single device’ hasn’t been the choice for everyone in Maine. As much as vendors would like us to believe “one size fits all” or “everyone should have THIS solution,” the fact is different schools are going to decide to embrace different platforms, and some will select different devices for kids at different grades. We’re going to see more mixed platform 1:1 implementations in the months ahead as schools embrace BYOD programs. There are a confusing array of options. My best advice is: Find ways to talk AT LENGTH with different educational leaders who have been SUSTAINING 1:1 programs for many years. They can be your “Yodas” (borrowing the parlance of Marco Torres) and lead you to not only ‘a device’ but more importantly ‘a vision’ for digital learning which can sustain your organization for the long term.

For more resources and ideas relating to 1:1 learning, check out my past blog posts categorized, “1 to 1.”

What resources and recommendations do you share with other educators considering 1:1?

Resources for Going 1:1 in School originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 8, 2011.

John Newlin, Executive Director of the Maine International Center for Digital Learning, has served as a high school teacher, district curriculum coordinator, and school reform coach. Beginning in 2006, he also served as the project director for the nation’s first multi-district federal Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) grant, during which he co-designed and co-facilitated numerous 3-day professional development courses on integrating digital technologies into instruction using a collaborative action research model.

I’ve been doing school reform support work for many years
- I’ve concluded the pace of change happening through my approach wasn’t satisfying to me
- I moved in the direction of digital technologies as a result, connected with Bette Manchester

Maine International Center for Digital Learning
- independent non-profit founded in 2008
- we are not part of the state’s system
- we believe what has been going in Maine has been great
- lots of opportunities to provide support and synergy as we continue to move forward

From the MICDL about page:

MICDL is a non-profit organization that provides professional development and support for middle and high school leaders and teachers (both in-service and pre-service) regarding student-centered learning and teaching practices in 1-to-1 digital environments for the purpose of fostering student creativity, engagement, empowerment, well-being, and readiness for citizenship, college, and careers in a rapidly changing global society. MICDL also identifies, uses, conducts, and disseminates collaborative action research and formal research, and supports the development of local, state, national and international policies and practices in the field of digital learning and teaching.

Our focus is individualized and community-connected learning
- we want people to ask “what is community connected learning?”
- this is placed-based learning, community-based learning
- making connections with the real world to make learning richer / more engaging
- we want students to have a strong sense of community when they are IN school as well as out

This isn’t FOR digital learning, we are FOR individual learning combined with community connected learning

MY THOUGHT: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION AND DEFINITELY NOT SOMETHING I HEAR A LOT WHEN FOLKS TALK ABOUT 1:1

What’s the ultimate in individualized learning?
- tutoring with Socrates?
- self-directed

When my own kids have worked with tutors in the past, the acceleration of their own learning has been phenomenal

John showing The light brigade – scene from “The blind side” (YouTube clip)

Tagging, Tracking and Targeting – for Learning
- potential risks: invasion of privacy, excessive focus on the individual student

What about using these technologies to enhance the learning process?

Carpe Diem Schools (Yuma, AZ)

Carp Diem isn’t the only school looking at this model, Flex Academy in San Francisco is also doing this

A Real Tipping Point? Vision for Individualized Learning in Maine originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 27, 2011.

Tia Lendo is a “Noogler,” having joined Google two months ago. Prior to coming to Google she was a 4th grade teacher and then helped to start an education non-profit called Teach First in London. She also spent time consulting in education and healthcare. She attended the University of North Carolina and is a proud Tarheel who is looking forward to college basketball season! She attended Stanford to study Education & Business which means she also gets to be excited for college football season too She is looking forward to learning from everyone in Maine.

14 million education users now for Google Apps for education, in 145 different countries!

If you’ve used the Chrome browser, you’ve basically used a Chromebook.

Search Education Evangelism site from Google: We didn’t learn Internet search skills in school, we need to learn them now, however!

Google+ currently requires people be 18 years or older

Hangouts with Extras in Google+ now let us share docs and more (not sure when this will become available in Google Apps for Education)

Google App Inventor: Available to make Android apps (free)

Google Science Fair

2011 Google Science Fair video

Google RISE Awards

Google RISE – Roots in Science and Engineering – Awards are designed to promote and support Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and Computer Science (CS) education initiatives. We provide awards to organizations working with K-12 (primary & secondary schools) and university students to provide enrichment programs in these fields.

Why Google Chromebooks?

Today on the web you can do so much
Why isn’t 1:1 technology permeating classrooms: budget, management, scalability are all big issues

Chromebooks for Education video

A few things to point out
- battery life 8 hours
- boot up fully in 8 seconds
- more productive technology: “technology that just works”
- easy to manage: cloud-based management and updates
- easy to support: simple tools reduce support calls
- simpler to scale: put more computers in the classroom

Chromebook Thomas Jefferson (Council Bluffs, Iowa)

Technorati Tags: education, google, laptop, chromebook, laptops

Google in Education and Chromebooks (Sept 2011) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 27, 2011.

Digitizing Student Portfolios with an iPod Touch [video] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 27, 2011.

UPDATE: The audio podcast is online / available.

At the outset I want to say I’m a huge fan and witness for the transformative power of iPads to support student learning and engagement

Sale of 2 million devices:
- iPod: 1092 days
- iPhone: 114 days
- iPad: 59 days

As you look at deployments, the model is important
working the numbers

1:1 BYO (bring your own) or school-owned?
that model is very different from a Shared / school-owned model

the iPad does NOT have student accounts / profiles

Most of our experiences at Western Academy of Beijing is with the shared / school-owned model

Question: To 3G or not 3G
- convenience / flexibility
- with those connectivity issues, you have challenges with bills, traceability, security

Suggestion: use “Mi-Fi” personal hotspots
- 3-6 people can connect
- Those are 300 RMB here in China, can provide field trip connectivity
- you can turn off the connectivity at the end of the day on your field trip when you use personal hotspots

Configuration
- iPhone configuration utility gives a base configuration, basic setup only
- great for BYO deployment
- it’s more like a business development tool
- not as much: make the iPad an educational tool in the classroom

There are 3rd party configuration solutions
- Casper, Absolute Manage are examples
- more are on www.apple.com/ipad/business/integration/mdm/

We’ve purchased into the Casper suite, but it can’t push out applications to iPads
- it’s good for basic setup stuff

2 iPad cases we wanted:
- Otterbox: otterbox.com – $70
- www.goballisticcase.com – $90

We calculated our break even point for losing iPads, figured we would have to break 25 percent of our iPads to justify the expense of those expensive cases

We went with thin neoprene covers, and bought local market covers

shared option model means you need to be able to store, lock, charge, and sync your iPads

Bretford cart is not available in mainland China

We bought carts that are about 10,000 RMB each
- new cart available in China now for 30,000 RMB which also supports syncing

Average USB ports do NOT have enough power to sync and charge an iPad
- Apple didn’t follow USB 2.0 standards for the iPad
- this raises issues which need to be addressed
- this means standard USB hubs will let you sync multiple iPads, but won’t charge adequately
- this is a power consumption issue
- choice is spending big $$$ or split charging and syncing to two separate processes
- iOS upgrades are 1 by 1, you can’t sync them all together

Remember iOS5 is coming with promises of more wireless updates, we have seen dramatic function updates from iOS2 to 3 to 4.

Syncing
- only 2 companies build infrastructure for charging and syncing at the same time
- company in UK is building them and others are buying their boards

We use D-Link 7 port powered hubs for syncing

Things to consider as you reply

File Management
- getting files on the device: via iTunes, wirelessly, webdav, etc

Apps are sandboxed: same file ends up on multiple apps, other apps don’t see the same file you have on your device
- depending on what you want to do in your environment drives what management issues you face

remember there is NOT a folder structure on your iPad like you have on your laptop
- this means a complete change with how we think about file management

Sharing options: email is one of the best options

User accounts: they don’t exist now for iPads
- this means student work is on the device when it’s shared

Direct to printer: software needs
- I like the fact it’s challenging now to print (moves us closer to paperless classrooms!)
- check issues for your network
- we are focused with our iPad deployment on lower elementary students, so that makes these issues a bit more challenging
- we want students to be able to independently share there work

Classroom Management
- many schools like Remote Desktop and LAN School
- there are not a lot of options for monitoring software
- keys are engagement and interactivity
- depending on how you control apps on your device
- you know for sure there are not any flash-based browser games!

App considerations
- What store?
- we have chosen to live within the spirit of agreements rather than line item agreements
- on issue is: “The iTunes Service is available to you only in the United States, its territories, and possessions. You agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes Service from outside these locations. Apple may use technologies to verify your compliance.”

We have made peace with using the U.S. store and dealing with it, the Chinese store has far fewer apps and isn’t nearly as good a fit for our student population

We created iTunes accounts with gift cards, purchased in the USA
- no one used a credit card for apps

Volume Purchasing Plan (VPP) is the answer to many of these questions
- lets a site administrator have control over iPads and iOS devices in the school ecosystem
- this is only available as of today in the United States (not in China)
- is coming to other countries, the legal issues are being worked out

Until then, terms say you can sync 5 devices to any 1 account (so 40 licenses need 8 accounts)

Suggested management solution from 1 of the vendors present at this session:
- create a separate iTunes account for each iPad you have
- then have 1 account to hold the money: that account then “gifts” money to individual iTunes account (gift certificates)

So now as things exist, we buy large ($100) cards for our main, master iTunes account
- we also purchase smaller cards ($10) for innovator teachers to try different apps

I don’t like there are not trial or demo versions of apps (this is especially painful for $12 apps)
- use the rating sites out there
- look for similar folks: pay attention for home versus school users
- look for ‘lite’ versions of apps

We have found charging and syncing is a pain, but app management is really a bigger pain (especially when apps are purchased which don’t get used much after buying them)

We are trying to set criteria for our staff when purchasing apps
- are you: interacting with content, making your own content, using a utility?

Gets complicated when you have a few hundred apps on a shared computer, when reviews are for different versions
- we have used a large spreadsheet which multiple people access

How do you find apps?
- iEAR.org – all educator reviewed
- momswithapps.com
- etc.

Bottom line: no firm answers
- make it fit for you

Technorati Tags: apple, china, edtech, ipad, shanghai, deployment

Here Come the iPads – Now What? iPad Deployment originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 9, 2011.

As I use Twitter during the day (often with the Hootsuite app) I often find blogs I’d like to read later. My favorite thing to do when I find a new education blog I want to follow is to add it to my Google Reader account as a new “subscription.” This evening I recorded a five minute screencast demonstrating two different ways this can be done, using the mobile web version of Google Reader as well as the free iOS app, Mobile RSS.

This screencast is also available on YouTube.

Do you know another way to subscribe to blogs on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and add them to your Google Reader account? If so, please share your secrets!

Technorati Tags:
google, howto, ipad, iphone, ipodtouch, playingwithmedia, reader, screencast, screenr, subscribe

Ways to Subscribe to a Blog in Google Reader on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 17, 2011.

Be aware apps like CloudBrowse function similarly to an anonymous proxy service, so it can bypass local content filters. CloudBrowse is therefore not an application most schools will opt to install or formally support.

Documentation for The Puffin Browser indicates some websites, like Hulu, are NOT supported. I’m sure Hulu is keen for users to use THEIR app instead with a Hulu Plus subscription.

Hat tip to Kiwi educator Andrew Churches for sharing The Puffin Web Browser.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Watch Flash Videos & Play Flash Games on iOS Devices originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 17, 2011.

Thanks to a recent comment on my blog, I learned about the testing / drill and kill software program “Nearpod” for the iPod Touch. The website for Nearpod touts it as “A revolutionary tool for educators.” That claim seems highly exaggerated as well as dubious from the perspective a “Bloom’s digital taxonomy” educator. The following video provides an overview of the software program’s functionality. This isn’t “a revolutionary tool” or a tool which should be foremost on the mind of educators seeking to usher in “the learning revolution.” This is multiple choice drill and practice on a $300 per student iPod Touch.

Nearpod Education: Pilot program, Utah 2011 from Nearpod on Vimeo.

The photo below is a good visual summary of my response to these kinds of mobile, CAI products.

Should teachers have access to curriculum resources which provide for these kinds of realtime assessments? Sure. It will be nice when the use of these kinds of tools will be normal, rather than rare, in our classrooms. I’d love to be able to readily give my students quizzes on their mobile devices to solicit their current perceptions, understanding, and skills about topics we’re covering in class. I think mobile-friendly interfaces for quiz tools in learning management systems like Moodle will prove far more useful for teachers as well as students in the long run than siloed systems which do not easily integrate into an institution’s existing LMS, grading, and student information database. I don’t think products like Nearpod are bad, any more than a multiple choice examination is bad… but they should NOT define what we think of as “technology integration” or “revolutionary tools.”

Revolutionary educational technology tools are transformative. They permit us to do things we couldn’t do previously without technology. Are immediate quiz or test results transformative? Perhaps a little. But if they are, they’re certainly not transformative in the same ways student publishing platforms like blogs and wikis (platforms which support digital text sharing) can be. CAI tools, whether delivered on a mobile device or a laptop/desktop computer screens, shouldn’t get us NEARLY as excited as educators, parents, and community members as technology uses like collaborative online writing, student project publishing, student digital storytelling examples, etc. In too many schools and communities today, parents fall over themselves with excitement seeing interactive whiteboards installed in classrooms which DO enable digital content to enter the classroom… but within a predominant paradigm of teacher-directed instruction. Blended learning should empower students to access content and demonstrate their mastery of content with a variety of media and tools. Teachers SHOULD have access to just-in-time assessment tools, but that “tool” is just one resource among many in the digital toolbox of 21st century educators.

We need to regard educational technology tools like Nearpod with an informed perspective. This is part of what it means to have “digital vision” for our schools in 2011. An ‘informed perspective’ means being able to answer questions like these:

Do all students need to have access to mobile devices, which they not only use at school but also take home? Yes.

Should digital learning devices in student hands empower students to create as well as share a wide variety of digital media? Yes.

Should student wireless devices “connect to the cloud” and support customized as well as curricular-provided quizzes, tests, and other assessments? Yes.

Should we get more excited about digital testing tools in our classrooms than empowered student sharing and creativity? Absolutely not.

Taking a multiple choice test on an iPod Touch doesn’t qualify as “playing with media” any more than watching a Hollywood movie on Netflix does. (Neither qualifies.)

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Multiple Choice Testing on an iPod Touch with NearPod originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 17, 2011.

Idea Flight from Idea Flight on Vimeo.

Since Idea Flight just supports presentations from PDF files currently, embedded videos can’t be used. Still, it’s a great step forward for synchronous presentations. I like how you can “lock” passenger iPad screens during the presentation if desired, but then “unlock” them afterwards so they can freely browse your slide deck. I also like how “passengers” can login with their existing LinkedIn accounts and then share contact info / network with each other during and following the presentation. Obviously that feature was designed more with business folks in mind than students in the classroom. Perhaps they’ll add other collaboration login options (like Twitter or Facebook) down the road.

It will be interesting to see if the number of supported simultaneous connections for this app (or others like it) increases to make it practical for conference presos. I’ve been using a free account on SlideShare.net for several years now, and love how the site provides “swipeable” slide support for iPads and iPhones. Two of my presentations from last week in Montana, “Filtering the Information Flood: Strategies for Effectively Teaching Online” and “Smart Networks” already have 1000 views each on SlideShare. “Supporting STEM Skills with Scratch” from a month ago at our Oklahoma state superintendent‘s “Innovations” conference has over 2300 views. I think most teachers and students today continue to “underestimate the value and power of asynchronous sharing.” Live presentation sharing can be great, but asynchronous sharing is generally far more powerful.

Have you used Idea Flight yet for a “live” presentation shared with other iPad users? If so, how did it go and what do you think of the app? It does support sharing over Bluetooth also, but audience size is limited to just three folks. Wifi supports 14 audience members so it’s likely the best option for the classroom.

Hat tip to Conference Basics for sharing Idea Flight.

Many more educational apps for the iPad are available on my curriculum page, “iOS Apps for Productivity and Fun (iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch)” and my Appolicious account lists page. If you’re interested in having me present a workshop about using iPad apps either in person or via videoconference, please contact me!

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Present to 14 iPads Simultaneously with Idea Flight originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 15, 2011.

This fifth episode (and my last one to publish for this evening) features a 7.5 minute interview with Travis Allen, the founder of the iSchoolInitiative.

The following six minute video by Travis on YouTube, “The iSchool initiative (Mobile Learning)” has over 39,000 views.

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initiative, iste, iste11, ischoolinitiative, ischool

Voices of #iste11 – The 1:1 Digital Learning Revolution in Schools (Travis Allen – iSchool Initiative) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on June 28, 2011.

This first episode is a three minute interview with Russell Burt, principal of Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. Russell and his staff have initiated an innovative approach to 1:1 learning, in which parents pay $15 per month for their students to use and eventually own their own netbook laptops.

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Voices of #iste11 – $15 per Month For Netbooks In New Zealand: BYOD = Buy Your Own Device originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on June 28, 2011.

One of the most interesting things Dan and Jessica highlighted in their presentation was how important it is for students to work collaboratively using tools like an iPad. Jessica observed in many cases, students will self-select an iPod Touch to work individually on an application or project. Social skills are best developed when students work collaboratively and share a device, as demonstrated in this video. While the goal of 1 to 1 learning is important so EVERY student has an interactive screen just like all students can have pencils today, it’s important to understand the value of SHARING to promote social skill development as well as collaboration.

photo © 2008 Melissa Doroquez | more info (via: Wylio)

For more information and links to referenced apps in this session, refer to my text notes from Dan and Jessica’s presentation as well as the audio podcast of the presentation.

Technorati Tags:
1stgrade, apple, collaboration, conference, grade, ipad, ipod, ipodtouch, kansas, mace, elementary, first, firstgrade

iPads and iPod Touches in Kansas Elementary Classrooms (video) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 4, 2011.

Podcast374: iPads for Differentiation in a Primary Classroom #mace11 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 1, 2011.

What is a POOR deal for students as well as teachers, in many of our schools today, is a capital outlay of $3500 for an interactive white board (IWB) when those same dollars could purchase a projector or large format television AND individual mobile learning devices for teachers and students in the same class.* My experiments this evening with the Air Display ($10) application for iPad confirm what I’ve suspected for some time: Inexpensive mobile applications (relative to the cost of an IWB) can transform these devices INTO functional IWBs with many more benefits as well as capabilities. In this post, I’ll highlight some of the applications which can do this for Apple’s iPad, based on a phenomenal set of tutorial videos (over 52 minutes worth) shared recently by Tim Tyson. If you still have IWBs in your school technology plan, put your planning on hold. I’m hoping the ideas I share in this post will convince you to put those precious dollars toward iPads for students and teachers INSTEAD of an expensive device (an IWB) that will stay mounted at the front of a classroom gathering dust.

photo © 2010 Wesley Fryer | more info (via: Wylio)

In the last two weeks, Tim Tyson has recorded and published (both to his blog and his YouTube channel) eight screencasts totaling 52 minutes and 37 seconds. The first four of these were shared as a series of tutorials (Tim calls them “quickcasts”) explaining how to use the iPad application Air Display ($10) and the Mac application Ink2Go ($20) to turn any iPad into a functional IWB. This setup is actually better than an IWB in several ways. Not only is it VASTLY cheaper, but it also permits a teacher or student to be anywhere in the room when writing on the iPad/projected computer image AND see the digital image on the device in their hands. This is better than the function offered by all the bluetooth slates I’ve seen to date, like eInstruction’s Interwrite Mobi View as well as the SMART wireless Slate. At the end of 2010 at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in New Hampshire, Paula Churchhill wow’ed me with her use of a wireless slate when she presented her session, “Sound Recording in the Classroom.” I wondered at the time if I should explore options for purchasing and using a wireless slate for my own presentations. I no longer have any doubts about my needs in this regard. I have everything I could want and more for presenting with IWB power using my iPad and Air Display.

To be clear, as Tim Tyson outlined in his introductory video about this process, everyone should understand the requirements to use an iPad as an IWB. You need:

1. An iPad
2. A laptop or desktop computer (Apple is best, of course, but Windows computers can work as well since identified software is cross-platform)
3. A wifi network connection (configured with ports open to allow sharing/communication between the iPad and computer – this can be an ad-hoc network or a ‘normal’ wifi hotspot / network)
4. An LCD projector with screen or large format TV to serve as the external display
5. Software applications which support both remote control and remote mirroring of a computer screen, along with screen annotation / recording (IWB-like software)

I titled this post, “iPad as an Interactive White Board for $5 or $10″ because Air Display is definitely not the only game in town when it comes to remote control and remote mirroring of a computer on an iPad. I had previously dabbled with Team Viewer, but Tim (via Crystal Priest in Maine) recommends Splashtop Remote Desktop. At $5 it’s half the cost of Air Display, and it includes an excellent keyboard which can be used for entering website URLs and other typing needs from the iPad. Based on Tim’s well-elaborated summary of pros and cons of these apps from March 18th, I chose to purchase Air Display because it supports multiple devices. This means Sunday when I teach my 5th grade Sunday school class, students could use both my iPad2 and our family’s iPad1 to take turns controlling the computer screen and adding inputs to our lesson.

After installing any iPad remote mirroring and control software, it is necessary to install “client” software on the computer you’re using to actually connect to a projector or external TV. That’s a free download for both Air Display and Splashtop, the iOS application is the one which costs money. Team Viewer is free for non-commercial use, and supports Android as well as iOS devices. While Team Viewer worked ok for me when I tried it a few months ago (after I led an “iOS Apps for Productivity and Fun” workshop in September) I think the display control options offered by Air Display make it a better app, as well as the option to let multiple iOS devices control your main computer. A restart is required after installing the Air Display client software on a Mac or Windows computer.

In addition to the remote mirroring and control software programs on your iPad and laptop computer, you’ll need software on your computer which provides IWB functions. In my case, since I have a licensed copy of SMART software as the primary user of our church’s SMARTboard, that’s the software program I chose to use tonight and will most likely use on Sunday. Here is a screenshot I took using the software this evening, controlling a Google Earth virtual tour of Brazil from my iPad.

Here’s another screenshot, showing annotation possibilities in Audacity. Again, this was all done from my iPad.

This final screenshot shows how Air Display permits selection of multiple iOS devices to control the computer. While I experimented with my iPhone4 as a control device, I found the screen to be WAY too small. The iPad, however, works GREAT at 1024 x 768 pixels of mirrored resolution.

If you don’t have a legitimately licensed copy of SMART’s Notebook software and tools, Ink2Go is a $20 software option for IWB functionality. Ink2Go available for both Windows and Macintosh computers.

The one thing I’d add to Tim’s recommended configuration tools is the Pogo Stylus. For about $10, it lets anyone write directly on the screen of an iPad and be much more precise than is possible with finger writing.

While functions available today with an iPad and these different software options have some limitations, the POWERFUL possibilities should be clear. It is NOT necessary to spend $5000 in a classroom to provide interactive whiteboard functionality. Instead of purchasing an expensive board which mounts to the wall, it makes MUCH MORE SENSE (and CENTS) to purchase an external display, computer, and iPads.

Based on my past experiences working with schools and school leaders, I’m sadly confident to predict many of you reading this post are balking at the prospect of purchasing and supporting INDIVIDUAL digital learning devices for students. Like most people in education today, you’re likely more comfortable with our traditional model of teacher-directed instruction. That’s an understandable perception, but not an acceptable one if you’re an educational leader. The learning revolution happens NOW, not in ten years, in classrooms and homes where learners are empowered with INDIVIDUAL DIGITAL LEARNING DEVICES. There are still important times for sharing and collaborating with digital technologies, but an analogy to pencils is helpful here. We don’t make all our students share pencils all the time. We understand the importance and need for EVERY student to have a pencil. The same goes for digital learning devices.

What are you writing into YOUR technology plan today? A better question is: What are you writing into your LEARNING plan? These technologies are new and sexy, but the “BIG DEAL” isn’t the technology here, it’s the learning which can be empowered by it as well as the connectivity it requires. Are you a catalyst or an obstacle for the learning revolution in your school?

The decision is up to you. Choose wisely. The learning revolution is here, and it’s NOT being ushered in by folks who purchase more interactive white boards.

* Based on feedback (thanks everyone for comments) I did a bit more homework and revised my estimated IWB cost included in this post to $3500. I had originally used $5000, which clearly is an over-estimation. This $3500 price is based on a current quotation for a SMARTboard Unifi system (“projector on a boom”) along with installation, provided by a vendor for an Oklahoma City metro-area district. The quotation is $3175 for a SMART Board 680 with UF65 projector and a 15-Pin HD (M) to 15-Pin (M) Cable – 15′. Installation cost is $270. $3500 is therefore a reasonable estimate for these hardware costs. Certainly IWBs are available for less, models and prices vary. The $3500 per classroom costs included here ARE being paid by some schools for IWBs currently. Whatever amount your school is paying for an IWB, my contention in this post is the same: Those funds are better invested in a solution which can empower students directly rather than encourage a traditional, teacher-directed instructional environment.

Technorati Tags:
apple, edtech, ipad, leaders, leadership, learning, school, schools, smart, technology, iwb, interactive, white, board, einstruction

iPad as an Interactive White Board for $5 or $10 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 24, 2011.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Recorded and web-posted from our car on I-40 using the free iOS app Cinch.

How to win at Plants versus Zombies originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 20, 2011.

Reading IS a big part of learning, but it’s not the most important part. Education is not about simply reading and consuming content: It’s also about students CREATING knowledge products which permit them to reflect their own understanding (or misunderstanding) of ideas and concepts. We need digital learning devices in the hands of our students which permit them to put aside pencils and paper, and CREATE using digital tools and not simply consume digital texts. Did you notice the WORKSHEETS which students throughout this video were using? That’s because eBooks do NOT represent “the learning revolution” which we need to support in our classrooms. eBooks like the Kindle may allow students to consume some types of rich media, but they certainly do not (at present) provide the robust content creation possibilities of iOS and Android mobile / tablet devices, or laptops / netbooks.

Certainly digital texts have benefits over printed/analog versions, but buying an eBook reader for students is like buying a stream train without any railroad tracks. You can’t fully realize the benefits of digital learning without the ability to readily interact and CREATE content, just as a steam locomotive is hopelessly crippled without tracks and a connection to the railway network.

photo © 2009 Jack Vinson | more info (via: Wylio)

One important issue raised in this video, which is not mentioned by the reporter, is CIPA content filtering requirements for schools mandated by eRate. Misconceptions about eRate abound in schools today, and some of these are highlighted in the project “Unmasking the Digital Truth” and campaign, “Balanced Filtering in Schools.” While schools are NOT required to block all video sharing sites and interactive websites by CIPA, they ARE required by eRate rules to specifically:

…operate “a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors…”

In this FoxNews video, one of the teachers at the Florida school adopting Kindle eBooks extols the virtues of students being able to directly access the Internet over the local 3G cellular network. This access is available both at school and outside the classroom. From an accessibility standpoint that sounds great, but what about CIPA content filtering? Technically speaking, is the school now at risk for losing their eRate funding (at a minimum, at least a 40% discount on all telecommunications and Internet connectivity bills) if audited because they are NOT providing mandated content filtering? Perhaps.

photo © 2009 Marieke Kuijjer | more info (via: Wylio)

Did you also notice the creators of this FoxNews clip egregiously manipulated the video, misleading viewers to conclude full-motion videos can be watched on today’s Kindle eBook reader? I’m guessing the news reporters had some of their staff videographers create this effect in post-production because it looks cool, but it’s vital to recognize this media manipulation can lead to significant misconceptions on the part of the public. The Kindle eBook readers I’ve used to date CAN’T display web video like an iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or Android tablet. Unfortunately, this “news report” from a mainstream media source attempts to convince the public they can.

As Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner state in their superb book about learning and schools, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity,” we all need to continually develop our own “crap detectors.” On page three of the opening chapter, titled ‘Crap Detecting,’ they wrote:

One way of looking at the history of the human group is that it has been a continuing struggle against the veneration of “crap.” Our intellectual history is a chronicle of the anguish and suffering of men who tried to help their contemporaries see that some part of their fondest beliefs were misconceptions, faulty assumptions, superstitions, and even outright lies. The mileposts along the road of our intellectual development signal those points at which some person developed a new perspective, a new meaning, or a new metaphor. We have in mind a new education that would set out to cultivate just such people– experts at “crap detecting.”

It’s unfortunate this FoxNews video is full of– in the words of Postman and Weingartner, “crap.” It’s wonderful, however, we have communication platforms like blogs to point out the specific, misleading falsehoods it contains.

We DO need to embrace digital tools for communication and learning in our schools and homes. I’m not biased against eBook readers in general: We have a first generation Kindle in our home and my wife loves to read on it almost every day. I AM biased, however, against the idea of imposing a 19th century model of learning on a 21st century learner. It’s a waste of money to purchase a $150 eBook for a primarily read-only educational experience, when the same amount of money could purchase an iPod Touch with eReader capabilities PLUS fantastic content creation options like ReelDirector, iMovie, StoryKit, StoryRobe, Cinch, iPadio, AudioBoo, and more.

Here’s a proposed litmus test for classroom digital devices in the 21st century: Do the devices in question allow students to become Storychasers, or simply story consumers? We need to make the shift from media consumers to pro-sumers. eBooks don’t fit the bill. Unfortunately, this FoxNews video segment misses that point and is intentionally misleading as well.

As 21st century educators and learners, we should demand and do better.

Hat tip to Darren (“Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher”) for sharing this video link.

Technorati Tags:
1to1, edtech, ipad, iphone, ipod, ipodtouch, journalism, news, onetoone, school, tech, technology, kindle, ebook, postman, weingartner, crap, mislead, storychaser

Manipulated FoxNews Video Shows Why eBooks are the WRONG Choice for K-12 1:1 Environments originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 14, 2011.

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

Did you see the “Intro. to ECON – iMovie” at the start of the 2010-2011 school year?” Mr. Bishop is a teacher in Tupelo schools. Whenever I see amazing creativity like this, I’m never surprised to see the platform the creator is using.

Technorati Tags:
1to1, apple, laptop, learning, msmeca11, ustream

The Story of 1:1 Learning in Tupelo, Mississippi #msmeca11 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2011.

This session will be a high level overview of using the iPad in Education, Learning with the iPad

Starting with something obvious, but it’s important to discuss
- Why are we spending money on technology for students?
- We’ve been doing research on technology in education since the 1980s at Apple
- we’ve learned students who are engaged are learning leaps and bounds ahead of others
– retention of content, internalization
– important to involve students in the learning, not just spoon-feed content
– in line with ISTE NETS
– lots of power in a collaborative learning environment
– giving students the ability to leverage their innate creativity, their own genius
– letting students build and create: technology is a great facilitator of this

Tech must be easy to use, easy to access, needs to give students access to the world of information (all those encyclopedias)
- giving students a picture of the world
- tools to create

iPad is an excellent device for this and unique to address student needs
- iPad has been out less than a year
- we have stories now of kids who didn’t like science, and now love science thanks to their use of iPad apps

[NOW SHOWING APPLE IPAD ADVERTISEMENT “THE IPAD HAS ALL THE WORLD’S LEARNING IN IT” (5 min, 50 seconds, video is linked on www.apple.com/education/ipad, not embeddable or directly linkable, however)
- video is a series of case study stories in K-12 and higher education
“The iPad has changed the way our faculty look at learning and they way they transmit knowledge.” – Seaton Hall

Overview of today’s
iPad Basics
Accessibility Features
Apps
Resources
Q&A

The iPhone is the first smartphone a blind person can fully navigate
- YEAH! THIS REMINDS ME OF ALAN KAY’S PRESO AT

iPad Basics
- headphone jack
- microphone (side by side)
- power / sleep / wake
- mute
- volume up/down
- home putton
- 30 pin connector
- speaker

Screen is multi-touch, you can use all 10 fingers to play the piano
- also responds to multi-touch gestueres

Can turn voice-over on in system preferences
- need to learn 2 and 3 finger swipes
- can read webpages, email, etc.
- reaches all learners
- close captioning
- zooming features

Discovery Education has a great collection of HTML5 videos you can access via their website

We have a separate session on iTunesU: Some universities are posting entire libraries of content, all the courses they offer
- open courseware
- are also “beyond” college and university content, other organizations offering educational content

Now looking at iTunes on the Mac desktop
- showing “The Heart of Happy Hollow” from the Univ of South Florida on iTunesU (part of the Lit2Go collection)

Now looking at iBooks and Apps Store
- there are over 350,000 apps
- Apps are available through the iTunes Store

Now looking at The Elements for iPad and iPhone ($14)

“look at how rich this content is”
- app integrates into Wolfram Alpha website to pull live web content

In April 2010 a new element was added to the periodic table
- imagine all those schools with old periodic tables

This is more engaging than just staring at the periodic table
- “my son used some of his allowance to buy this app”

There are several free periodic table apps that are free
- some show as you change temperature, how the states of different elements change (dynamically)

I WONDER WHAT APP THAT IS? I JUST NOTICED NOW ON THE IPAD YOU CAN FILTER BY LOTS OF DIFFERENT THINGS IN THE SEARCH INTERFACE, INCLUDING PRICE…. SO HERE ARE THE FREE IPAD APPS FOR “PERIODIC TABLE!” COOL!

More science apps…

StarWalk Astronomy App ($3)
- it takes care of location information and knows where you are

Remember when you get these devices in the classroom, it’s not about YOU (as the teacher) just showing this content to students… It’s about them being hands-on with the iPads.

AMEN. VERY IMPORTANT REMINDER! INTERESTING TO WATCH PARTICIPANTS HERE RESPONDING TO THESE APPS WITH AMAZING, GRAPHICALLY-APPEALING CONTENT. I SHOULD COUNT HOW MANY TIMES THE WORD ‘AMAZING’ HAS BEEN AND IS BEING SAID…

Now showing the Wolfram Alpha app

INTERESTING SIDEBAR (MY COMMENT, NOT IN THE PRESO)… WHEN THIS APP WAS RELEASED IT WAS INITIALLY $50, NOW IT’S $2!

Now showing “Space Time” app for iPad ($20)

Now switching to elementary math apps: Time, Money & Fractions On-Track ($10)

Math Bingo ($1)
- K-5 math app

THIS NOW REMINDS ME OF MATH BLASTER…

Now showing MultDiv?

Showing Pearson GrammarPrep ($4)

MY COMMENT: I’M DREAMING OF FREE APPS LIKE AUDIOBOO, CINCH, IPADIO, ETC. AT THIS POINT IN THE PRESO…. (NO FOCUS YET ON CONTENT CREATION) ALL APPS SHOWN UP TO THIS POINT HAVE BEEN COMMERCIAL, NO FREE APPS HAVE BEEN SHOWN / DEMOED LIVE.

Showing iSentence – Sentence Builder ($4)

Now switching to book apps

Milly Molly and the Bike Ride ($5)
- students can switch to different languages
- students can record themselves reading this book, and they can play back their narration (MY COMMENT: THAT IS A GREAT FEATURE! REMINDS MOE OF STORYKIT – FREE)

THIS REMINDS ME OF THE INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S DIGITAL LIBRARY, IT HAS A FREE iPad APP TOO AND SUPPORTS MULTIPLE LANGUAGES

Now showing Taoki et compagnie (a French app)
- another app that shows numbers in seven different languages

Now moving out of grammar apps, and into “wet lab” apps

Frog Dissection ($4)

The quality of these is incredible, we are seeing medical schools providing students with all their anatomy and physiology apps, pharmaceutical guides, more…

Some apps let you build flashcards and share them with your classmates

Some book apps let you buy just specific chapters (INTERESTING: I WONDER IF FLAT WORLD KNOWLEDGE HAS IOS APPS?)

developer.apple.com will let you download the app development tools
- download for free, it just costs money if you want to publish to the iTunes store

Mississippi State has been teaching App development for 3-4 students
- they can’t open enough of those class sections

I WONDER WHAT THE NAME OF THAT PROFESSOR IS?

Story of a friend’s son who wrote an app for a physics calculator and made $8000 in a summer instead of working a ‘normal’ summer job

I WONDER WHAT THE NAME OF THAT STUDENT IS, AND THE NAME OF HIS APP? ARE THERE LINKS TO ARTICLES DETAILING THIS STORY?

Dashcode is available free to optimize websites for mobile

iOS Configuration Utility is also free
- fees just kick in when you want to start selling something on the store

Now shifting to Note Taking
- showing default Notes app, with built-in spell check

showing Penultimate app ($1) for iPad

I HOPE HE SHOWS EVERNOTE – THAT’S THE FREE APP THAT’S CHANGED MY LEARNING IN BIG WAYS IN THE PAST YEAR!

Showing LiveNotes($6)
- record the class and take notes

Noteability
- record with built-in mic

There are lot of things you can do with these apps besides access the web

Now moving to iBooks
- there are lots of apps for Social Studies you can use

Encyclopedia Britannica has created Ancient Egypt ($5)
- LOOKS LIKE A NEED INTERFACE…. I THINK THE KEY IS PROVIDING TOOLS WHICH LET STUDENTS CREATE THEIR OWN APPS AND APP INTERFACES FOR THEIR REPORTS / PROJECTS. PAGES DOES LET PEOPLE CREATE EBOOKS THAT CAN INCLUDE RICH MEDIA.

Some of these apps are really high bandwidth

THAT IS SOMETHING IT WOULD BE GOOD TO MEASURE… SCHOOLS DEFINITELY NEED WAYS TO MONITOR AND MANAGE THEIR BANDWIDTH TO THE COMMODITY INTERNET

This Day in History ($1) published by WorldBook
- SO MY QUESTION IS, WHY DON’T WE JUST ACCESS A FREE, HTML5-COMPLIANT VERSION OF THIS CONTENT ON THE WEB INSTEAD OF BUYING AN APP TO DO THIS? (IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE)

Shakespeare in Bits ($15)
- does so much with Romeo and Juliet
- showing the characters and the relationship map between them
- I LIKE HOW THIS APP INCLUDES DIFFERENT KINDS OF RICH MEDIA, REALLY FUN TO THINK ABOUT USING THIS APP TO STUDY SHAKESPEARE!

“I think it is the case you can still read books from Amazon and Barnes and Noble on the iPad”
- MY COMMENT: GIVEN RECENT RUMORS, THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT STATEMENT

Now showing iBooks
- in “The Essential Drucker” ($13)
- showing how you can make highlights and notes in an eBook in iBooks

I ASKED IF THERE IS A WAY TO TAKE THE NOTES YOU’VE MADE OFF THE IPAD, LIKE THE KINDLE APP DOES, AND THE ANSWER IS YES! WHEN VIEWING YOUR NOTES YOU CAN CLICK THE EXPORT BUTTON IN THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER AND CHOOSE EMAIL OR PRINT. THIS WOULD BE GREAT TO USE WITH A POSTEROUS BLOG, SO STUDENTS TO WEB-PUBLISH THEIR NOTES READILY.

Now mentioning Project Gutenberg (YES!)

iPad User Guide is a free download in iBooks and very helpful

Papers ($15) is helpful app, aggregated Google Scholar, NASA, and other research publications / sources
- lets you

Now a few content creation apps (these are going to all be Apple apps)

Keynote ($10) for student presentations

Pages

A CLOSING THOUGHT FROM ME: I WAS GLAD TO LEARN ABOUT SOME NEW APPS IN THIS SESSION. IT WAS INTERESTING TO SEE THE ORDER IN WHICH THESE APPS WERE PRESENTED AND THE APPS SELECTED: DEFINITELY THE HIGHEST – “WOW FACTOR” MULTIMEDIA APPS FIRST! I WISHED THERE WAS MORE A MENTION / DEMO OF FREE APPS, BESIDES PROJECT GUTENBERG… BUT AS A VENDOR PRESO I UNDERSTAND… THIS MAY IDENTIFY A NICHE NEED AND OPPORTUNITY AT CONFERENCES LIKE THIS, TO HAVE EDUCATORS (NON-VENDORS) HIGHLIGHT FREE APPS IN SPECIFIC CONTENT AREAS.

Extras: After the session I asked Neil about his favorite audio recording apps. Without hesitation he said iRig! It supports an external mic! The app Amplitude comes in five versions, but it looks like you want the hardware too: iPhone Free, iPhone LE, iPhone, iPad Free, iPad

Technorati Tags:
app, apple, apps, edtech, education, ipad, #msmeca11, mississippi

Learning with iPad #msmeca11 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 7, 2011.

Retrain, Retire, or Resign.

Sound harsh? It shouldn’t. Continuing education and CHANGE isn’t an option in the medical field, and it shouldn’t be in K-12 or higher education either. While educators at many levels continue to get credit for “seat time” in professional development sessions, some of those educators remain resistant to substantial CHANGES in the ways they learn and help their students learn. This particularly comes to light when mobile learning and 1:1 learning projects are launched.

We all need to keep learning and changing. As long as we’re educators, it’s not optional. Mike Muir refers to the condition of being resistant to educational / learning change as APP: Adult Paradigm Paralysis.

Learn more about Mike’s GREAT ideas about differentiated, engaged, and digitally-powered learning on the January 13th Seedlings podcast!

Technorati Tags:
change, education, teaching, teacher, retrain, retire, resign

Retrain, Retire or Resign: Options for Adult Paradigm Paralysis originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 15, 2011.

Check out Julie’s fantastic science curriculum wiki (yhs-raines.wikispaces.com) for additional links and resources. More videos from our tour of Yarmouth High School are available on wiki.wesfryer.com/videos.

Technorati Tags:
science, dna, virtual, fingerpint, fingerprinting, lab, biology

Virtual DNA Fingerprinting Lab (1 to 1 Learning in Yarmouth, Maine) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 9, 2011.

Do you know how many educational apps, and specifically free apps, are available for the iPad? According to page 2 of the article:

About 5,400 educational applications are available specifically for the iPad, of which nearly 1,000 can be downloaded free.

In my December 31st post, “Learning Culture Change the Critical Focus for iPad 1 to 1 Projects,” I argued change in the learning culture of classrooms and schools is essential for 1:1 learning projects, including iPad initiatives. Alex Curtis, headmaster of the private Morristown-Beard School in New Jersey, is quoted in this article and seems to disagree. His school “…bought 60 iPads for $36,000 and is considering providing iPads to all students next fall.” In the article Curtis states:

It [the iPad] has brought individual technology into the classroom without changing the classroom atmosphere.

Personal, digital learning devices in the hands of all students, but no change in classroom atmosphere? That doesn’t seem to compute. Perhaps it was a misquote. I’m not sure how classroom atmosphere could remain the same in a 1:1 computing environment with any type of device, including an iPad.

This article and some others are also notable because of the negative comments regarding the iPad from two educational technology academic luminaries, Larry Cuban and Elliot Soloway. Cuban in quoted in the article saying:

“There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines,” said Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, who believes that the money would be better spent to recruit, train and retain teachers. “iPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.”

Solloway also chimes in with alternative views on iPads in the classroom:

But technology advocates like Elliot Soloway, an engineering professor at the University of Michigan, and Cathie Norris, a technology professor at the University of North Texas, question whether school officials have become so enamored with iPads that they have overlooked less costly options, like smartphones that offer similar benefits at a fraction of the iPad’s base cost of about $500… “You can do everything that the iPad can with existing off-the-shelf technology and hardware for probably $300 to $400 less per device,” Professor Soloway said.

Soloway’s voice seems to be consistently anti-iPad in mainstream media articles, and he also contradicts Cuban when it comes to alleged academic research supporting technology’s ability alone to raise student achievement. In the September 2010 NJ.com article, “N.J. schools explore using iPads as teaching devices,” he stated:

“The whole notion of mobile learning is exploding,” said Elliot Soloway, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Engineering. “In schools that use mobile technologies, they’re seeing an increase of up to 30 percent in test scores.” But he cautioned that iPads are generally more expensive than smartphones and may not be the best option for cash-strapped school districts.

The focus of a 1:1 learning initiative should not be “the device,” but that tendency is reinforced by articles like this one by New York Times reporter Winnie Hu. The last two paragraphs of the article make this point, but it’s hardly the focus of the article and does not overcome the headline / overall theme of “iPad Fever.”

Daniel Brenner, the Roslyn superintendent [in Roslyn Heights, N.Y.], said the iPads would also save money in the long run by reducing printing and textbook costs; the estimated savings in the two iPad classes are $7,200 a year. “It’s not about a cool application,” Dr. Brenner said. “We are talking about changing the way we do business in the classroom.”

As the cost of powerful, mobile computing platforms continues to fall while capabilities rise, I’m sure we’ll continue to see more articles like this one promoting “digital device fever.” Yes, every student in the classroom DOES need a mobile learning device now… And educational learning models as well as ASSESSMENT paradigms need to change in fundamental ways in our schools. We should not, however, succumb to the attractive suggestion that “it’s all about the device” when it comes to 1:1 learning. The device matters, but it’s not the purpose of a mobile learning initiative to simply have/use digital devices… nor should the mere acquisition of digital devices be the main focus of a school community.

To find more information and resources related to 1:1 learning, I commend the following organizations to you:

• The Anywhere, Anytime Learning Foundation
• The One to One Institute
• The Maine International Center For Digital Learning

I also commend Educational Collaborators, as a great consulting group working with many 1:1 projects (utilizing various platforms) around the United States – but need to add (as full disclosure) that I’m affiliated with EC as PD collaborator / provider.

See my podcasts, “Leadership Lessons for 1:1 Learning Projects from Leslie Wilson” and “Bruce Dixon on Planning, Funding and Sustaining Strategies for Successful 1:1 Computing” for more ideas from the leaders of AALF and the One to One Institute. The Seedlings podcast 101 from December 9, 2010, with Bette Manchester and John Newlin, gives more information about MICDL. My November 2009 post, “Saving Money on Your One-to-One Program by Alex Inman,” provides more info about Educational Collaborators and their approach to 1:1. My November 2009 podcast, “One to One Learning with Open Source Netbooks is Practical, Affordable and Powerful – Learn Why,” includes interviews with Alex Inman of EC and Warren Luebkeman of Open 1-to-1.

Also check out my collection of interviews and videos at Yarmouth High School from December 2, 2010. As Ted Hall, principal of Yarmouth High School said in the following five minute video, “It’s not about the cool tools.” It’s about the learning which ubiquitous access to 1:1, mobile technology provides WHEN that learning culture is supported by administrators and staff with a vision for true student-centered learning. Yarmouth has been implementing a 1:1 learning project for EIGHT years. We should pay attention to the advice Ted has to offer. He explains why professional development and time for lesson development is even MORE important now than it was at the start of their initiative.

For links to iPad applications with an educational / productivity focus, see my workshop wiki, “iOS Apps for Productivity & Fun.” Audio recordings from this full day workshop on December 29th are available in the podcast archive of “Fuel for Educational Change Agents.”

Hat tip to Sam Eneman for sharing the link to this NYT article today via Twitter.

Technorati Tags:
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iPad Fever and 1 to 1 Learning Lessons from the Experts originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 4, 2011.

Podcast365: Leadership Lessons for 1:1 Learning Projects from Leslie Wilson (The One-to-One Institute) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 3, 2011.

This is an important difference in crafting student assignments which utilize digital technology. Yarmouth teachers are focusing more on learning outcomes than simply technology use, which should be an important goal of 1:1 projects. For more videos of Ben and others at Yarmouth discussing “lessons learned” from their 1:1 project, see the index of videos on wiki.wesfryer.com/videos, referencing videos posted to my YouTube channel: youtube.com/wfryer. Also check out my post from Saturday featuring three other videos of Ben, “Welcome to Yarmouth High School: 8 Years of Successful 1:1 Learning.”

If you’re interested in learning more about successful 1:1 learning projects, I highly commend the updated website of the Maine International Center for Digital Learning (MICDL.) Also check out the outstanding December 9th Seedlings podcast with Bette Manchester and John Newlin of MICDL!

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1to1, learning, maine, technology, yarmouth, assignments, laptop, 1:1, assign, integrate

Faculty Require Mastery of Content and Skills – Not Just Technology Use originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 2, 2011.

In this video (1:19) taken from the start of our tour, Ben Nickerson, a senior at Yarmouth High School, welcomes our tour group and explains the format for our morning of learning alongside students and teachers.

In this 1:36 video, Ben explains how electronic collaboration at Yarmouth High School has made a wide variety of interactions easier and faster for students as well as teachers.

In this 1:23 video, Ben describes how students have increasingly taken on technology support roles during the school’s 1:1 learning project.

Many, many thanks to Alice Barr who facilitated this visit to Yarmouth High School for a great morning of learning!

Learn more from Ben Nickerson as well as Ben McNaboe, the hosts of the Ben & Ben show, by viewing their 2010 K-12 Online Conference presentatation, “The Ben N Ben Show: Promoting Student Voice through a Student Hosted Webcast.” Visit their show’s homepage on Google Sites to access and view all their past episodes: sites.google.com/site/bennbenshow.

Technorati Tags:
1to1, apple, learning, video, yarmouth, maine, videos, youtube, interview, student, support, success, mlti, micdl

Welcome to Yarmouth High School: 8 Years of Successful 1:1 Learning originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 1, 2011.

We are the first school in the world with a 1:1 iPad deployment for every pupil from P1 – S5. View our blogs to see how it is being used!

Fraser Speirs (@fraserspeirs) is the Head of Computing and IT at Cedars and also develops iOS apps for Connected Flow. He is quoted several times in the article, noting how the iPad’s battery life is a game changer:

On the first day, it ran and ran. I couldn’t make the battery die, and I realised this alone would transform the technology experience in the classroom.

…describing how he responds to critics of the iPad project:

In reality, we’re sometimes using the iPad exclusively and sometimes not. Truth be told, I’d like to move to the iPad more, but we’re constrained by resources – some textbooks aren’t available electronically, for example. Anyone against such iPad use should bear in mind that society itself is in the process of replacing everything with electronic content – it’s happened with CDs, and Amazon and Apple are doing the same with books.

…and how project leaders have envisioned the iPad fitting into the learning environment:

…”We’ve done something that’s not often tried – we brought in technology and didn’t tell people how to use it”. Instead of thinking of the iPad as a digital textbook, it’s become a research and creativity tool across all subjects; because of this, minds are being expanded and experiences broadened, not restricted. Once, the school focused on iWork, iLife and Safari, but now pupils access dozens of varied apps.

It is saddening (although not entirely unpredictable) that MANY schools considering 1:1 learning projects with iPads as well as other devices predominantly focus on the TECHNOLOGY rather than the LEARNING. Based on the quotations and information included in this article, it seems that mistake is NOT being made at Cedars School of Excellence. To be successful, 1:1 projects must focus on learning, engagement, creativity, project-based learning, and differentiated instruction over the technology tools used to amplify learning. iPads and other digital learning devices ARE critical pieces of the puzzle, but the point of a 1:1 learning project shouldn’t be simply using digital devices. One of the goals should be empowering learners to engage in TRANSFORMATIVE learning experiences, which would not be possible without the technology. Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) research in the 1980s revealed that teachers can progress through a series of stages in their uses of educational technology. Ultimately, educators can reach a creative, “invention” level of technology use… but this can happen broadly only when we (educators) are encouraged and supported to embrace a constructivist, project-based approach to learning.

One of the things which impresses me about Educational Collaborators, which I officially “joined” last year as a consultant and professional development provider, is the focus they take working with schools in 1:1 projects on “learning culture change.” I read and hear this same message again and again from educators involved in successful 1:1 projects: It’s not JUST about the device. Devices are important, but the willingness and support of administrators to transform a school’s learning culture is one of the most critical pieces. Unfortunately, this is overlooked too often by grant writers and 1:1 project coordinators. If your school leadership team isn’t on board to support a truly student-centered, constructivist learning culture, don’t bother buying all your students and teachers digital devices. A lack of administrative vision and support for a successful 1:1 learning project is a certain recipe for failure.

This article includes references to several iPad applications I had not heard about previously, including abc PocketPhonics, Math Bingo, TypeDrawing and Binary Madness HD. I’m going to check these out further. If you’re interested in following the progress of this project, consider following Fraser Speirs’ blog on speirs.org, and following him on Twitter. He posted recently about the iPad apps they’re using at Cedars for primary as well as secondary students.

Hat tip to Eric Sheninger and Diane Lauer for sharing this article via Twitter.

For more links and resources related to iPads (and other iOS devices) in the classroom, see the workhsop wiki for “iOS Apps for Productivity and Fun.”

Technorati Tags:
apple, education, ipad, itunes, classroom, 1to1, onetoone

Learning Culture Change the Critical Focus for iPad 1 to 1 Projects originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 31, 2010.

…as early as this spring [2011], the U.S. Army could make iPhones, Androids, Blackberrys and similar devices standard-issue communication and intelligence-gathering tools on the front lines of the world’s most dangerous battlefields.

“This is a profound and fundamental change about how soldiers will be able to access and share information,” said Michael McCarthy, director of the mission command complex of the Army’s Future Force Integration Directorate at Fort Bliss, Texas.

Troops with smartphones will be able to use text messages to more closely coordinate with their peers in the field and commanders at remote locations. They’ll also be able to stream real-time surveillance video from overhead drones to more effectively target the enemy, among other advantages, McCarthy said.

Like teachers and students in our schools, the US Army faces challenges as well as opportunities if it provides mobile computers to soldiers. These devices can be used constructively or destructively. If captured, smartphones could provide enemies of the United States with classified information which could endanger the lives of others. Again according to the article:

WikiLeaks’ ongoing publication of secret government documents leaked by an Army private has heightened concerns over how to keep classified information on smartphones protected from electronic interception or capture during an ambush or kidnapping, Tanner said.

“We’re very concerned about the security, and we’re exploring all solutions,” she said. “It’s not going to be one silver bullet that’s going to fix it, but we are serious about addressing that.”

The military has the capacity to set up its own, secure wireless cellular networks and could encrypt data sent from the field, Tanner said. Individual phones could be password-protected or require biometric features — such as a thumbprint — to log in.

Is your school implementing or in the planning stages of implementing a mobile learning initiative for students as well as teachers? If not, why not? The constructive power of mobile phones to support learning is too powerful to ignore, in our classrooms as well as our military forces. To learn more about why this is true and how mobile phones can be used constructively to support learning at school, see Tony Vincent‘s 2010 K-12 Online Conference presentation, “Project Based Learning in Hand.” According to Tony and TechCrunch, there were 200 million mobile app downloads in 2009 and 5 billion in 2010 to date. Don’t ignore apps and mobile learning as you design and plan for powerful learning experiences at your school. School leaders need to embrace these constructive potentials just as we see US military leaders doing today.

Technorati Tags:
android, iphone, learning, mobile, smartphone, blackberry

US Army Deploying iPhones originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 15, 2010.

I agree screencasting is something everyone should know how to do AND do to share lessons / tutorials. I agree we should encourage teachers not to “hog” the podium / spotlight in the front of the room 100% of classtime – students need to be sharing, teaching, interacting, working in groups at times too. I vehemently disagree, however, with the idea we should “give up” advocacy for better pedagogy inside and outside classrooms and just accept that whiteboards are going to be purchased by all schools and often used horribly to reinforce an exclusive 20th century “stand and deliver” mode of teaching. I reject that.

I strongly suspect you’re NOT being paid by Smart, Promethian, InterWrite, or any of the other whiteboard vendors “out there” to espouse this view, but if they’re reading your blog I’m sure they are applauding. (Along with the thousands of whiteboard vendors out there who want nothing more than to convince a tech-gadget hungry public that their children’s classrooms would be better served with expensive interactive whiteboards than individual, mobile learning devices.) I hypothesize that vendor position is motivated primarily by a profit motive and NOT an understanding of kids, of learning theories, or the kinds of learning environments and interactions between expert and novice learners which make the most long-term impact on the human brain.

I’m going to face a related challenge next spring in my “Technology 4 Teachers” class for undergrads at UCO when I’m required to teach an entire unit on the use of IWBs. I’m likely going to take an approach similar to yours, focusing on screencasting. That’s pedagogy which is potentially transformative. I absolutely will not, and will not encourage anyone else, however, to believe that IWBs are the #1 technology of choice for the 21st century classroom. They are NOT. It is a big deal to get a computer-connected projector in your classroom, but it’s an even BIGGER deal to provide every student with a mobile learning device. The latter model is the one we need to be advocating for and championing, and in some cases it’s a CHEAPER alternative. 95% of the parents and teachers “out in the world” are much more comfortable with a teacher talking at the front of the room, using an overhead projector or an IWB, than they are with a teacher facilitating lessons for students equipped with mobile learning devices. Just because something is easy, or more comfortable, or more common, it is not RIGHT. That is the case today with the integration of IWBs in the classroom.

I encourage you to reconsider your position, and not “give up” in the cause of promoting individualized, differentiated, engaged learning experiences for human beings. IWBs do not hold a candle to mobile learning devices which students KEEP and get to take home, as well as use in the classroom – if our goal is learning which meets individual needs. It’s harder, it’s messier, it’s filled with more questions, but it’s also the RIGHT path we should follow in the 21st century classroom and the blended 21st century learning environment.

Hat tip to Miguel Guhlin for sharing Daniel’s post on his Google Reader, which he has connected to FriendFeed. Daniel’s post was also cross-posted at the Tech Learning Advisors Blog.

Technorati Tags:
1:1, 1to1, laptop, mobile, whiteboard, wireless, smartboard, iwb, promethian, smart

Choose mobile learning devices instead of IWBs originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 10, 2010.

The apps Kevin and Howard utilize in this amazing video are:

1. PocketGuitar (99¢)
2. Harmonica (99¢)
3. iShred ($4.99)
4. Ocarina (99¢)
5. Drum Meister Grand ($1.99)

Kevin Honeycutt is a former high school art teacher from Inman, Kansas, and is one of the most inspirational (as well as talented) keynote speakers I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear in person. If organizers overlook him again for the 2011 ISTE conference in Philadelphia, they are crazy! Kevin’s professional home is ESSDACK in Hutchinson, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter: @kevinhoneycutt. If you’re looking for Kevin online, chances are good he’s not far from Plurk and the amazing online community, Art Snacks. Kevin completely redesigns his professional website (kevinhoneycutt.org) more often than anyone I know. Watch the above video and be amazed. From the same creative mind who brought us, “I Need My Teachers To Learn.” See any patterns here?!

Passion + Creativity + Great Teaching Ideas = Kevin Honeycutt.

I’m blessed to call him, “friend.” (And Yoda!)

Technorati Tags:
app, creativity, drum, education, honeycutt, inspiration, ipad, iphone, kevin, motivation, music, technology, guitar, drums, harmonica

Amazing Musical Creativity on an iPhone Guitar & iPad Drum Set #edapp originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 6, 2010.

In today’s environment in Floydada, students have the ability to stay “plugged in” 24 hours a day, whether they are on campus or not. “When you’re dealing with 21st-century kids, they don’t have to power down when they get to school,” Vaughn said. In fact, although in general the students are required to return the laptops at the end of the school year, if the high school students want to take college classes during the summer, they can keep them. From a continuity standpoint, if a teacher has to be absent on a given day, they can screen-cast their lessons so students can continue work with direction from the teacher through their laptops. The efforts of the district not only have improved performance, they have garnered Floydada quite a bit of state, national and even international attention. Students and teachers have spoken in Washington, D.C., about their educational experiences as a result of technology. They have been invited for the third year to travel to Austin and participate in the Texas Capitol Schoolhouse, and they also received the Sylvia Charp International Award for Technology. Vaughn said he realizes one-to-one immersion is not cheap, but “it has become a priority for us because we can see the teaching and learning benefits.” Because the district has made it a priority, officials have been able to continue to find grants to help fund the program. At the same time, Vaughn said, it has become a priority in the community to the extent that the district even has received local funds.

Looking back six years ago to October 2004, it’s wonderful to see the Floydada laptop program still going strong thanks to the hard work of so many great educators and leaders in Floydada.

Read more about the Floydada 1:1 Project on the district’s official WordPress blog. If you’re interested in the original TxTIP application documents, along with the continuation grant from TEA, I’ve archived those on my Google Site.

In 2008, Floydada published a wonderful “Opening Doors” video and was featured on the Apple Learning Interchange (ALI). Since Apple took ALI offline on 3 September 2010, that video is no longer web accessible as far as I know.

I have an offline, lower-res version of it, but haven’t sought or obtained permission yet to re-publish it. ALI web coders have evidently setup their site to prevent Google from providing cached versions of its pages, and the Internet WayBack Machine doesn’t have this page cached either. That’s unfortunate, because it was a great article about how Floydada became recognized as “An Apple Distinguished School.”

David Jakes may not seem to have a direct connection to Floydada ISD superintendent, Jerry Vaughn, pictured in the center of the photo above. It was David, however, who provided an outstanding workshop on Digital Storytelling for Floydada and Post educators in the summer of 2006 after I left Texas Tech and headed for Oklahoma. I’m sure the Texas teachers who participated in that workshop not only still have fond memories of it, but also continue to be the beneficiaries of it along with their students.

Last week in Yarmouth, Maine, I heard high school principal Ted Hall explain why professional development is even MORE important now– eight years into their laptop program, than it was initially. I hope to publish more of the videos from last Friday soon. If you have not already, be sure to listen and watch the video interview with Alice Barr and Cathy Wolinsky discussing the critical role of technology integrators in 1:1 learning projects. The importance of vision, strong leadership, and technology integrators cannot be over-stated for laptop learning projects. That’s been true (from what I’ve seen and heard) in both Yarmouth, Maine, and Floydada, Texas.

Hat tip to Miguel Guhlin for sharing this recent article link about Floydada.

Technorati Tags:
1to1, laptop, learning, texas, floydada

Six years of 1 to 1 learning in Floydada, Texas originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 6, 2010.

There are so many insightful nuggets of wisdom in this video! Alice and Cathy both discuss the importance of teacher assignments in 1:1 and tech immersed environments, over time, shifting from rubrics focusing “on the technology” to rubrics focusing “on the learning.” Teachers in Yarmouth now provide students with more CHOICE over how they demonstrate mastery of learning in different courses and content areas. After projects, students and teachers discuss and reflect on their projects to identify the strategies and tools which were used most effectively to communicate learning.

The concept of teachers having “a minimum web presence” in Yarmouth schools is also addressed well by Cathy, starting at 9:38 in the video. A basic web presence for teachers in Yarmouth is not optional, but the focus of having a website of some kind with information is NOT the technology or the technology tool. The focus at the elementary level, according to Cathy, is on “broadening the authorship for kids” and “communicating the learning” to parents as well as the community. With instructional leaders like Alice and Cathy assisting teachers in Yarmouth at all levels, it’s no mystery why Yarmouth was named an Apple Distinguished School for 2009-2010.

This is a phenomenal interview, and I hope you’ll take the time to both watch and share it. In addition to following both Alice and Cathy on Twitter, I encourage you to subscribe to Yarmouth High School’s YouTube Channel, and visit the wide variety of teacher websites at Yarmouth High School, Middle School, and elementary schools (Yarmouth Elementary and William H. Rowe.) The wiki of Yarmouth High School biology teacher, Julie Raines, is only a year old but is one of the best examples of a teacher instructional website I’ve seen to date.

I took more videos during our visit and tour yesterday in Yarmouth which I’ll be uploading soon and will add to my YouTube channel or Flickr set for the day. I recorded all my videos yesterday with an iPhone 4. As I am with the iPad, I’m amazed with how powerful and “magical” it truly is. Who would have imagined a videographer could carry so much power in a pocket?!

Does your school and school district provide certified, full-time technology integrators / facilitators in each building to support teachers using technology effectively within instruction? This is a litmus test for school leaders serious about twenty-first century learning, student engagement, and differentiated instruction. It’s clear administrators, school board members, and the community in Yarmouth are serious about the success as well as impact of their laptop learning and technology immersion initiatives. How about your town or city?

Unfortunately in today’s budget-challenged schools, some short sighted administrators (lacking a comprehensive vision for school change and engaged learning) decide to cut vital positions like technology integrators. Sadly, this is not a new trend. In April 2001 I wrote, “Proposal for Elementary Technology Integration Reform: Facilitators and Technician-Aides” (PDF) when I was a teacher in Lubbock ISD in Texas. At that time, our new superintendent decided certified staff were not needed in computer labs, and should all be replaced (by attrition) by lower-wage earning teacher-aides instead. As Alice and Cathy discuss in this video, it’s vital certified teachers be available to coach other teachers in the process of integrating technology. In 2001 when I wrote that proposal, it was summarily ignored by the administration. My controversial 1999 TechEdge article, “Wagging the Dog in Educational Technology:
Elevating ‘IT’ Into the Classroom,” was also dismissed by district leaders. (It did lead to an uncomfortable tongue-lashing meeting with my superintendent and principal, but did not lead to any constructive change at the time in educational technology purchasing policies or support practices.) I mention this history because Alice and Cathy’s explanation of how important technology integrators are to support blended learning in schools has become even more relevant in 2010 than it was in 1999 and 2001. District leaders holding the purse strings for our educational budgets need to understand this importance, so they they can put their money where their mouth is when it comes to talking about student learning, student engagement, and professional development for teachers.

See my text notes from Alice Barr’s breakout sessions, “The 21st Century Teachers’ Toolkit” and “Digital Citizenship for our Schools” at the the 2010 Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Manchester, New Hampshire, for more background about the exemplary ways educators as well as students at Yarmouth are learning with technology.

Many thanks to Alice and Cathy for this interview, and for all the work of students, teachers, and others at Yarmouth and in MLTI who shared during our outstanding tour yesterday!

Technorati Tags:
administrator, immersion, integration, laptop, learning, maine, teacher, technology, video, yarmouth, youtube, leader, coach, coaching, facilitate, integrate

Technology Integrators are essential for 1 to 1 Laptop Learning and Technology Immersion originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 4, 2010.

Alice has been in instructional technology since 1985 when she met Seymour Papert in Dallas
- inspired to do her Master’s degree at Lesley University
- started as a kindergarten teacher, worked at the Greenhills School in Dallas
- taught overseas for 12 years
- started tech programs in Cali, Columbia, Mogadishu, Somalia, and Daka, Bangladesh
- came back to the states in 1997
- most important thing I want you to know about me is: I’m a teacher
- I’m a computer geek, definitely
- I’ve been an instructional integrator all the time I’ve been in Yarmouth, it’s my 12th year
- I work with teachers and kids about how to integrate technology into lessons and learning

I’m going to be talking about how these tools fit in
- there has to be a purpose for using a tool

Resources for this session:

https://sites.google.com/site/cmtcteachertoolkit/home

When I’m working with teachers, I don’t just show tools
- so what I did today

When Angus King considered giving all students laptops in Maine, he did a lot of thinking about global collaboration

35,000 students in the state have the same device (all 7th and 8th graders)

When it got to 2003, you could buy in and purchase your own laptops
- our high school did that, phased in year by year starting with 9th graders

We are able to tweak the “image” of software programs we have on our laptops

We have done a lot of talking in 8 years about moving to this new kind of learning
- what do our classrooms look like now that all our students have a device?
- now it is the norm to use laptops everywhere, for everything

What’s happened in this process
- teaching and learning is changing in front of our eyes every day
- we don’t have a plan in place that says specifically, “Next week we will be on the creativity standard”
- we are continually tweaking and improving our practice
- every teacher creates a portfolio
- that lends itself wall to reflecting on and changing our practices to promote student learning and creativity
- we know there is a different kind of learner sitting in our classrooms now

Our staff is at a very wide range of skills when it comes to technology skills
- we’ve realized we need to give more professional development for teachers
- our PD is more differentiated today more than ever

PD is not just done “by me,” it’s done together with students and teachers
- teachers who need help with iMovie

iMovie ’09: I haven’t learned it because I haven’t used it much yet. But our kids have. So they are the experts on that skill.

ISTE NETS 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity (examples)

Every teacher is required to have a “minimum online web presence”
- contact info and a place for parents to get assignments
- we use FirstClass for that, but we are also a Google Apps for Education domain so teachers can do that with a Google Calendar

Sample Assignment: Portfolio of Work, Creating your “online presence”

Example: Maddie’s Art Portfolio
- teacher gives a structure, but doesn’t tell them exactly how it must look

Google Apps has changed how we work as a community
- it is so easy to collaborate and share now
- by clicking the SHARE button, teachers can either

Example project on native American stories: Class time (with VoiceThread for Education)

Think about an assignment you’ve created in the past, and digitally tweak it
- similar to what was done in the past, but students are allowed to have some digital creative “process” in it
- the teacher didn’t say, “You must do an iMovie”
- the task was to create a product for a specific purpose focused on specific content

There are lots of moviemaking tools online now, Aviary is one

We have a YouTube channel now to showcases student work: www.youtube.com/YarmouthHS
- student projects are often predictable
- I brainstormed with the teacher, and we decided to challenge the students to create their videos as if they WERE the artist
- Example about Edward Hopper

People are now favoriting our High School YouTube channel, because they like the work which is shared
- that ups the ante for student work

We had YouTube blocked for a long time, and then we realized, “What’s the point? Kids are
- we should use it as a channel to push work out
- You should consider creating a YouTube channel for your class
- that way you can take student work and embed it on a wiki or Google Site, and share it with parents, grandparents, and others

Kids like sharing with Prezi: a non-linear presentation tool
- works well when kids are narrating

Animoto is fabulous

Education version of Animoto lets you create class accounts

We do a unit on digital citizenship, 9th graders create / produce products around the question, “What does it mean to be a digital citizen? How does that relate to our school’s core values?”
- kids go through a series of scenarios
- have you seen the sock puppet videos
- we break kids into core value teams
- kids come up with a product around internet or cell phone safety

Tools used by students for the digital citizenship project are client-based (downloaded software) and web-based

We then share this out in a film festival

ISTE NETS2: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments (examples)

We still do bell work, but it looks like this: Why are these the top 3 news articles on Google News?
- using Wikispaces as the project backbone, getting an RSS feed from Google News embedded into the page
- kids take 10 minutes to put together and share with their group why this is important
- kids now send links to this teacher to related news articles all the time (kids continually sharing, saying “did you see…” or “did you know…”)

Current events are done by more than one person: collaborative current events / presentations
- students create presentations collaboratively, NOT in class, outside of class

Example project of a biology teacher who was NOT a technology user recently
- Biology Taste Test
- Data from the project
- Project Rubric
- Project Assessment
- all done with Google Docs, all done collaboratively in groups, all shared with the teacheer
- with groups of 4, this means the teacher has 20 projects to grade at the end (not 120 projects) at the end
- Google Apps domain has enabled this, it is truly changing the practice in our schools

We have 90 minute classes and an every-other schedule

Public Policy Project
- students are making a compelling presentation to someone who might be in a position to make a governmental change, and then they DO send and share it with them

We are so invested in our Art Ning we are paying for it this year (so we can keep doing group work)
- Edu2.0 is another website just like Ning, but FREE and very school friendly
- Edmodo works too, but it is more relevant for younger students

Teachers and students are really getting into using Screencasting
- example: Jing-created tutorials about Adobe PhotoShop
- Jing is similar to Screenr (but Screenr is web-based)

As a teacher look at Quizlet: Allows you to create online, interactive flashcards

Now ISTE NETS 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning (examples)

Senior Math Class learning portal example: This is a ‘landing space’ for students to engage in their digital work / learning

It’s very important that EVERYONE has access to these resources and tools

I work between 4 computers and a phone
- so having my bookmarks online lets me get to my links at anytime, anyplace
- lets me have my library of links available
- I can send a URL of links to teachers
- I use Diigo

YoLink: we’re just starting to use it for research
- highlights words you are searching for, and lets you put words from a webpage directly into a Google Doc
- great tutorials are available on the YoLink website
- YoLink Education site

Example tutorial: YoLink Share with Google docs

Readability: strips out ads and gives you JUST content

Evernote: Allows me to take notes on my phone, computer, etc.
- can tag notes

If you don’t have ways for kids to share documents outside school, Dropbox allows you to do this for free and access files from any machine
- If you invite more friends to DropBox, it gives you more space free

Browser add-ons: Huge time saver
- Read It Later
- After I find links on Twitter, I click Read It Later it makes a list for me
- that is what I’d do if I have an iPad

ISTE NETS 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

- NetVibes Summer Technology Course
- Google Site Summer Technology Course and blog posts
- Teacher’s Guide to International Collaboration on the Web

ISTE NETS 5: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership (examples)

I would not be standing up here today if it was not for Twitter
- if you are not using Twitter, really think about giving it a chance

Alice on Twitter: @alicebarr

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The 21st Century Teachers’ Toolkit by Alice Barr @alicebarr #cmtc10 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 1, 2010.

The official session description in the program is:

Come learn how a middle school classroom is taking advantage of iPad technology to extend the classroom beyond the walls and wifi. Learn from our experiences about what works and what does not with these powerful devices. We discuss administration, uses, and share ideas. Can you really collaborate from anywhere using the 3G connection? What challenges does all this connectivity present? Participants are encouraged to bring your own device and ideas to share with the group.

Sharon mentioned “Fit It” to Sarah as a good app for geometric concept development

We decided to do this session because we’ve gotten our feet wet with iPads in the classroom
- in the last 24 hours with our iPads and the new operating system…
- We bought Keynote for the iPad a few weeks ago
- got some need cables, plugged them into our projector

New version of Keynote on the iPad, there is an “X” that takes me out of my slideshow and see my slides
- there is now a laser pointer in Keynote
- solved a couple of our problems we were just talking about (maybe it heard us!)

We’re going to share about our own “iPad evolution” of use
- we wrote this description last Spring shortly after we were handed our iPads

The good, the bad and the ugly
- we’re doing lots of good stuff in the classrooms and the library with the iPads

Last May (May 2010)
- how we ended up with iPads
- we have a really cool superintendent, he sent an email, “Would you like a new iPad?”
- seemed odd, 3/4 of the way through the school year
- through a grant he got us some iPads
- it was like Christmas

We were told/expected it to be revolutionary
- so much hype in the media about the iPad

Kids are far less hesitant and fearful than adults to try new things, come up with new ideas
- Sharon: I still struggled with how 1 iPad is going to make a difference in my classroom…
- I really missed being able to hook my iPad up to the projector and share all my apps

Taking the iPad home and playing with it was critical

Is it just a big iPod? We had the challenge of needing to get beyond that

Initial uses
- we had a couple of Kindles in our library already
- AppStore
- Calculator
- Notepad
- Basic Skills
- iTunes

We believed in the power of the App Store (“there’s an app for that”)
- a BIG calculator who is struggling to see is a BIG deal (story of a student who has very poor vision)
- calculators we have had don’t do all the negative numbers, exponents, etc.

Being able to just take notes and email them
- committees in town… now I (Jon) am the meeting minutes guy

Flashcards: there are apps that are quick and easy

I’ve had kids typing notes after sporting events, on the way home
- we did get the 3G iPads so we’d have that connectivity
- our district isn’t giving laptops to kids, no laptops are leaving our building with kids

Podcasts and iTunesU: Content in iTunes was useful right off the bad

Challenges we’ve faced:
- If your billing address is not in an AT&T billing area you can’t even create an account with AT&T, we had to have someone else register the iPads on her personal account and bring them back to school
- then we changed the billing back to the school purchasing card
- her credit card was set to HER address that was in the billing area, so that had to be used

Blocked wifi
- we are completely dependent on the AT&T 3G network, because wifi at our school is incompatible with the iPad
- our network administrator has not been able to get us setup to use the existing wifi network

I’M WONDERING WHAT THE ERATE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS ARE? MOST LIKELY THESE COULD BE ADDRESSED IN PART (AT LEAST) BY ENABLING SOME LEVEL OF WEB RESTRICTIONS ON THE IPAD BROWSER. VERY INTERESTING TO LEARN ABOUT THESE WIFI ISSUES. SADLY THIS ISN’T UNUSUAL, LOTS OF SCHOOLS (OKCPS IS AN EXAMPLE) HAVE WIFI NETWORKS THAT ARE NOT FRIENDLY TO NON-WINDOWS DEVICES.

Distractions
- 11th graders asked to look up something about Charlemagne, and they are going to Facebook right away

The internet is protected with content filtering on the iPads

Lack of Flash support is frustrating

Managing apps and content is challenging
- we have personal iTunes accounts as teachers, and the librarian has an account
- when I want to sync accounts, it’s very hard
- we setup one laptop as a standalone server for our iTunes content
- teachers used to buy on DVD or VHS, now we buy it through iTunes and download it on THAT computer

We’ve found Amazon takes purchase orders, so we buy Amazon gift cards for iTunes and then use those gift cards for iTunes purchases at school
- so we are going to do that with our $50 classroom technology budgets next year

MY COMMENT: THIS REMINDS ME OF THE LATE 1990s WHEN WE WERE DOING “1 COMPUTER IN THE CLASSROOM” WORKSHOPS, HOW CAN 1 COMPUTER BE SHARED AND UTILIZED BY AN ENTIRE CLASS OF STUDENTS

Question about how are we going to backup data we are buying on iTunes
- our network admin bought a RAID0 backup solution, so we can backup to that device from our laptop
- not backing it up to a network server, backing up to another device that has limited access

question from the audience about licensing agreements

For the Kindles, we found we can buy a book and put it on 7 different devices

Audience comment: Apple now has an App Voucher program, works similar to an iTunes gift card
- discounts apply as you buy other apps
- Volume Purchase Program from Apple

We get a spotty signal in different places of our school for the 3G signal

CIPA compliance
- THIS WAS A BULLET ON THE SLIDE, BUT WAS NOT ADDRESSED BY JON

I can’t show you a video from YouTube on the projector, but I can show you a video from iTunes

Question from a participant: Why not just use a regular computer?
- Sharon’s answer: It’s so fast, it’s on all the time

Sharon uses the app MathBoard

Jon: Apple laptops and other computers aren’t even allowed within our building, so we have to sneak in these iPads!

From audience member: Pages on the iPad is not a full blown version of the computer version

THIS IS A REAL INTERESTING DISCUSSION NOW AMONG PARTICIPANTS, WHICH IS BASICALLY FOCUSED ON: WHY USE AN IPAD INSTEAD OF A “REGULAR” COMPUTERS

Sharon took iPads and iPods on an 8th grade trip to Gettysburg, Antietam and Harpers Ferry
- 8-9 hour ride, thought we could use these devices enroute especially since we’d had so little time together prior to the trip for learning
- we made the requirement that some time during the trip we want you to listen to these podcasts
- that provided some additional background information

Jon: We setup discussion forums in Moodle, were going to have new questions posting during the actual field trip

Jon: Amazing to see how far iTunes has come (the Beatles are there now!)
- how much iTunes University has grown

Sharon: I frequently go to the Apps store and try free examples

Participant suggestions:
- DragonSearch: Search Google with your Voice
- Dragon Dictation: Writes into your notes with your voice

TapToTalk: (free)

TapToTalk turns an iPhone™, iPad™ or iPod touch® into an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device. TapToTalk makes communication fun, like another “game” on this cool device. Just tap a picture and TapToTalk speaks. Each picture can lead to another screen of pictures. This free TapToTalk™ app comes with a fully functional album that you can use with your child. If you want to create albums that are individualized to meet the specific needs of your child, visit the TapToTalk web site (www.taptotalk.com),

WritePad: write with your finger, makes into type (99¢)

SunDry Notes (free, for iPad)

Write, draw, research, record and share! Take notes of any kind and use the built-in Evernote + Dropbox + Google Docs + Facebook integration. The ultimate multi-media note taking application!

Great to see visual example of words, hear them, get multiple means of reinforcement (from Sharon)

Jon: I think the screen is easier to read on a Kindle than an iPad, and for $139 it is more affordable than an iPad

Zagg invisible shield recommended by Jon

Sharon’s relative works for Pearson, describes how they are customizing chapters now for colleges
- running into lots of trouble with that because of the digital media to include, cost issues

MAKES ME THINK OF OUR POWERFUL INGREDIENTS FOR BLENDED LEARNING PROJECT!

Audience comment: Concerns over not being able to block Internet access on the iPad

Sarah shared Voices and Braingle

Superintendent’s comment: There is a plan to buy more if they are good for kids
- so “yes, if….” is the answer to “are you going to buy more”

Comment from a participant: We’re really thinking this (the iPad) would make a good ‘station’ in our classroom for kids

Recc from Ann Carnevale: iPad Pilot Project from Palm Beach County Schools, FL

Technorati Tags:
#cmtc10, app, apple, apps, cmtc10, edtech, ipad, learning, school

iPads in the Classroom by Jonathann Reed and Sharon Parsons #cmtc10 #edapp originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 30, 2010.

http://www.pocketbook-usa.com/

According to the sales rep I spoke with, this is the first U.S. retail outlet for Pocketbook. The English Wikipedia explains Pocketbook International started in Ukraine, is incorporated in Hong Kong, and has its US headquarters in Overland Park (a suburb of Kansas City.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocketBook_Reader

2 of the 3 devices I examined Friday were eBook readers similar to the Kindle or Nook. These use eInk and are monochrome. One was color and runs Android.

While I am happy to continue using and enjoying my iPad, I recognize the development of tablet alternatives like the Pocketbook is essential for the eventual commoditization of tablet technologies in the classroom. Digital touch devices should become (and eventually will become) like pencils in today’s 19th century schools.

For more of my thoughts of the commoditization of digital devices, see my past posts:

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2010/01/28/google-docs-is-not-clunky-old-pc-software/

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/10/01/apple-ipad-rumors-netbooks-and-co…

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/07/27/thoughts-on-macs-and-netbooks/

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from wesley fryer’s posterous

Pocketbook Tablets and Commoditization of Touch Technologies originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 27, 2010.

This video was created by Horizon Productions in Durham, North Carolina. Hat tip to educators in Grand View Public Schools, Oklahoma, for sharing this video on their “Tips for a Healthy Laptop and Responsible Care and Handling” webpage.

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1to1, care, laptop, spoof, video, youtube, csi, lenovo, thinkpad

Take care of your laptop! (TPI: ThinkPad Investigation) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 23, 2010.

Note the student in the third picture above, who appears to be playing on an iPod Touch. Angry Birds, perhaps? Cut the Rope?! Or, maybe it’s a cell phone and the student is texting? Also note the mobile phone in the right hand of the student covered with the pink blanket, holding on with a vise grip! I wonder if any teens today actually text while sleeping?!

I took a bunch of other photos at the tournament, and in addition to posting them to Flickr also shared a few during the day with comments to TwitPic.

Of those photos, the following one showing a particular teacher’s cell phone and iPod punishment policies generated the most responses, both on Twitter and Facebook. Evidently the mobile learning revolution is not welcome in this particular teacher’s classroom. I wonder how many iPods and other mp3 players the teacher has permanently confiscated to date? I wonder if any students or parents have appealed this to the school administration, or failing that considered contacting the ACLU?

The Tweet from the weekend which generated the most discussion on Facebook was this one, shared after I visited with several debaters from Longfellow Middle School in Norman. Longfellow is one of nineteen schools participating in our statewide 1:1 TitleIID pilot project this year. The students told me they were told (by school officials) to NEVER install any new software on their Windows-based netbook laptops, and NEVER change or customize their desktop wallpaper. This is sad and disappointing at multiple levels, as commenters to this Facebook share highlighted.

In his post, “I’ve Learned My Lesson – Question Everything,” Miguel Guhlin quotes Danny Brown:

In business, “leaders” have forgotten what it really means to lead. Instead, they bully employees into thinking their ideas are dumb, and while the employee is on the ground picking their shredded idea up, make sure they stop and get a coffee on the way back.
Educators are telling our brightest students that they won’t have a voice in the business world when they leave college, so be quiet, just listen to your superiors, and maybe – just maybe – they’ll get on in their chosen profession…Question everything. Settle for nothing. Even the most common sense answers can always be enhanced through questions and ideas.

Danny is right: It’s our obligation as educators, learners and leaders to QUESTION. This approach to living and learning is revolutionary, and it’s just the approach espoused by Neil Postman in his fantastic book, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity.” On page 23 Postman wrote:

Knowledge is produced in response to questions. And new knowledge results from the asking of new questions; quite often new questions about old questions. Here is the point: Once you have learned how to ask questions– relevant and appropriate and substantial questions– you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.

Although I was saddened to hear about the laptop lockdown at Longfellow (there’s some digitally inspired alliteration for you!) I was SO inspired (again) by the chance to work with middle and high school students this weekend at a speech tournament. I LOVE debate as well as extemporaneous speaking. There is no “cognitive ceiling” in either event. I heard kids debating about Kant’s categorical imperative this weekend, questioning whether human rights were universal or served the narrow interests of a particular cultural worldview, and discussing whether our criminal justice system is fundamentally flawed because of racial imbalances in drug crime sentencing. At no time did someone say, “Hey, you’re just in seventh grade, that concept isn’t something you’ll get to till you’re a senior!” It was a fantastic (as well as tiring) experience of intellectual discourse and competition. Long live debate and speech tournaments, and the passionate people who make them happen! Londa Madron (my son’s debate coach) is one of my personal heroes!

Do we need to question everything? Absolutely. Can a classroom teacher with a draconian policy on the permanent seizure of mobile devices hide from the light of public scrutiny, or a school’s policy of locking down student laptops to prevent even a DESKTOP WALLPAPER change remain a secret? Not very easily today.

We’ve certainly got a fair number of teachers in classrooms today who would be happy to keep all their students silent, passive, and largely disengaged from any type of real critical thinking experiences. We have another group, however, who take an opposite approach to learning. Learning should be all about asking questions… and asking tough, authentic, challenging questions at that.

The importance of asking questions to learn, both at school and outside of school, was a main focus of the “PopUpSchool” demonstration on the 2nd day of the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma City Wednesday. Our need to provide differentiated opportunities for learning, to let students learn in different ways, and integrate the arts across the curriculum to encourage GENUINE creativity were also emphasized. The following two, 90 second clips will give you a taste of what the students shared with the help of their teachers.

Jean Hendrickson, the Executive Director of Oklahoma A+ Schools, is the educator speaking about differentiated learning and arts integration in both of the videos above.

If you’re feeling low and in need of some inspiration, make some time to hang out with some students engaging in an activity they love and about which they are passionate. While we sometimes feel surrounded by “change preventers,” the students around us are often already acting as “change enablers.”

I love hanging out with kind, passionate people of any age. Passionate young people are especially inspiring, however.

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Speech Tournament Naps, iPod Policies, Laptop Lockdowns and Student Inspiration #cwf2010 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 20, 2010.

Podcast363: Implementing 1:1 Prepare Our Students for Their Future… TODAY! originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 4, 2010.

I posted a few weeks ago about “2Screens – Presentation Expert” and “2Screens Remote,” but still haven’t used them for an actual presentation. I’m eager to give Air Display, Air Sketch and Mobile Mouse Pro a try as well. I’ve purchased the 2Screens apps, but not the other three… yet!

This is a short video of Jim Peterson demonstrating how he is using Air Sketch on his iPad in his high school science classroom.

What are your favorite iPad apps currently, for classroom presentation use?

Technorati Tags:
app, application, classroom, ipad, mobile

Dreaming of iPad Presentation Apps for the classroom originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 2, 2010.

http://www.irvingisd.net/mediafair/
http://www.irvingisd.net/
Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World (MSOSW)
Project RED Research (on 1:1 learning)
Storychasers

Video reflection from North Texas originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 26, 2010.

Today I had the opportunity to spend time visiting with teachers and students at Holland Christian Schools in Holland, Michigan. One highlight of my day was the following five minutes of sharing by Holland Christian Schools’ chemistry teacher Dale Eizenga. Dale explained how access to a variety of technology resources has enabled him to flip the traditional in-class lecture and at-home assignment model of learning. Using software and websites, Dale records many lessons for students and makes those screencast videos available online and via the school’s podcast channel.

Several things are notable here. First, Dale didn’t read about Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, or Karl Fisch, online or in print. He stumbled upon this instructional model when his school provided all teachers and students with a robust digital learning environment. That not only includes access to laptops (for everyone in grades 6-12) but also an online learning management system (Moodle,) robust digital curriculum resources, school-supported options for sharing videos online, AND certified educators supporting technology integration. There are a lot of ingredients to this situation, and that’s critical to understand.

Secondly, Dale addresses in the video how some students struggle with this SHIFT to a “lecture at home on video” model. Dale still shares some lectures in class with students. He mixes it up. Dale explains this model forces students to “own their learning” in ways they may not have needed to in a traditional lecture-in-class setting. Dale relates this as “more of a college model,” where students are responsible for THEIR OWN learning. Dale explains his instructional role as one where he surrounds students with learning resources, and then assists students as they access / utilize those resources. When students aren’t “getting it,” he’s able to talk with them to find out if they’ve watched the podcast video which applies to the current topic or skill, and find out what students need specifically to master new content.

Dale primarily uses Skitch and Screencast-O-Matic to create online resources for his students. Instead of uploading screencasts to Moodle, which has file size limits on the server, he is utilizing Podcast Producer (an Apple server product) to upload videos into a podcast channel to which students can “subscribe” using iTunes on their laptops. This has made the screencasts much easier for students to find, download and use as needed.

One thing Dale mentioned after I stopped recording this video was that he’s found students benefit not just from seeing HIM work through sample problems, but also from seeing their peers work through sample problems– especially when they get “stuck,” and he’s there to help them work through to an answer. Those sticking points are often common for students, and it can be great to see how students work through those issues– and that helps others do the same thing. Darren Kuropatwa‘s use of scribe blog posts, explained in detail on the three part podcast series shared by November Learning, came to mind as Dale was discussing how technology can help fill these “gaps” in student understanding.

Have teachers in your school tried the Fisch Flip? The Bergmann / Sams Flip? The Eizenga Flip? It’s less important teachers know the “name” of this model: It’s more important we all understand how it is POSSIBLE and how it can be transformative for student learning. Is it easier or harder to teach when you flip traditional lecture and homework routines? I’m betting it’s harder initially in terms of preparation and work. In the long run, however, it sounds like many educators are finding it more effective and more rewarding. This is an important model to not only understand but also TRY personally. Kahn Academy founder Salman Kahn is demonstrating this vividly with over 1800 free videos now available on his site. While Salman is not a classroom teacher, Jonathan, Aaron, Karl and Dale ARE. The critical question is not, “Is this easier for me as a teacher,” but rather “Can this be more effective for student learning?” That answer appears to be a resounding YES.

Share the “lecture homework flip model” with other teachers you know, and challenge yourself as well as them to give it a try. Join and encourage other educators to join the Teacher Vodcasting Network. Don’t have a 1:1 laptop setting for your students or robust, “just in time” technology support to assist you? Have your administrator give me a call. I’ll be glad to come over and give your school board members a pep talk about why empowering educators to facilitate student learning with these kinds of blended models is essential in the classrooms of the 21st century.

See the following for more on this topic:

1. My January 2006 post, “The Synchronous Non-interactive Fallacy,” addressed this challenge as well as opportunity of making classtime much more interactive thanks to video sharing options and other blended learning technologies.
2. My January 2009 post, “Making homework into classwork with mastery learning” includes a video and more information specific to this model as Jonathan and Aaron are sharing it.
3. My September 2009 post, “Interactive technology access does not guarantee good teaching and learning” shares why SMU Dean Jose Bowen encourages faculty to “teach naked.” (make in-class learning more interactive, and end power-pointlessness)

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The Fisch Flip in Michigan: Dale Eizenga on flipping traditional lecture and homework routines originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 20, 2010.

But what about Google? Last week, Eric Schmidt reiterated that they are activating 200,000 Android devices per day, and have around 90,000 apps in their app store. For comparison, Apple has activated around 275,000 iOS devices per day on average for the past 30 days, with a peak of almost 300,000 iOS devices per day on a few of those days. And Apple has 300,000 apps on its App Store.

That is a LOT of smartphone activations. How are teachers at your school doing moving their entire curriculum into an online, blended model? Maybe it’s time to revise that timetable… or start it.

Jobs went on to briefly address the iPad in both education and the business marketplace:

The iPad is clearly gonna affect notebook computers. And I think the iPad proves it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. And there’s I think a lot of development and progress over the next few years. But we’re already seeing tremendous interest in iPad from education and, much to my surprise, from business. We haven’t pushed it real hard in business, and it’s being grabbed out of our hands. And I talk to people every day in business, in all kinds of businesses, that are using iPads. All the way from boards of directors that are shipping iPads around instead of board books, down to nurses and doctors and hospitals, and other large and small businesses.

So the more time that passes, the more I am convinced that we’ve got a tiger by the tail here, and this is a new model of computing which, you know, we’ve already got tens of millions of people already trained on with the iPhone. And that lends itself to lots of different aspects of life, both personal, educational, and business. So I see it as very general purpose, and I see it as really big. And the timing, one could argue about the timing endlessly, but I don’t think one could argue that it’s gonna happen anymore.

The learning revolution is well underway, and if your school has not embraced a blended model for learning as well as 1:1 computing with some kind of mobile device you’re already WAY behind. The only way we can hope to thrive today is to collaborate and come together behind leaders with vision for TRANSFORMATIONAL models of learning. Those people may not be sitting on your school board today, but they may be reading this post.

It’s time to be the change. Watch Dr Tim Tyson tomorrow and listen carefully. Prepare for local action. We simply MUST come together to share a vision for transformed, blended learning in our communities today, and then act together in support of that vision.

Read the full Macworld article: Jobs speaks! The complete transcript

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Smartphone activations, iPad Sales and Vision for Transformed Learning originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 19, 2010.

Our exam is actually a “quiz” in Moodle, and I let the students know all the questions in advance to study. All the questions were short answer, except one. After creating the quiz, I set it to be open during our class period today.

I set the quiz to display just one question at a time, and to “shuffle” the questions so each student would get the questions in a random order. This minimizes the chances a student would be typing an answer to the same question as their neighbor.

I also turned on two security settings, so students wouldn’t start the quiz early (during class) and so only students in our lab could take the quiz. By requiring a password, which I provided to students right before they started the test, no one could begin early. I put the first two numbers of the IP addresses of our lab computers into the security settings to limit the computers which could take the test. This was really overkill and not necessary, but I wanted to give it a try. Basically it made sure the computer taking the test was on campus and not off campus.

The last, and probably most important thing I did during our quiz, was turn on our “Faronics Insight” lab monitoring software on the instructor computer and project small versions of everyone’s screen at the front of the room.

I explained that in 1:1 computing settings, it is handy to have this kind of capability so everyone can see at a glance that they are accountable for their screen. It’s easy to see if someone is on Facebook or has switched screens to something other than our Moodle quiz. The software permits more sophisticated locking of individual workstations, but that could have been overkill as well for our setting today. In addition to providing this quickly visible, public way of providing some accountability for computer screen activity during our quiz, I also wanted to show my students how this kind of software monitoring program can be used in class. Insight is similar in function to Apple Remote Desktop for Mac computers. Back in 2002-2003, I wrote an article for TCEA’s TechEdge magazine titled “Computer Lab Management Software” in which I reviewed several of the lab management software programs available at the time. Software tools like this can be very handy, both in K-12 as well as university settings.

Technorati Tags:
moodle, quiz, settings, exam, proctor

First Proctored Quiz with Moodle originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 11, 2010.

I wonder if any university professors or other academic researchers are doing a comparative study of Algebra students equipped with less expensive netbooks and access to the FREE Khan Academy?

H/T to my mom for sharing this article via her Posterous blog!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Anyone Studying Student Access to Khan Academy Videos on Netbooks? originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 11, 2010.

There are obviously a LOT of content area specific applications for the iPad which we could also explore, but I’m wanting to primarily focus on applications which can be used for media consumption and media publishing. We certainly can “sprinkle in” other education applications, but I’d rather discuss fewer applications in greater depth than show 100+ apps but not give participants a chance to get “hands-on” use with very many. Given the enormous breadth of iOS applications now available with educational possibilities, putting together a workshop like this is a fun but formidable challenge.

In the course of my web searches for sites about using the iPad in education, I found both the Teach with Your iPad wiki and the iPad Schools wiki. Both include lots of links to content specific apps. Do you know of other wiki sites specific to the iPad in Education which I should include on my list?

One of my best finds in preparing for this workshop was the site linktoapp.com, referenced in this 2008 ARS Technica article. It provides a quick way to link directly to the iTunes page of different apps. Simply add the name of an application after the forward slash in the link “linktoapp.com/” and the site will forward you to the appropriate iTunes page for the application. If the app title includes more than one word, separate the words with the “+” symbol. This worked very simply for most of the applications on my list.

I tried to create this entire workshop curriculum on my iPad, but could not figure out a way to add a hyperlink to a Google Document. Office2 HD works well for basic editing of Google Docs on an iPad, but does not (at this point) support hyperlinks.

If you have suggestions for additions to my iPad workshop resource list, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to use this list for your own iPad in education workshops too!

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iPads in Education: What important apps am I missing? originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 6, 2010.

I brainstormed the outline for this presentation the previous day, and used the website Compfight to find copyright-friendly images to use in the presentation. Some of these I had previously found and saved as “favorites” on my Flickr account. In class, we used my wiki page, “Talk with Media – Using Copyright-Friendly Images” to learn how to use Compfight in this way. I also recorded a five minute screencast tutorial for my students about how to use Compfight to find Creative Commons images for a presentation using Screenr, and linked this from our course Pecha Kucha assignment page.

Students Wednesday enjoyed viewing Don McMillan’s GREAT “Life After Death by PowerPoint” YouTube video during class, as we discussed WHY we need to take a more “PresentationZen” approach to presentations. Garr Reynolds‘ August 21st post, “A long time ago, before death by PowerPoint,” cleverly uses a Star Wars analogy to also make this point.

When I brainstormed my outline for “Why ALL Learners Need Laptops NOW!” I was a few points short. I created a shared Google Document which allowed others to edit it without signing in to Google. The following ten people added fourteen more great ideas to the list I started.

Al Steeves, Rothesay, New Brunswick, Canada
Chris O’Neal, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Terry Kaminski, Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada
Trisha Andersen, Loveland, Colorado, USA
Mike Renne, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Jeannie Chiasson, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Camilla Elliott, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
T. Lewis, New Brunswick, Canada
Pam Lowe, Missouri, USA
Kurt Paccio, Nazareth, Pennsylvania, USA

Global collaboration can be inspiring, and it certainly was for me personally in this case!

I love sharing both the Presentation Zen approach to presentations as well as the Pecha Kucha model with educators. For more about this, see the following posts from last Spring:

1. What I Hope You Learned (A Technology 4 Teachers Pecha Kutcha Presentation) – 28 April 2010
2. An Exemplary Scribe Blog Post, Pecha Kutcha Presentation, and Screencast – 30 April 2010

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Why ALL Learners Need Laptops NOW! (SlideShare Slidecast) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 2, 2010.