Moving at the Speed of Creativity

I learned today it’s possible to edit a previously posted Audioboo and make the recorded location private. When you do this, all location information for that particular Audioboo is deleted.

By default, Audioboo posts both the iPhone photo you select as well as your location on the planet (via Google Maps) on the post which is created after you post a recording. This is the photo and Google Map result from Alexander’s report yesterday from Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C.

For a recording like this, at a public venue, location information is most likely fine to share. If you’re recording with Audioboo from your house, a grandparent’s house, or another location you’re not keen on sharing directly with the world, consider deleting the location information from that Audioboo. Audioboo account settings do not presently support levels of privacy access, but this is an active topic in the Audioboo forums.

Audioboo now lets you connect your account to both Twitter and Facebook for auto-posting. I just use the Twitter feature, since I use a Facebook application to auto-post my Twitter feed there.

If you’re new to Audioboo, check out this video introduction “Walking through Audioboo” to get started.

Walking through Audioboo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags:
google, googlemaps, record, audio, audioboo, privacy, location, maps, edit, travel

Happy Independence Day, everyone, from our nation’s capitol city!

The following UStream video was recorded the evening of July 3, 2009, at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. At the start we had some audio feedback for a few seconds because of a second Ustream window I had opened, but after closing that window the feedback problem was resolved.

The video runs 34 minutes. Since I had my Macbook Pro laptop and AT&T 3G data card, I figured we might as well give this a try, and I was pleased with the connectivity speed. Unfortunately the US Park Service would not let us hold an “open laptop” on the memorial at the level of the Lincoln statue, but we were still able to show and discuss the memorial (as well as other things we’ve seen this week in the D.C. area) from the platform below the upper memorial steps.

It was fun to be able to share this video as storychasers!

Technorati Tags:
#necc09, broadcast, history, iste, laptop, lincoln, mall, necc, necc09, ustream, washington, dc, memorial, national

These are my notes from Tony Vincent’s NECC 2009 presentation, “Do So Much with an iPod Touch!.” His notes are available with all the links! This was a fantastic presentation in all respects. Tony is a model presenter, very engaging, so relevant with specific classroom examples, has such depth of experience as a classroom teacher with his extensive Palm background, I could go on and on. If you are looking for a professional development guru to work with teachers and students and the iPod Touch, look no further than Tony Vincent.

Survey prior to the session using Google Forms

I am a former 5th grade teacher, last year as an independent consultant I visited 28 states and the US Virgin Islands

In 2001 I started using Palm Handhelds with my 5th graders
- we developed our own applications, and had applications for us
- a PBS affiliate came in and did a documentary about our class
- had lots of fun using handhelds for learning

2 years ago I spent 18 weeks working in the US Virgin Islands working with schools using iPod Touches
- palms had worked really well
- smaller devices were needed, great for smaller spaces

showing name of App from website
- http://mkaz.com/nametag/ lets you create a nametag on your iTouch!

URL shorteners are great, esp when using handheld devices

tr.im is an example

I enjoy using the Google Form Summary feature (FORM - SHOW SUMMARY)

My website: Learning in Hand, click iPods

Use the twitter tag #LIH

Handhelds
- Palm technology with stylus looks so ancient!
- portable, dependable, easy to troubleshoot, ulta-cool, battery life, multipmedia
- #1 reason iPod Touch is great is ALL those apps that are available
- easy to install from the App Store application
- you can also get to apps via the iTunes Store

In the Palm days it was harder, you had to HotSync
- didn’t always work
- example of contraction timer for pregnancy
- teacher who was pregnant had a funny

iTunes Store has a ‘as seen on TV’ section

There are LOTS more apps now
- it took Palm 10 years to get 30,000 apps
- today there are over 50,000 apps for the iTouch in less than 3 years
- this is AMAZING application

148apps.biz keeps track of app activity each day on the store
- perday 238 apps are added to the app store!
- 3,514 education apps today in the iTunes Store with that education category

18% of all aps are games/education entertainment

Way to NOT have a credit card in iTunes
- log out of your account
- go find a free App in the store
- click GET APP
- you will be prompted to create a new account
- THEN and ONLY then (when you are signing up to get a free app) you can get an account without putting in a credit card

THAT IS A HUGE TIP!
- you can also just use iTunes gift cards in the future to buy paid apps without a credit card

Another bugaboo: trying to understand syncing
- iTunes account syncs to 1 computer and iPod, that makes sense
- what about the classroom: multiple iPods?
- you can sync as many iPods as you want to 1 computer
- then you can sign in on up to 5 computers with 1 iTunes account
- Apple has this setup so if you buy the software once, you can sync it as many times as you want
- the system is not setup to take multiple payments for multiple devices

Web directories for apps:
- mobxlix
- AppShopper
- iEducation Apps Review

On my site I’ve setup Google Moderator site, now have 38 ideas from 31 people

tr.im/appvote

right now gFlash and Stanza are top

iPod Touch graphic

Google Application: you can use your voice if you have an attachable mic

Let’s see these Apps in action

For Language Arts
- Whiteboard
- 2 devices can share 1 whiteboard
- similar to an app we used to have on the Palm

For language arts I like to do a game called crosstalk
- write a word on the whiteboard
- another student thinks up a different word that is a synonym, perhaps better for elaboration

If you want a stylus, you have to get a special stylus for the iTouch

YouTube has tutorials about how to make your own styluses on the cheap

Next demo: Quickword
- good Word processor, still not fantastic on the mobile devices but this one is pretty good
- peer review together
- have students trade handhelds
- this apps lets you highlight words, make some bold (highlight HOT words red, highlight words that could be revised blue)
- then when we trade handhelds I can see what my peer reviewer thought was awesome, and what I need to improve
- in this case my peer reviewer hasn’t changed anything

Dictionary.com is a huge dictionary, several megabytes in size
- all downloaded, doesn’t require active Internet connection
- Thesaurus too!
- More than 275,000 definitions
- WARNING: they have those words that you know students will look up first!

Social Studies apps

great videos online that you want to put online, YouTube may be blocked
- you can install and sync videos
- if YouTube is accessible there is a YouTube app right on the iTouch

To get it off of YouTube and convert to MP4 so iPod touch will use
- example: Schoolhouse Rock video
- Trick: just add the world “kick” in front of “youtube” in the URL
- on that website (KickYouTube.com) I can directly download the site
- be aware this could be against Google’s terms of service
- then go into the Videos app to watch it

Another way to get videos, get them from iTunes

Let’s talk about Safari
- you’ve seen the ads: this is the FULL web
- this is probably the application students will use most

Teachers may want to create their own homepage
- mobile homepage: my favorite is a web editor too: wirenode.com (kind of like a wiki, but ideal for iPod Touch, accounts are free, you can pick out your URL)
- my site: http://lih.wirenode.mobi/
- fonts are big
- I can link to different things
- can put direct links to podcasts (audio and video) to download

Social studies app: Inflation
- 99 cents
- I was wondering about Presidential Pay
- inflation tables just go back to 1913, President’s salary was $75,000
- today he makes $400K plus expense account of $50K

Google Maps
- let’s find the President’s house
- I am using the iPhone 3.0 software, I paid $9.99 for the update
- it allows Google Maps streetview in Googe Maps
- can add a drop pin to the map, and go right to Google Street View right on the iPod Touch

WOW THIS IS GREAT

Can take a screenshot of ANYTHING on my iPod Touch by holding down both buttons on the device
- it took the picture, now it is in my photos
- great geography links here!

I like to

LifeStrips ($5)
- vocabulary is great
- can be used to create comics
- some people will decry the lack of a camera
- two fingers to twist and stretch images where you want them to go
- double tap to add text
- screenshots from Google Maps, combined in LifeStrips

Comic touch also lets you make

Ali’s Jigsaw Puzzle
- save comics back as photos
- turn any photo into a jigsaw puzzle

Tip:
- extra power
- can use an iPod Touch connected to computer or power (Apple chooses
- battery back can give you about 3/4 of a new
- Get one that takes the same dock connector, so no cable is required

You want a powered USB hub to make your own inexpensive charging station

Hilarious photo on EdTechBytes with chargers

You can sync on a Mac more than 1 mac at a time
- for some reason on Windows, you can just sync 1 at a time

THAT IS HUGE! NOT AN ACCIDENTAL “FEATURE OMISSION” FOR WINDOWS I’D BET

Earbuds: Walmart has them for 99¢ each
- get earbuds for everyone
- they get tangled constantly: get adhesive hooks and put numbered tags on the wall

Another management tip: email
- Apple would really like you to get info with email
- so you can issue each iPod Touch its own email
- start a free GMail account for each iPod Touch

ACTUALLY I THINK YOU CAN CREATE AS MANY SUBACCOUNTS AS YOU WANT WITH 1 GMAIL ACCOUNT, THO IF YOU CHECK THE ACCOUNT I DON’T THINK THEY ARE DIFFERENT

My podcast “Learning in Hand iPods”
- don’t leave an iPod in your hot car! That diminishes the battery big time.

Have an App called “Beard Me”
- now using app “Talking Heads”
- commercial example Billy Mays style!

Power down your iPod by holding down the top power button for 6 sec

Math Applications
- lots of drill and skill
- research shows students who are using a handheld will remember their math facts better than if they are using paper
- it is more engaging

Math Drills
- they also give you visuals
- has a light version

Make Num Lite
- also called “Sum It Up”

Lemonade Stand (99¢)
- practice supply and demand, make the posters
- same algorithms from the Apple II days, but updated graphics
- you can actually go back to the Apple II graphics if you want to

Science Apps
- there are cheap thumbtack microphones
- I have a Belkin one
- for science, do a “sound seeing tour” when you are on a field trip
- come back and research it, add more sounds with an audio editor on a “grown up computer”

Flipbook
- Sketchy was my favorite palm app
- full version is $10
- old style Palm
- draw directly on the screen
- make it animation
- anything my kids made an animation about they remembered it forever
- they would watch it over and over, show it to their friends
- they turn out with a great product
- Flipbook

At flipbook.tv you can see lots of examples

Now ready for an unbelievable example: made by an amazing artist using Flipbook (Foodchain)
- you can pinch in and zoom in to make changes

You can make your own database with HandDBase
- can use for observations
- checkboxes
- any types of notes
- once I save it, it joins my database, can be synced back to the desktop computer
- doesn’t have to be bahvior, it can be what did you observe

Something I miss from the Palm days: the fold-out keyboard
- currently there are not any attachable keyboards for the iPod Touch, but I hope we might see those

Now for each student: iPod Touch for $229 or Netbook for $289
- tradeoffs: battery life, portability, all the apps, cool factor

http://handheldlearning2009.com/
- Oct 7-9 2009 in London, everyone gets an iPod Touch!

Technorati Tags:
#necc09, 1to1, apple, education, ipod, itouch, necc, necc09, onetoone, school, technology, touch, tutorial, tonyvincent, app, apps, itunes

This weekend my kids and I visited our new lego store in Oklahoma City and explored the possibilities of mobile video blogging with the iPhone GS, as well as the latest offerings from Lego. The iPhone GS now supports video recording and copy/paste, with no jailbreak required, which are two key ingredients for mobile video blogging. The last ingredient is support for direct video uploading to YouTube.

I was able to record the following video, post it to YouTube, and post a link with some explanatory text to our family learning blog all from my iPhone GS on Saturday, using the available 3G network in Oklahoma City and the free Wordpress for iPhone application. Upload time for this 48 second video was about 4 minutes over 3G. It would have been faster over a WiFi connection, but one was not available at the Lego Store.

The only missing ingredient from this recipe was the free Wordpress plug-in Twitter Tools, which will automatically tweet new blog posts when they are published to a self-hosted Wordpress blog. I have this installed and functional on the team blog Eyes Right, but not on Learning Signs yet. I will most likely install and activate the plug-in here on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” prior to NECC09, and on Learning Signs prior to our family vacation (which will be taken without laptops, but not without iPhones) later in July.

Here’s a quick step-by-step tutorial on mobile videoblogging with the iPhone GS. Some of these screenshots (taken on my iPhone by simultaneously holding down the power and home buttons) were from my first experimental iPhone video on YouTube, “Irrelevant Paper.” Others were from the Lego store. Both were taken and published on Saturday.

When selecting the “camera” icon on the iPhone, you now have an option to take still image photos or videos. Both videos and still pictures show up in the photo gallery.

After selecting a video, click on the “share” icon in the lower left corner to publish it. Choose “Send to YouTube” to publish it there for immediate access.

Log into an existing YouTube account, using the correct userid and password.

Enter the desired title, description, tags, and category for your new video.

After the video successfully uploads to YouTube, a screen like the following is displayed permitting iPhone video publishers to directly view it on YouTube, or initiate an email including the direct link to the video.

If you choose to view the video right away, most likely it will not yet be available on the iPhone. I think YouTube is now transcoding multiple versions of uploaded videos, including a lower-resolution version which is playable on mobile devices like the iPhone. Eventually the video should be transcoded for playback/availability on the iPhone, but this can take awhile depending on the size of the video and probably how busy the YouTube servers are at the time you upload.

To post a link to the video on our family learning blog from the mall, I selected the option “Tell a Friend” after publishing the video to YouTube. This opened a new email message, from which I was able to copy and paste the direct YouTube URL/website of the new video. I then used the free application Wordpress for iPhone to create and publish a new blog post, which included the video link. (I “pasted” it on the iPhone. How sweet!)

To make sure the post was published, I opened the homepage for our family learning blog and viewed the post.

I wish there was a way to view, copy and paste the actual embed code for the YouTube video in the blog post, but I don’t think you can do that yet. I’m betting we’ll see the Flickr iPhone application update soon to permit video uploads. For videos less than 90 seconds in length, I really do prefer Flickr rather than YouTube. Here’s a 71 second video overview of the OKC Lego Store, which I took with the iPhone Saturday and uploaded to Flickr this evening. The Flash transcoding on Flickr seems to result in a lower-quality video, but for shorter clips like this I’ll opt for mobile Flickr publishing rather than YouTube when it becomes available on the iPhone.

Technorati Tags:
blog, blogging, iphone, iphonegs, mobile, oklahoma, video, lego, store, oklahomacity, okc, mall, tutorial

Following the lead of Chris Duke this evening, I created an account as a publisher on Amazon’s Kindle Publishing for Blogs website and submitted “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” as an available blog.

After submitting all the requisite details, I was informed:

Your blog will be available on the Kindle Store in 48-72 hours.

According to Chris, Amazon will evaluate my blog and then determine what price should be charged for Kindle access. I have some real reservations about this, since my blog content is available FREE and it seems wrong for Amazon to charge Kindle owners to access it, even if they are going to pass along a portion of the income to me. I think the Kindle should have a Google Reader option, so anyone can read their RSS feeds just as they would on a laptop computer, iPhone, or other wireless computing device.

I went ahead and submitted my blog to Amazon, despite these reservations, because I’m interested in learning about the process and I’m certainly not going to turn down money people are willing to give me for blogging at this point. (Recognizing that there are not any conflicts of interest here: I’m not agreeing to promote Amazon’s products, for instance, as a result of this “deal.”) I’m also very interested in being a relevant and accessible information resource in our attention economy, so it makes sense to make my blog available to Kindle owners.

I’m planning to purchase my wife a Kindle DX (version 2) for her birthday this summer, and am looking forward to learning more about the Kindle via her experiences. I don’t think I’ll recommend she pays to read my own blog on her Kindle, however.

I think Amazon should provide an option for blog publishers to make their content FREELY available on the Kindle. Perhaps Amazon will.

Technorati Tags:
blog, blogging, publish, amazon, kindle, monetize, mobile, mobility

In this podcast from the road, I compare the available features, limitations, and relative benefits of using the web service drop.io compared to Gabcast for cell phone (or regular land line phone) digital recording. Gcast is another available option for phone-in recording, and I discuss it a bit as well. Both Gabcast and Gcast became commercial-only phone recording services in the spring of 2009, but drop.io still offers 100 MB or about 450 minutes of free phone recording to anyone. In the podcast I provide an overview of a lecturecasting via cell phone pilot project I helped facilitate this past spring with a local university using Gabcast, and also describe how participants in our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling project have used Gabcast in the past to permit relatives in different towns to record and share oral history interviews digitally. Cell phone digital recording can be used to create “no-edit” podcasts which are immediately available on the Internet for others to access. When students are asked to provide summary podcasts of instructor lectures for class, these types of solutions can be ideal. It is also wonderful to be able to empower ANYONE with access to a phone to be able to provide audio input or feedback for a project. I am loving drop.io and highly commend it to you. Check out the shownotes for this podcast for extensive links to the resources mentioned in this episode.

 

 Podcast317: Comparing Drop.io and Gabcast for Cell Phone Digital Recording [51:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (720)

Show Notes:

1. Drop.io
2. drop.io voice:  leave voicemail on a drop
3. Sony ICD-UX70 MP3 Digital Audio Recorder
4. Gabcast
5. GCast
6. Duke Digital Initiative
7. Duke Digital Initiative - Evaluation of 2004-05 Academic iPod Projects, June 2005 (PDF)
8. Echo360
9. 2009 Mother’s Day Podcast (created free with GCast - no cell phone recording used tho)
10. Audacity (free, open source audio editor)
11. Celebrate Oklahoma Voices
12. StoryChasers
13. Apple OS X Server Podcast Producer
14. MidDel Public Schools
15. MidDel Public Schools PodSquad
16. CNAME Registry Change: Helping more teachers and students access a Ning website via a subdomain and a CNAME entry in DNS
17. Digital Video Instigators (mini-lessons) from Celebrate Oklahoma Voices
18. Scribe Posts by Darren Kuropatwa
19. Pick-A-Prof
20. University of Central Oklahoma
21. Liz Kolb’s blog: From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning
22. Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools - Liz Kolb’s 2007 presentation for K-12 Online
23. Dean Mantz on Classroom 2.0
24. Dean Mantz on Twitter
25. PodStock Conference Ning
26. BlastCast podcast (our post today inviting parent feedback via drop.io phone recording)
27. The Dirty Thirties by Jeanette Hale (a digital story example which used Gabcast)

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The theme for Liz Kolb’s “Picture on the Fly” challenge / contest (which started today) is “progress.” This was my submission:

This image fits nicely into a theme of “progress” aligning with the SMART Notebook 10 workshop I’ve been attending this week at CSD in St Louis.

I didn’t submit a second photograph, but if I was going to I’d send in this image of a “Have You Blogged Today?” button.

Liz is coordinating her photo contest using TextMarks for SMS group messaging (free) and Flickr’s upload via email feature.

Way to go Liz! I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the submissions.

Technorati Tags:
photo, contest, mobile, mobility, phone, cell, cellphone, picture

Today I took two of my children to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the Miles Automotive Group where we learned about electric vehicles and shot our Film on the Fly / Earth Day cell phone video, “Go Green! Go Electric!”

The description for this video which we included on YouTube was:

The children have the answer! Tomorrow is Earth Day 2009, and to share ideas for how to “go green” we created this video for the “Film on the Fly” Earth Day cell phone digital storytelling contest. We had heard about the Miles Electric Cars, but had not seen one in person or rode in one. We went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, today and learned about electric car technologies in person! This video was entirely shot on a cell phone and edited with iMovie 09.

Miles Automotive Group is located at 1207 S Detroit Avenue, near the intersection of Detroit and 12th Street, in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. (918-230-4283) They are one of approximately twenty dealerships in the entire United States for Miles Electric Vehicles.

The prompt for this month’s “Film on the Fly” contest was, “The children have the answer!” The contest was delayed this time around for Earth Day, so videos could have an Earth Day focus. The prompt was sent via SMS to participants on Monday at 9 am PST, and everyone has 48 hours to shoot, edit, and upload their cell phone video to YouTube with the tag “FOTFEarth.” You can view other submitted videos on YouTube directly by searching for the tag FOTFEarth, or by visiting the Film on the Fly Ning and viewing them there as they are added by the contest coordinator, Janet English.

A little background regarding our video: Yesterday my 5th grade son, Alexander, brought home the following “Earth Day worksheet” as homework from school.

I decided this was a perfect opportunity to do some “home schooling” with my public school enrolled children, and use the “Film on the Fly” Earth Day challenge as our focal point. Except for the scenes he is in, Alexander filmed all the sequences for this movie with my cell phone.

He then edited it entirely on his own, using iMovie 09, on our drive back to Edmond from Tulsa this afternoon. He made a few tweaks this evening, and we added the final sequence with his 3rd grade sister (who couldn’t go to Tulsa today because of some “Bear testing” at school) sharing the directions to the dealership and their corporate website. The video came in just under the 4 minute limit, at 3 minutes, 49 seconds.

I served as a technical consultant for Alexander, and helped him plan different shots for the film. He thought of including a series of quick shots at the beginning, set to music, which would be like program introductions he’s seen on Nickelodeon and elsewhere on television. He even thought of the song he wanted to use, “The Electric Slide,” since part of the intro is the line, “It’s Electric!” Very clever and appropriate, I thought. I used Audio Hijack Pro to record the 30 second preview of the song which is provided on the iTunes Music Store, and Alexander edited down his intro sequence so it matched the 30 second song clip precisely.

I had not planned on being “sold” on electric cars when we decided to go to Tulsa today and make this video, since I knew the car is limited to just 35 mph. I learned, however, that this “speed limit” is dictated by US vehicle regulations, which treat the Miles EV as a golf cart currently. There is an electrical engineer in Iowa who has learned to adjust the “speed governor” of his Miles electric car to permit it to reach 60 mph. I guess this is kind of like “jailbreaking” your car.

We do need to “go green” when it comes to our cars! Battery and electrical technologies are not at a point where 18 wheelers can be powered with them, but personal autos can be. (I’m a vocal advocate for the “Pickens Plan” because of these realities.) This vehicle has a range of about 60 miles, but that is great as a commuter vehicle which does not have to be used on the highway. Does a Miles EV lie the future for our family? I’m not sure, but I’m more positive about this electrical vehicle technology than ever before after seeing and experiencing the car in person today. Time will tell…

Happy Earth Day! Go Green, Go Electric!

Technorati Tags:
car, electric, ev, vehicle, earth, day, earthday, tulsa, oklahoma, miles, green, go, gogreen

The CNN article, “Parents, police monitoring kids’ cell phones” references several commercial services being utilized by parents in an attempt to monitor and control their children’s activities and interactions via cell phones. Referenced services include “My Mobile Watchdog” and “Mobile Spy.” The marketing teaser for “Mobile Spy” is:

Need to silently record SMS (text message) and call information of your child or employee? Learn the TRUTH with Mobile Spy, a completely stealth program! Mobile Spy records every SMS and logs every call including phone numbers with durations. View real time results in your private online account.

When parents, employers, and authorities suspect criminal behavior is taking place, there may be just cause for extreme measures to be taken to monitor and document behavior. I cringe to think parents may be resorting to commercial services like this, however, when their teen most likely needs more opportunities to communicate and develop a supportive, functional relationship with their parent(s) instead of a monitoring/stealth spying service.

Equally troubling on these commercial websites is the misrepresentation of “Internet safety” statistics to build a case to justify the purchase of offered services. On the “Child Safety Resources” page of “My Mobile Watchdog” we find the following sidebar of “research findings” purportedly related to cell phone use dangers:

Note these statistics are from a 2005 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children survey and a 2004 iSafe Survey. That means, for starters, these statistics are FOUR AND FIVE YEARS old. Should that be a problem for a marketing pitch purporting to highlight CURRENT trends? It should be, but apparently the “My Mobile Watchdog” folks are assuming consumers won’t read the fine print or care.

The larger issue with this “research” citation, however, is that there is no indication either of these surveys had anything to do with cell phone use or cell phone Internet dangers at all. In reading the titles of the surveys, it appears they were focused on issues arising when young people were online via desktop or laptop computers, not via a cell phone. The marketing department of “My Mobile Watchdog” apparently believes consumers should make the enormous assumption that because students in 2005/2004 were reporting high levels of “bad” encounters online, that means kids today are encountering at least equal levels of “bad stuff” on their cell phones. Certainly the mobile web does offer plenty of offensive choices today, for those who go looking, but this leap of faith / analysis encouraged by this marketing example is not supported by the presented research and should not be accepted by consumers.

Interestingly, the i-Safe official website does not provide any links on its homepage to its own survey and research results. If i-Safe was really interested in sharing and disseminating objective data to help people make better decisions, they would provide ready links to those “research studies” which do NOT require a login to their protected site content.

Are students using cell phones today in ways which put themselves and possibly others at risk? Most certainly. The recent articles on “sexting” from ABC, CBS, and CNN (all linked on the current “My Mobile Watchdog” homepage) highlight the same thing we’ve known forever: Teenagers frequently make bad choices when it comes to relationships and friends. Can commercial products like “My Mobile Watchdog” or “Mobile Spy” offer a solution to the problem of teens sexting with cell phones? Will a school policy banning cell phones solve the problem? Absolutely not. This problem, like many others, is an issue of CHOICES. It’s about ethics. It’s about decision making. It’s about helping kids recognize the importance of carefully managing their digital footprint, encouraging them to dream big in their lives and work to make their dreams become a reality. A young person who has goals for the future and is being supported in their drive to achieve those goals is far less likely to make personally destructive choices and decisions than someone without goals.

Expensive mobile phone surveillance and monitoring plans, purchased in addition to the already VERY granular cell phone usage reporting included with monthly mobile phone bills, would be a waste of money for most families today. What is needed instead is more digital dialog.

To the marketing department of “My Mobile Watchdog” I offer the following advice: Please get your facts straight and don’t mis-represent research study findings in your fervent effort to fan the flames of parental fear regarding Internet dangers. At least find studies to cite in your marketing ads which actually focused on cell phone usage. The PEW Internet and American Life Project’s reports on mobile computing might be a good place to start.

Don’t forget to register for the next “Film on the Fly” cell phone / mobile phone digital storytelling contest! It’s free to participate and the fun begins this coming Monday, April 20th, at 9:00 AM PDT. Complete this Google form to sign up. Participants will receive the contest prompt via SMS, and have 48 hours to plan, shoot, edit and upload a final video. Videos cannot exceed 4 minutes in length, past videos have averaged 2 minutes long. Videos must be shot/recorded with a cell/mobile phone, but can be edited on a computer using software like iMovie. After all submissions have been received, participants are asked to view and rate all the videos starting April 22nd: Earth Day!

My kids and I had a blast creating a video for the last “Film on the Fly” contest on “Pi Day.” We’re looking forward to two days of creativity and mobile filmmaking this time around for Earth Day! Plan to join the fun!

Technorati Tags:
mobile, cell, phone, video, contest, storytelling, learning, fun

I’m enamored with Netbooks.

The light weight of a Netbook is alluring, but most I’ve tried have keyboards that are just too small for my fingers. The HP Mini 1000 is the best I’ve tried, but I want to find/purchase a Netbook with even LONGER battery life. Dell is supposed to be releasing a new Netbook sometime before September, which I might be willing to consider. According to Chris Davies:

As for the Dell Inspiron Mini 11 (codenamed the Mini 1110 Argos), that will be “very thin and light” with “laptop-like performance” from an unnamed processor. The 11.6-inch screen will HD capable, presumably 720p, and there’ll be 250GB HDD and 2GB RAM options to go with the Vista OS. It’ll start from $499.

I’m delaying a personal purchase of a Netbook, however, until after Apple WWDC June 8-12, 2009. Why should I wait? Well, I’ve been reading the Apple rumor blogs off and on (as well as traditional news sources who reference these issues) the past few months, and a few things seem to be adding up.

In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal article, “Jobs Maintains Grip at Apple” authors note:

Apple co-founder Mr. Jobs, who is considered the company’s creative leader, is also involved in the development of future projects, they say. People privy to the company’s strategy say Apple is working on new iPhone models and a portable device that is smaller than its current laptop computers but bigger than the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Sound intriguing? Absolutely. We are planning to add an iPhone to our family phone collection this summer, and CNET’s report “Analyst: Apple placed chip order for 32GB iPhones” suggests we’d be wise to wait till after WWDC to purchase a new iPhone. New iPhones are to be expected, I suppose, but what about this “new portable device?” What will it be?

I don’t have a crystal ball, and I also do NOT have inside information on this from anyone at Apple, but I’ve got a hunch Apple will turn the Netbook-oogling world (myself included) upside down this summer with a new product announcement.

Don Wilson told me months ago he thought an iPod Touch device with a digital camera could be THE transformative solution for 1:1 computing in his school district. The explosion of available applications for the iTouch as well as the iPhone continues to be amazing to witness and experience. As a digital textbook, a platform for photo and video consumption, and of course an engaging gaming platform, the iTouch is already an amazing device. In my view, however, it can’t be a 1:1 learning tool until it supports audio, photo and video recording with a microphone and camera capable of enabling these functionalities. (CCC pedagogy.) I think we’re going to see a 10″ touch screen device from Apple this June which is going to do that.

The functionality of iPhone applications AudioBoo and Geo-Graffiti is amazing for mobile, digital storytelling. For K-12 contexts, however, iPhones which require costly monthly service plans can never work for scaled, school-wide 1:1 learning projects. A device WITHOUT a phone contract is essential. Given the rumors of the past few months, I think we’re going to see this sort of device (along with a larger capacity iPhone) announced this June.

That’s why I’m waiting on purchasing a Netbook.

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netbook, apple, itouch, iphone, touch, screen, wwdc, wwdc09

I’ve created a new presentation and workshop I’m calling, “Geo-StoryChasing.” I’ve listed a variety of mobile audio, video, and photo sharing options (many supporting geolocation) on the wiki curriculum page I started. If you know of others I should include, please let me know by commenting here. This is the short description for this session:

Lots of stories are connected to places. Sometimes we can recount and share a story better when we are in a specific location, on-site. This session presents tools and projects focused on creating and sharing digital stories connected to specific places. Most of these can be used with cell phones and are ideal for student field trips or other travel opportunities.

I may rename my breakout session at PodStock in a few weeks and present this session.

While linking up tools for the workshop/presentation wiki, I learned GabCast has added two new features: Users can limit the maximum time for phone calls, and also remove the “feature” which tells callers to a channel how many minutes remain in the channel:

These are both good features to utilize for Gabcast channels set up to support student field trips, and are particularly important now that Gabcast is charging for all minutes used / not providing free usage options.

photo credit: Goa Observer ?

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geolocate, story, storytelling, digital, storychaser, storychase, storychasing, gabcast, loopt, flickr, qik, ustream, audioboo, geograffiti

Tonight was an evening of several personal “firsts:” My first Edmond Public Schools board meeting to attend as a parent, and the first school board meeting I’ve both webcast (via Ustream) and live-blogged via CoverItLive. The live blog included 83 comments from me as well as remote attendees, who numbered around 16 at one point during the meeting and included folks from other parts of Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and even New Zealand! The live blog text is available as an RSS feed and the CoverItLive iframe embeddable code:

The Ustream webcast actually held up pretty well during the meeting, but we were disconnected toward the end of the meeting. I’m not sure why. My AT&T broadband connection via my laptop remained connected online, but my phone disconnected for some reason and would not reconnect to Ustream. This is a partial recording of the meeting on Ustream. Yes, unfortunately this does appear to be “Blair Witch Project” quality at some points. Definitely an example of guerilla webcasting. Still, this demonstrates a remarkable capability which would not have even been possible a year ago, before our 3G cellular network was completed here in Edmond.

Here are a few of the “lessons learned” which come to mind following this event, which relate both to the board meeting itself as well as the technology I employed to share and document this event.

1. Now that technologies exist which permit live event coverage like this, we should equip and support student Storychaser teams to webcast a variety of school events for a virtual audience. In the case of tonight’s meeting, this was an open, public meeting, and copyright as well as permission issues didn’t come into play as they could for school music and theater performances. Those copyright issues can and should be addressed, however, and should not prevent student Storychaser teams from documenting a wide variety of school as well as community events.
2. In many ways, digital technologies can be used as humanizing and socializing influences in a community. One of the virtual attendees (Ernie Cox) tonight commented, “as a father of 2 small children I could be even more involved in civic life if more meetings where covered like this…..” Ernie is exactly right. Webcasting and recording events like this can open up many more doors for civic engagement and involvement. School board meetings and educational technology conferences are really just the tip of the iceberg. If we want to help motivate and direct our students to become meaningfully engaged in the civic activities of their community, state, and nation (and I think this is an important goal) we should advance this purpose by encouraging them to become citizen journalists. Equipped with a Ustream-capable cell phone and a high speed 3G cellular connection or WiFi connection, students can now be live, on-site reporters for community events.
3. I need to get to the school board meeting earlier next time I want to attend. The room was PACKED, and it was very small. The small size of the room actually makes the case for webcasting as well, I think. Everyone who wanted to get into the room tonight could not fit. How many more Edmond residents and school district constituents could “attend” the meeting if it was both webcast live and archived? Many, many more. Now, I realize some communities do carry their school board meetings live on their local TV cable affiliate channel. The benefit of using a tool like CoverItLive (which was free, incidentally) was the opportunity to engage in a backchannel discussion with others during the meeting. This would not have been possible if we were simply viewing the board meeting on the TV. I could even envison the school board making time for virtual attendee/participant comments and questions. Are there going to be hundreds of Edmond residents interested in attending each and every school board meeting if they are webcast in the future? Probably not. But as school district constituents, wouldn’t it be beneficial to be able to virtually attend either live or after the meeting, asynchronously, if we wanted to? Wouldn’t it be great to have our students involved in webcasting and documenting school board business? Absolutely. This can and should be a context where the transparency afforded by social media tools produces numerous ancillary benefits for those involved, besides the simple act of documenting and sharing an event.
4. Our school board should go paperless. It was AMAZING to see how thick the binders of paper were which each school board member had in front of them during the meeting. In our digital world, it would be both prudent and useful to have all those documents digitized so they were full-text searchable. Would laptop computers in front of each board member likely be a challenge to their personal learning styles and technology skills? It most likely would be, in at least some cases I’d guess. Yet the school board SHOULD be modeling the appropriate and effective uses of digital technologies to communicate and work. In fifty years, paper-based meetings are likely going to be considered an anachronism. Progressive and forward-thinking school districts should embrace paperless workflows TODAY. My school district, Edmond Public Schools, should be on that list of progressive school districts nationally and internationally. Electronic Board Meeting is one commercial software product (shared by JSW_EdTech during the live blog backchannel discussion tonight) which is being used by some school boards to make this move into the digital future. With Netbooks now available for $200 - $400, this is a more affordable move than ever for school board members. It’s a relatively common refrain, here on my blog, that Netbooks should be put in the hands of all students in grades three and up, but it can make sense (in some contexts) to start this Netbook and 1:1 learning revolution with school board members. In those situations, districts shouldn’t wait too long to implement the student 1:1 initiative after the school board takes the lead!
5. The school board approved six year CLEP plans for each school in the district at tonight’s meeting. I have several responses to this. First of all, did any of the school board members actually read ALL the text in these plans? None of the board members asked any questions about the plans. These are the plans which ostensibly will drive all the learning at our schools for the next six years. The district representative who presented these to the board indicated that the district’s professional development plan is closely tied to these site improvement plans. So WHAT IS / ARE the professional development programs for Edmond teachers, particularly as they apply to topics like digital literacy, media literacy, and the effective integration of technology across the curriculum? I’m not talking about PD for teachers specifically tasked to “teach technology” at our middle and high schools. I’m talking about PD for REGULAR classroom teachers. There was not any discussion about this at all. As a parent of children in the district, I’d like to know more about this. We have had several Edmond secondary teachers complete our statewide Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling “phase 1″ training, but the district blocks all videos and photos from the learning community so they are inaccessible by students as well as educators on the district network. I’d love to see EVERY teacher in the district become “digital video certified,” able to not only create basic digital stories (using still images and audio) but also facilitate student digital storytelling projects. Is this in the professional development plans for any of our schools? These are SIX YEAR PLANS. What mention of technology integration is made in any of the plans? If these are not revised again until the six year school improvement plan cycle plays out, that will be 2015. No one can predict with complete accuracy what the information and communications landscape is going to look like in 2015. How is this dynamic environment addressed in the site plans of our schools? I’m curious if these site plans will be made available electronically for parents to download and read. I think they should be. This is a question I may pose to our elected school board member, Charles Woodham.

I could likely write more, but I’ll close with this thought. I’m delighted to have, at last, been able to attend a local school board meeting. We are exceptionally blessed in this community to have an ENORMOUS amount of resources with which we can educate our children. I’m optimistic that social media technologies, like Ustream and CoverItLive which I used this evening, can be used in constructive ways to increase civic awareness and participation for community members of all ages. Bring on the Storychasers!

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edmond, oklahoma, school, schools, board, meeting, ustream, webcast, coveritlive, storychaser, storychasers, paperless, clep, plan

The mobile web is huge and growing. No one creating content for the Internet today should ignore it. If you use a WordPress blog, the free WordPress Mobile 3.0 plug-in offers a seamless way to provide a customized, mobile-web friendly interface for your visitors viewing your site on an iPhone, Android-compatible phone, BlackBerry, or other web-enabled phone. Before installing the plug-in, this is what my Wordpress blog looked like in the Safari web browser on my iPhone:

After installing WordPress Mobile 3.0, it looks like this:

At the bottom of the mobile-theme, Wordpress “pages” are linked and accessible:

If you have WordPress pages setup as “nested” child pages (as I do) it’s great to see these sub-pages are also accessible via this mobile Wordpress theme:

Installation of WordPress Mobile Edition requires two different file uploads to your wp-content directory: a folder with the mobile WordPress theme files, and the actual plug-in to your plug-ins folder. After activating the plug-in, your WordPress blog will automatically detect if a user is browsing with a mobile device and present the mobile-friendly theme interface to those users automatically. Non-mobile users continue to see the “regular” Wordpress interface as before, and essentially remain unaware that the mobile version/option is available.

I am extremely pleased to have found this plug-in (while I was installing TwitterTools today on Eyes Right, incidentally) because I’ve worried my blog sidebars have too many slow-loading graphical badges. I’d like to provide a link on the top of my “regular” blog theme indicating “A mobile version of this blog is available,” but I’m not sure how to do that presently. Alex King, the developer of the WordPress Mobile plug-in, has a demo of the theme running on mobile.carringtontheme.com which can be viewed via a “regular” (non-mobile) browser.

For more websites and tips on creating content for the mobile web, check out Karen Montgomery’s workshop curriculum “Think Handhelds.”

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wordpress, plugin, mobile, blog, accessibility, access, mobileweb, web, technology, iphone, android, blackberry, smartphone, cellphone

It’s a simple, basic question but one whose answer eludes me. Why won’t Apple permit video recording on the iPhone?

The application Cycorder, which only works on iPhones which have been jailbroken, permits iPhone video recording at up to 15 frames per second (the maximum the iPhone’s camera permits) at 384 x 228 pixel resolution. iPhone Video Recorder is another application for jailbroken iPhones which permits video recording on the device, albeit with a lossier compression algorithm. Every iPhone can technically record video like this, yet Apple has not approved any developers’ iPhone video recording applications in the iTunes App Store. Why?

photo credit: FHKE

David Chartier’s March 18, 2009, post “What Apple didn’t announce for iPhone OS 3.0″ includes the following cryptic sentences which leave me wondering:

Setting aside the conversation about all that is wrong with the iPhone’s camera, video recording received no love at Apple’s event. A number of third parties like Qik have had iPhone apps in private beta for some time, but so far, none have appeared to fill the void left by Apple. In fact, as far as we have learned, most third parties have not even submitted their apps to the App Store, and they seem adamant about not discussing why.

“They seem adamant about not discussing why?!” I would consider video recording on the iPhone to be a “killer app.” Many new cell phones today support mobile video recording. With two rounds now finished, the KOCE-TV sponsored cell phone film festival “Film on the Fly” continues to demonstrate the creative fun available to anyone with a cell phone capable of recording video. Why is Apple withholding this functionality from iPhone users who have not/will not jailbreak their devices?

Flash video has been another topic of confusion for me on the iPhone.

I had thought the reason Apple doesn’t permit the iPhone’s Safari web browser to support Flash content playback was officially to limit the amount of time my kids spend in the car on Club Penguin and Webkinz. (Just kidding.) I really thought the problem was likely concerns AT&T has relating to bandwidth consumption on its 3G network. According to the same article by David Chartier, however:

The increased freedom in iPhone OS 3.0 for developers to charge micro-payments for additional app content through the App Store is another tick on Apple’s reasons for still denying Flash. While other arguments against the feature include decreased battery life and Apple’s desire to promote Web standards like HTML 5 and CSS 3, Flash poses a major threat to the App Store cash cow.

So Flash-based applications allow for money to change hands, and Apple wants most of the money changing hands via iPhones to happen in iTunes? Interesting theory. I had never read or considered this previously.

This additional info and theory about the iPhone’s glaring lack of browser playback support for Flash does not shed light on my main question, however. What’s up with no iPhone video recording? Has anyone else read, heard, or thought of a good reason which would explain this mystery?

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iphone, video, flash, cycorder, jailbreak, jailbroken, mystery, record, recording, itunes, safari, permit, allow, bandwidth, att