Is there an App for that?

With education entering the mobile world so quickly, educators will need tools to help guide them in finding specific Apps for their classrooms.  It is easy to be overwhelmed too when there is over 500,000 Apps on iTunes alone.

An excellent resource that can help teachers find a specific learning App is EdTechTeacher's iPad as... WebPage.  Rather than navigate by category or by subject, the website breaks down the Apps by task.   A teacher can look for an App specifically for reading, creating, responding, managing, studying, organizing, and for differentiating.  It even breaks down common learning tasks by placing Apps under categories:

• I want my students to record and edit video on the iPad. 
• I want my students to record and / or edit audio on the iPad.
• I want my students to read class content on the iPad. 
• I want my students to annotate course readings on the iPad 
• I want my students to be able to use audio books on the iPad. 
• I want my students to use the iPad as a digitial notebook / note-taking device. 
• etc.

Worth checking it out if you are looking for that the specific App for your students.

Google Drive and BYOD

Amidst the speculation from the media and digital technology news hounds earlier this month, Google Drive has finally arrived!  CNet news describes Google Drive, personal cloud storage drive with an initial storage capacity of 5 Gb.  Google Drive will be an integration into Google Docs changing the Doc's "Collections" back into traditional "Folders".  Although collections was a better tagging system, most folks adjusting to the Google Docs will find this much easier.

What will it mean when Google Drive opens up to Google Apps EDU?  Providing that enough bandwidth is in place, Google Drive will further simplify an organization's storage services.  So far, the drive works well in Android, OSX, and Windows and soon for iOS.

Web based accessible and through the OS - a must for any organization looking for BYOD  solution.

According to it's schedule, it will be available sometime in the summer for our school.  This drive will complete another puzzle piece of being platform agnostic which will allow students to come closer to choosing the device that best suits their needs and learning style.  For any organization that is adopting a BYOD policy and has Google Apps, it will allow them to take their technology program to the next level with out sacrificing security.

Gamification and Discovering New Ideas

What makes us compelled to complete things?  Ever played a game and felt the need to finish it?  Wanted to do something repeatedly to get that trophy?  Or... just finish... that... one more thing to get that level-up?

Or when you see a progress bar almost full do you feel compelled or a need to see it finished?    Seth Priebatsch, an entrepreneur whose goal is to "build the game layer on top of the world" has presented an idea at a TedxBoston conference.  He presents a concept called Gamification that adds game elements and processes into environments that do not contain game characteristics.  Although there are a few other presenters on the topic of  Gamification, Seth breaks down the concept into identifiable and tangible parts that an educator could use in instructional design.

In education, would this game layer increase student motivation in learning?  It would seem plausable that this extra layer would give that extra incentive to get students to learn a new concept in Math (i.e.   Pythagorean theorem), Science (i.e. Bor's Law), Law (i.e. Double Jeopardy), etc.  However what about creating new ideas or solving problems that have not been identified or predetermine in a lesson?  There maybe some potential. A Gamification layer could possibly motivate learners to contribute more often to a discussion, try to connect other's ideas to their own, or help with organizing knowledge to help others to better disseminate the shared information.

Although Seth Priebatsch does not describe himself an academic (see the video), some academic research is continually emerging that examines how it could apply to the education landscape:

• de Luna, Christian (2012) Learning as Fun: What Video Games Do that Classrooms Do Not, 1,1. 
• Van Rosmalen & Westera (2012) Introducing Serious Games with Wikis: Empowering the Teacher with simple Technologies, LMedia: Publications and Preprints, 12, 1.
• Turner (2011) The Digital Companion Project, The University of Berkeley: School of Information,  http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/student_projects/digitalcompanion_mims_ddturner.pdf 

Gamification could be that carrot on the stick for that brings people back to learn new things but it may not be for everybody unless the gaming elements are general enough.  It will need to appeal to people with varied interests and learning styles - a personalized approach.  Like all tools in teaching, it could certainly be useful for certain tasks but not in all learning scenarios. After all even in some of my beloved games, I do not care for that coveted award if I have to solve the same type of task over-and-over again.

Six Tips of webcasting/screencasting

I did a video for a course this year.  Admittedly, a little dorky but it was my first attempt to get away from the talking head syndrome.  Curiously, I couldn't find video on the best practices of presenting in this format so I attempted to make one myself (March,2010).

iPod Touch in the Classroom

I posted this within my Ning network(s) but wanted to post here as well.

Is anyone instituting iPod Touch in the classroom or piloting it right now?

I am investigating handhelds in particular the iPod Touch.  This idea came up when I lunch with my IT team.

My principal is keen on the idea as well.
We wish it had a GPS (unlike the iPhone) so we can offer orienteering and geocache activies. It would fit nicely with our outdoor component and integrate into the curriculum well.

What I do have so far is the ability to navigate and subscribe to Apple's Podcast server and a TI83 calculator emulator. The TI 83 emulator, used by all of our Math and Science students, is key because one could argue that it could replace the expensive TI calculator and offer increased enhancement in learning in other areas.
Students can also subscribe to the Podcast server to receive important announcements and view student's (approved) multimedia projects that were completed in our media lab. Still looking for more applications to further the reason to impliment.