iPad, iPhone, iPod touch Issues for Schools

Apple's handhelds are finding their way into more and more classrooms. But, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are certainly not perfect. In fact, there are some issues that are annoying and some that are potential deal-breakers. Some issues have work-arounds while others do not at this time.

Web Filtering
When handhelds are connected to a school's filtered Wi-Fi network, the internet is filtered on the device. That means if a site is blocked at school on a desktop computer, that site is also blocked on iPad and iPod touch. But what about when the handheld is used places other than school? Homes (and schools) without network-level filters can use OpenDNS as a web filter. OpenDNS is free and filters everything on a Wi-Fi network when its settings are applied to a router. Besides network filtering, Safe Eyes Mobile ($19.99) and Mobicip ($4.99) are apps that give teachers and parents control over web content by installing an alternative browser. For an alternative browser to be effective, Safari has to be set to Off in Settings > General > Restrictions.

Wi-Fi Authentication
Certain school Wi-Fi networks cannot authenticate Apple's handhelds. I don't know enough about networking to tell you what kind of networks do not allow authentication, but I've received emails from educators struggling to get iPod touch authenticated and stay authenticated at school. An iPod touch or iPad becomes a lot less useful when it cannot access the internet. Before purchasing devices, be sure to test one to be sure it works properly with your network.

Projecting the Screen
When showing a group how to use a handheld or when a student wants to show what they've done, it would be nice to connect to a projector. While there are video adapters for iPhone and iPod, they only project movies and photos--they cannot mirror what you see on the devices' screens. iPad has a VGA adapter, but it is very limited in what it outputs. The best solution is to point a document camera at the device. Read my post about using a USB camera for showing a handheld's screen. If you already have a document camera, then you already have a way to project the screen. Video from USB and document cameras will show up on an interactive whiteboard, but you won't be able to control the handheld from the whiteboard.

Keyboard
iPod touch's onscreen keyboard is not the best for typing more than a couple paragraphs. While there are wireless and attachable keyboards available for iPad, currently there are no good solutions for using external keyboards with iPod touch. Hopefully with the upcoming iPhone 4.0 software update, iPhones and iPod touches can use external and Bluetooth keyboards.

Printing
Printing is not a feature supported by Apple on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Apple expects you to sync or email what you need printed to a desktop computer. In a classroom it would be much easier to bypass the desktop and print directly from the handheld. There are many apps designed for printing. These apps require the printer to be networked or require a helper application to run on the desktop computer connected to the printer. Printing apps are limited in what they actually let you print and I've found them to be buggy. So what if you can't print--take the opportunity to go paperless.

Flash & Online Editors
It's a widely known fact that websites that contain Flash content do not work on Apple's handhelds. Another annoyance is that many online text editing fields do not work on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. This means that you cannot compose a blog post, work on a Google Doc, or edit a wiki page in the Safari browser. There are apps available for posting to blogs and working with Google Docs, but it would be so much better to interact with blogs, Docs, and wikis in the same way we do on desktops. If you really want to have a full desktop web experience on an Apple handheld, download the free CloudBrowse app. With CloudBrowse, you can edit blogs, docs, and wikis. You can also visit and use Flash-based websites like Starfall and TeacherTube. CloudBrowse actually displays the video and sound from a virtual desktop web browser. Just be aware that there may be security concerns when logging into sites with CloudBrowse and that content accessed through CloudBrowse is not filtered.

Simultaneous Syncing
Windows computers do not do well with simultaneously syncing multiple iPods (and neither do Macs for that matter). Apparently this is because the USB port on most Windows machines do not have high power capacity USB ports that newer Macintoshes have. You can use a Windows computer with syncing hubs, carts, and cases--just plug them in about 5 at a time. Let the 5 sync, then plug in the next 5, wait for them to sync, and then the next 5, until all are plugged in and charging. Unless it's the very first sync or you are adding gigabytes of audio and video, syncing takes just a couple minutes.

Moving Icons & Deleting Apps
Holding down the Home button makes the Home screen icons wiggle. While wiggling, icons can be moved to and from the dock and between Home pages. When wiggling, Xs appear in the corners of the icons. When touches, that X deletes the app from the device. There is not way to lock down icons. Some classrooms are having issues with students moving icons and deleting apps. Whether this is done accidentally or maliciously, it can be a problem, particularly for class sets that are shared among students. Tracking which students use which devices can help reduce malicious app deleting if you have clear consequences for mistreatment of equipment.

Restricting App Installation
Schools typically want complete control over what apps are loaded on a class set of iPod touches. You would think the solution could be to go into Settings > General > Restrictions and turn off the option for Installing Apps. The problem with restricting app installation is that it prevents installing of apps through syncing in addition to Wi-Fi. So with the restriction on, a teacher would have to change that setting on each and every iPod in order to install any new apps and then enable the restriction after syncing. Instead of restricting app installation, a better solution is to just not give students the iTunes password. That password is required before downloading apps from the App Store.

Account Password Loophole
Leave it to students to find a workaround! Yes, you need a password to download from the App Store on iPod touch and iPad--but, there is a loophole. Students can go to Settings > Store and tap Sign Out. They can then sign into their own account and download apps using their own password. A solution would be to enable the Installing Apps restriction, but like I wrote above, that is a pain and is very cumbersome when you do want to install apps. Again, I think the current solution for this is to have consequences for misuse instead of locking down the devices.

App Store Volume Purchase Program
Apple has recently updated the Terms and Conditions for iTunes and the App Store. In addition, the company has announced the App Store Volume Purchase Program. In the past Apple had no mechanism for downloading an app more than once, so schools would purchase an app one time and distribute it to all their iPod touches, iPads, and iPhones. This arrangement made app purchases for class sets of handhelds inexpensive but was not properly compensating app developers. The new App Store Volume Purchase Program requires schools to follow Terms and Conditions that are different from the Terms and Conditions for individual consumers. Apple even reserves the right to audit purchases to make sure that schools are following all of the usage rules for educational institutions, including purchasing activation codes for each device onto which an app is installed. Read more at App Store Volume Purchase Program Explained.

Do you have suggestions for dealing with these issues? Got an issue you're struggling with? Let's discuss in the comments.

Show an iPod/iPad Screen: New $69 USB Camera

Unless you're willing to jailbreak your device or you're Steve Jobs, there's not a way to directly pipe your iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad's screen into a computer or projector. Teachers who use these devices with students would love to have this feature. Direct video from a handheld or slate allows for crisp, crystal-clear, and glare-free video of the the device. This could be projected on the wall so the whole class can see what's on the small device.

You might think that since Apple sells video cables and iPad VGA adapters that these would be good solutions for enlarging an Apple device's screen. Unfortunately, these adapters do not project everything you see on the screen--they are designed to only show photos and movies. In the case of iPad, apps must be programmed to output to the VGA adapter (and almost all are not), and the VGA adapter won't show the Home screen.

If you've got a document camera in your classroom, you're pretty good to go. Cameras from AVerMedia, Elmo, and Epson are popular, and they connect directly to a projector to show live video of what's under the lens. Unfortunately, document cameras can also be pricey. Some teachers have found less expensive USB web cams that do an acceptable job of showing a device's screen.

I've been on the hunt for a good portable USB camera. That's because I need it to travel with me, and the video needs to be directed through my computer so I don't have to switch video connections when toggling between my slideshow and the camera. In the past I've used an iSight Camera mounted on a flexible stand. Today the iSight is no longer available. I've recently been using using a Hue HD Webcam. I got it on sale for $30, but the problem is that the stand falls over when pointed down like a document camera.

Thanks to a suggestion I heard on the Bit by Bit podcast, I am now using the IPEVO Point 2 View USB Camera. It's $69 and gives a better picture than my cheaper Hue HD Webcam. Point 2 View is designed to be used like a document camera, so the base is weighted down. Point 2 View adjusts height and position using a multi-jointed stand instead of a flexible stand so it doesn't wobble.

Point 2 View comes with P2V software for Macintosh and Windows. This software lets you view the camera's feed in a window or you can go full screen. It also has a variety of adjustments if you want to try to improve the picture.

The camera has a one-touch focus button. I really like that it has two auto-focus modes. There's Continuous and Single. I keep mine on Single so that I can set it to focus on my iPod touch, and it doesn't change--even when my hand is in front of the iPod. Speaking of focus, this camera does a great job. Below is a screen capture to show you how clear the image is. Video from Point 2 View is better than other USB camera I've used. 

When using a camera to show an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, I've found it looks best to turn the brightness setting on the device to about 20%. Be sure to turn off Auto-Brightness (in Settings app > Brightness) and adjust Auto-Lock (in Settings app > General) to 5 minutes or higher so the device doesn't keep dimming and turning off.

Of course, there are others uses in education for a USB camera like the IPEVO's Point 2 View. Check out IPEVO's Bring Your Curriculum to Life one-page PDF. Other resources for using document cameras include Teaching Tips from eMINTS and the Document Cameras in the Classroom handout.

Update May 13, 2011: After a year of using Point 2 View, the pin in the base has come loose and often falls out. I know others have also experienced this malfunction. Point 2 View's warranty is for one year, so the IPEVO will not replace my base. The company does not sell the base separately from the camera, so I have bought a whole new camera to replace the broken base. Though, I am not using Point 2 View nearly as much now that iPad 2 has video mirroring.

Mobile Sites & Lesson Simulations

This guest post is written by Megan Iemma.

Last year I discovered www.wirenode.com. It's a website that lets you create up to 3 free websites (.mobi's) I had a presentation to do, so I created a wiki plus two mobi's for the session. The great thing about that it is viewable on any mobile device plus your laptop. It's like creating a website, however I would suggest you do some planning first as once you create a page you can't re-order it. There are some really good widgets you can add to these mobile sites.

I created a simulation for a recent Australian conference (ACEC2010) titled iPod, iLearn. This involved using a map (Australia with the States) marked in and then using the model of Chinese Whispers and passing it around the room to different tasks. The test/assessment of the task was to use Puzzle Palace (smaller puzzle) to put back the puzzle pieces.

The idea of these simulations is to simulate how these could be used in the classroom. It is also using one idea and connecting those apps together. This is instead of using lots of apps for lots of activities rather that linking them together.  For this simulation I used CropForFree (to get the pic the right size), EtchASketch Lite, Comic Touch Lite and Puzzle Palace (or Up in the Pieces).

Megan Iemma a Music Technology/Mobile Learning Consultant in Australia. Her website is web.me.com/meganaiemma.

Learning in Hand Podcast #21: Podcast from iPod touch

Learning in Hand Podcast Episode #21: Podcast from iPod touch is about recording an audio podcast and publishing it using only an iPod touch--no Mac or PC required. See how the free blogging service Posterous makes this possible.

Watch all 11 minutes 23 seconds of Episode #21 to learn about recording and sharing podcasts from iPod touch.

Transcript:

This is the Learning in Hand podcast. I’m Tony Vincent and this is the show where I share tips, how-tos, and ideas for handhelds in teaching and learning. Episode 21, “Podcast from iPod touch” recorded March 2010, happens now!

You already know that iPod touch makes it fairly easy to listen to podcasts. You can subscribe in iTunes on your Mac or PC and sync the audio and video episodes to your iPod. Or, you can even launch the iTunes app on your iPod to browse and search for episodes to download directly onto your device.

There are so many ways to produce and publish a podcast. It almost always involves a Mac or PC running software like GarageBand, Audacity, iMovie, or MovieMaker. Then the finished audio or video file is uploaded to the web and a web feed is made. The web feed tells software like iTunes that a new episode is available.

In this episode I'd like to show you how I make an audio podcast using the free web service Posterous.

A podcast usually has three components: the audio or video file, a web page or blog post, and a web feed. With an iPod touch, it's actually possible to record an audio podcast and publish it to a Posterous website, all on the iPod itself. Here's how:

First, you will need a microphone for your iPod touch. The current generation of iPod touches do not have built-in microphones. That's the bad news. The good news is that your iPod may have come with a mic and you don't even know it. If not, you can purchase an attachable mic.

The current 32 and 64GB iPod touches come with earbuds with a mic. These mics work pretty well--you just have to make sure they are plugged in. It's difficult to have more than one person talk into these. If your iPod didn't come with these earbuds, you can buy them. I recommend buying from Monoprice.com. They sell them for less than $4 each.

The Belkin TuneTalk is a microphone that attaches to the dock connector. Mics that connect to the dock tend more expensive but sound better. The TuneTalk is available from Amazon for $50.

If you don't want to spend that much, then find a mic that attaches to the headphone jack. The ThumbTacks mic is pretty tiny and about $15. Though, these really could get mixed up with your collection of real thumbtacks.

The Voice Memos app has very basic editing tools. You can trim the start of the recording and the end. You cannot trim the middle. So don't make mistakes in the middle of your recording.

To get the audio file off the iPod, you can sync it with iTunes or Email it. Since we're podcasting all from the iPod, we're going to use the email option. This requires that an email address be set up. If you don't have email on the iPod, I suggest going to gmail.com and creating a new account. Then add that account to the iPod touch in the Settings app.

Here's where Posterous.com comes in. Posterous is web publishing service that bills itself as "the dead simple place to post everything." Like Blogger, Wordpress, and countless others, Posterous is a blogging platform. Unlike others, Posterous focuses on publishing by email.

Before emailing Posterous, I suggest setting up an account and a blog. You can see my Posterous blog at tonyvincent.posterous.com. I actually have my own domain for this blog, so it redirects you the URL, tonyvincent.info. You can see that it is certainly a blog because it is organized in reverse chronological order.

To post, I just email to post@tonyvincent.posterous.com. When emailing from Voice Memos, it attaches the audio to the email message. The subject of the email is the title of the post. The body of the email is the content of the post.

But, not only is this a blog post, it can be a web feed for iTunes. So, the title of the post is the title of the episode and the body of the email is the description of the episode.

Unless you've verified your email with Posterous, you will have to log into Posterous to approve the emailed posts. I've verified my email, so my recording is added to the top of my blog within minutes.

That's it. I just recorded on an iPod touch and emailed it to Posterous where it is now online as a blog. I can listen to the audio by clicking it in my browser on my desktop or the Safari browser on an iPod touch.

So, what about making it a podcast?

Remember, a podcast has 3 components: A website, audio file, and web feed. Posterous generates all three for us. The website is the blog and the audio file is uploaded to Posterous as well. If you look at your Posterous blog, you'll see the web feed symbol. Sometimes this is called a news feed or RSS feed.

Know that your podcast does not have to be listed in the iTunes Store for people to subscribe. You can certainly submit the podcast to the iTunes Store if you want it listed in their directory, but that's optional.

Let me show you three ways to get that RSS feed into iTunes.

One way is to go to your Posterous blog and right-click the web feed symbol and copy the link. Then go to iTunes and click the Advanced Menu and choose Subscribe to Podcast. Paste the URL and click OK. You're subscribed. That means the latest episode is downloaded and iTunes will periodically check for new episodes. If there's a new one, it will download it.

Another way to subscribe in iTunes is to drag and drop the web feed icon from the blog right into your iTunes Library.

Both of these methods will take a little explaining if you plan to have parents, the community, or colleagues subscribe. Most likely you're linking to your podcast from a class website. When liking from a webpage, you can set-up one click subscriptions. That's right, with one click, a user's iTunes opens and they are subscribed to your podcast. This involves first copying the web feed URL by right-clicking the icon. When you go to link to this on your website, paste it as you a regular link. Unlike a regular web link, change the http to itpc. The itpc tells web browsers to launch iTunes and subscribe to that feed. Pretty cool, huh?

Optionally, before doing all this, you may want to run your feed through the free Feedburner.com service. Feedburner lets you create an iTunes feed that includes artwork and extra information. It also tracks how many subscribe to your podcast.

At this time Posterous does not support video podcasting, only audio. But it's a great deal. For free you get 1GB of space. Audio is about 1MB per minute, so you will have at least 20 hours of audio before you reach the limit.

Ok. So why would teachers and students want to podcast from their handheld? I can think of lots of reasons. Sharing information and thoughts with the world is incredibly empowering and students are be more motivated knowing there's an audience for what they have to say. The audience might be the world or their peers. Consider this: small group discussions are recorded and uploaded for other groups to hear.

Like podcasting from big computers, students can share book reviews, curriculum insights, poetry, math and science discoveries, skits...you name it! Teachers can share homework information, class announcements, extra credit...you name it!

These podcasts don't have to be public. Posterous blogs can be password protected, so just the teacher (and maybe students and parents) have access. This means students can record reflections, group discussions, passages for reading fluency, etc. on an iPod touch and email them to Posterous. The teacher subscribes and can listen to each one in iTunes. This might work better than trying to figure out how to sync all of those voice memos. It also allows the teacher to listen from any computer, not just the computer the iPods where synced to.

You can set up as many Posterous blogs as you like, each with it's own URL and receiving address. That means that each student could be set up with his or her own Posterous email, blog, and podcast. A personal blog and postcast could surely make a handy multimedia portfolio.

One final tip for this episode. Add the Posterous email address to the Contacts app on the iPod touch. This way no typos will be made when entering the email address. Just typing the first couple letters autocompletes the address.

That’s it for Episode 21. For a transcript and much more about iPods and podcasting, click on over to learninginhand.com. Thanks for watching!

Create Narrated Slideshows with SonicPics

SonicPics is currently my favorite app! It is like Microsoft's PhotoStory for iPod touch. Simply select photos to bring into a SonicPics project. Then record a narration for the project, flicking the screen to advance to the next image. You'll need a microphone to record your narration on iPod touch. After recording, SonicPics combines the narration and images into a movie. You can email the mpeg-4 movie, share through WiFi to a computer, or upload to YouTube.

As an example, I was going to take lots of screenshots while using SonicPics. I was then going to narrate the screenshots using SonicPics. edumacnation had the same idea and already posted a video to YouTube. Check it out below.

Keep in mind that images used in a SonicPics project can come from many different sources. They could be screenshots from other apps, photos synced from a digital camera, edited photos from Photoshop.com Mobile, pictures exported from a drawing app, comics made in Comic Touch, saved images from Safari, etc. 

There are loads of student uses for SonicPics. There's sharing personal narratives, reviewing curriculum, telling about field trips, creating presentations, and so much more. In fact, read about how Louise Duncan's students are putting together app reviews using SonicPics.

SonicPics is usually priced at $2.99. Today it's on sale for the price of free--and this is no April Fools joke!

Alien Equation: Math Game App

Alien Equation is a game that is great for elementary students who use iPod touch. While there are plenty of apps like Math Drills (read Buzz Garwood's review) for straight-up drill and practice, Alien Equation also involves number sense and spatial reasoning.

Alien Equation has a story behind the game:

When the navigation computer on your interstellar spaceship contracts a nasty virus and reverts to the intelligence of a three year old what do you do? Can you reteach the computer math while fending off the contagious invaders. Rearrange a grid of numbers and operators into enough valid equations before your system shuts down and strands you on a planet full of bipedal, hairless apes.

The backstory actually isn't very important when playing. Playing involves sliding columns of tiles left and right and rows of tiles up and down to line up tiles that make equations. When you start your first game, you are presented with four slides of instructions:

Alien Equation keeps track of progress, adapts to a player's abilities, and allows for isolation of addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. It's certainly worth the current price of 99¢.

Educational Apps Mentioned on Twitter #edapp

There are over 600 apps added to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad App Store each day. Only a small fraction of those apps are useful for education. Luckily, a small fraction of 160,000 total apps is still a large number! It can be a challenge to stay tuned into the latest and greatest teaching and learning apps.

Fortunately, some helpful educators have put together various lists of recommended apps:

• Learning Continuity Sortable App List by Discipline
• iNtouch School Top 50 Elementary and Secondary Apps
• Leaders Technology Apps for Possible Educational Uses
• Planeten Paultje's Lists of iPhone Applications for Education
• TCEA 2010 iPod touch Apps Member Suggestions
• iSchool Initiative Educational Applications
• Educational App Reviews at iear.org
• Educators share and vote on their favorite apps at Google Moderator

Another place where educators are sharing great apps for teaching and learning is Twitter. Here are some of the apps I have tweeted about:

The free Dragon Dictation speech-to-text app has been updated to work on iPod touch (you will need a mic): http://tonyv.me/dragon

IWantItBack is now a feee app. Track what you lend friends, family, colleagues, and students. http://tonyv.me/wantback

PhotoMV is free today. Use it to combine photos, music, and text into slideshows: http://tonyv.me/photomv

Touch Mouse turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless keyboard and mouse for your computer. It's free:http://tonyv.me/tmouse

Kinematix app is free for a limited time:http://tonyv.me/kinematix "Unleash your inner engineer."

Avatar Creator 2 is free this weekend in the App Store.http://tonyv.me/ac2

Finger Physics game is free today in the App Store:http://tonyv.me/ff

Lola's Flag Adventure app is free this weekend. It has games to learn world flags: http://tonyv.me/lola

Flashcard Touch app is free this month. Access pre-made flashcards or make your own: http://tonyv.me/flashcard.

You can't edit Google Docs in the browser. But you can in some apps like Docs To Go: http://tonyv.me/gtgp

NASA app has mission info, countdown clocks, orbit trackers, images, and videos. http://tonyv.me/nasa #edapp

Notice in the final tweet I included #edapp.  This is called a hashtag. The hashtag begins with the number sign and then contains a keyword. Hashtags make it easier to search and archive tweets. I plan to tag each of my future tweets with #edapp when I mention an educational application and I hope you will too.

You can search for recent tweets tagged #edapp at search.twitter.com. Archives of all tweets tagged #edapp can be found at Twapper Keeper and Twubs. In the future these archives should be full of great app suggestions.

  

You can see that my tweets above contain web links. Clicking one of those links launches iTunes and opens the details page for the mentioned app. If you want to create a link to an app you find in iTunes to include in a tweet, click the arrow next to the Free/Buy button and choose Copy Link.

The copied link will be similar to this one: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nasa-app/id334325516?mt=8. The 56 characters in that URL will take up too much of the 140 character limit of a tweet. Twitter will shorten long links automatically for you using bit.ly, though you are free to shorten them yourself with services like is.gd, moourl, j.mp, and tinyyurl. My links all begin with tonyv.me because that's my URL shortener.

Including links in tweets tagged #edapp will make them even more helpful. See recent #edapp tweets below:  

If you're not familiar with Twitter learn the basics by reading 10 Things Teachers Should Know to Get Started with Twitter. If you are familiar with Twitter, please spread the word about the #edapp hashtag.

Sketchy is Here for iPod touch and iPhone

My favorite software from GoKnow, Sketchy, is now available in the App Store for iPod touch and iPhone! Sketchy has been around for years on Palm handhelds and Pocket PCs, and it has been enjoyed by thousands of students. They have a yearly contest and you can view example animations from my former students. The process of creating a flipbook-style animation is incredibly educational. When students of any age make an animation about any subject, they learn a lot during the process, and they have a final product that they view over and over and over.

Here's GoKnow's description of Sketchy for iPhone:

Get started now with Sketchy - the easy to use drawing and animation app. You can use different drawing tools, photos from your library or direct from the camera, and even text to create frame based animations (or flipbooks).

Features:

• Simple user interface
• Import right from the camera or photo library
• Paint brush, eraser, rectangle, filled rectangle, oval, and filled oval tools
• Select tool - double tap to select all
• Text tool - annotate your photos and drawings
• Many colors to choose from
• Adjustable drawing width
• Cut, copy, paste, and delete
• Undo function
• Duplicate frames

Quick How-To:

• Start drawing right away with your finger
• Use + button to add new frames - including from the camera or photo library
• Tools button lets you change the drawing tool, width, and color
• With select tool, double tap to select whole frame
• Edit button brings up Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, and Undo
• Files button to create new animation or open previous animations
• Tap frame number to jump to another frame

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later

Sketchy ($0.99) for iPhone is really quick to learn. Popular animation apps, Flipbook ($4.99) and Flipbook Lite (Free), are more complicated in comparison to Sketchy because Flipbook has many more features. The most important feature that Sketchy lacks is a way to share animations. There is not a way to export the animation for viewing online or on other iPods and iPhones. In contrast, Flipbook projects can be saved as an MPEG-4 videos on the flipbook.tv site (read my previous post about the Flipbook app). Another similar app, Animation Creator ($0.99) can export to YouTube. I hope an export feature is added to Sketchy soon because everyone loves to share their animations.

After working with Sketchy, Flipbook, and Animation Creator, Sketchy is the most simple. Animation Creator has a good balance of features versus ease-of-use. Flipbook has the most features and is the most complicated to learn. Sketchy has one very important feature the others do not: a text tool. It's so much better to annotate a drawing when you can type on the screen. Handwriting on an iPod touch or iPhone is difficult and usually looks sloppy.

It's great that we have options when it comes to animation apps. Whichever app you use, drawing with a finger can be challenging. You might look into a stylus for drawing.

Two iPod touch/iPhone Videos

The K12 Online Conference is an annual event where presenters share about various topics in education and technology. Most presentations are in video format and are freely available to educators around the world. The conference, run entirely by volunteers, began November 30th and is ongoing through January 9th. I'd like to point you toward two presentations about iPhones and iPod touches.

Just a "Touch" of Leadership – Using the iPod touch/iPhone in Administration
Andy Crozier and Mike Amante in Cedar Rapids Iowa and New Hartford, New York show you apps and success stories from administrators in the field that are using iPod touch/iPhone for data collection, organization, creating a mobile office, and personal professional development. Links to apps and resources mentioned in this video can be found at the Apple Learning Interchange. (Audio in the video below is not working correctly. Click here for a better version.)

The iPod touch in the Classroom
Kern Kelley from Newport, Maine shows some of the basic uses for iPod touch. Kern first takes you from unboxing the iPod to syncing with iTunes. After showing some basics, he shares a dozen of his favorite apps and they are listed here.

You can download the above videos in iTunes since the 2009 K12 Online Conference is available as a podcast. You might be interested in other sessions so check out the 2009 schedule.

Voice-to-Text: There's Now an App for That

Dragon Dictation is a new iPhone app. It's a straight-forward voice recognition application from Nuance, the same company that makes Dragon NaturallySpeaking for desktop computers. Simply launch the app and tap the record button. Speak into the microphone. Tap Done when finished and Dragon Dictation sends your audio to their servers for processing. Within seconds, the servers send back the text created from your speech.

You will need to say punctuation marks you want to include, like "period" and "comma." In my testing I found that Dragon Dictation made fewer errors than I expected. It's easy to tap the keyboard icon to correct the text. After the text is the way you like it, you'll probably send it to the clipboard so you can paste it into any application. There's also the option to start an email message with the text or to send as a text message.

Voice-to-text is an exciting use for a handheld, particularly for students learning to write or those with writing or typing challenges. Unfortunately, Dragon Dictation will not install on an iPod touch. I see no reason why an iPod touch with a microphone attachment can't run this app, so I hope Nuance Communications updates the software to install on iPods soon. In the meantime, those with iPhones can find lots of uses for Dragon Dictation, especially since the app is free of charge (for a limited time).

Update: Dragon Dictation now works on iPod touch. You will need a microphone since iPod touch does not have one built-in.

Video from Handheld Learning 2009

My talk, "Create It in Your Hand, Share it with the World," from Handheld Learning 2009 is online in video form! This is the presentation where I talk about the importance of creating and sharing, focusing on iPod touch and three types of products: comics, animations, and audio podcasts.

For links and a transcript of the presentation, read my previous blog post. For more video from Handheld Learning 2009, go to Handheld Learning's channel on Blip.tv or subscribe via iTunes.

The Simpsons and Phones in School

The Sunday, October 4th episode of The Simpsons cartoon pokes fun at technology in schools. The show opens with Bart Simpson's teacher, Edna Krabappel, grading papers as she gets out of bed.

The episode cuts to Edna standing in front of a classroom full of students playing games, watching videos, texting, and talking on their mobile phones. It is chaotic. She struggles to gain the class' attention. Many mobile phones have apps you can download for practicing multiplication problems. Perhaps redirecting students to those apps could grab their attention and be self-grading. Then she could walk around with a clipboard noting each student's progress. Admittedly, dealing with several different kinds of mobile phone platforms would be annoying since they all work differently and have different sets of applications available.

Ms. Krabappel asks, "You're children! Why do you all need cell phones?" They yell out "Safety," "Emergency," and "Educational." These reasons are shouted out as an automatic response to the teacher's question, all the while students continue their talking, texting, and gaming. The reasons to bring phones to class don't matter to the students. As long as they get to have their toys, they are are happy.

Edna then sighs and says, "Could you at least set them to vibrate?" Once on vibrate, the phones make even more noise. The teacher gets fed up and collects all of the phones from her students. She proclaims, "No more gizmos in this class." The students are very disappointed. There seems to be no happy medium when it comes to mobile phone use. The free-for-all didn't work. Simply putting the phones on vibrate didn't work. So banning, not classroom management or curriculum integration, is Edna's answer.

"Hey, don't worry, we still have the good old classroom computer," Edna explains as she walks over to a very outdated machine and inserts a floppy diskette. The game that appears on the screen is very simple and outdated, especially compared to the interactive and complex games the students were playing on their phones. The students' phones (a.k.a. handheld computers) are each far more powerful and interactive than the classroom computer. It's a shame that potential learning tools are locked in a drawer.

Because of unrelated events, Ms. Krabappel is replaced. Her replacement invites phones, texting, Facebook, blogging, Twitter, and other "cool" stuff into the classroom. Of course, the students are thrilled with his paperless classroom. The students are shown to be excited about what they are doing in class, but are they actually learning anything aside from the technology itself?

One of the "cool" things the new teacher does is emails his students a video where he wears jerseys with numbers that are multiples of seven. The jersey video reminds me of Mrs. Burk, the rapping math teacher. The new teacher may be on to something. Lots of teachers are making videos and podcasting. Students seem to respond better to videos that feature people they know.

During class, the new teacher asks, "Who can tell me what the Monroe Doctrine was?" One student recites, "The policy of President Monroe that America has a right as a nation to..." The teacher interrupts the student and asks, "Are you telling me that you memorized that fact when anyone with a cell phone can find it out in 30 seconds?" The student realizes, "I've crammed my head full of garbage!" Again, there seems to be no happy medium. It's either lots of memorization of facts vs. only search for facts. Yes, students need to know how to find information. And yes, there are things that students shouldn't have to research because they remember them.

In the end, The Simpsons' parody of mobile phones in schools probably changes the minds of no one. Those that are absolutely opposed to inviting student-owned phones will see the craziness of the first classroom scene as what would really happen in the classroom full of phones--a huge distraction with no learning. Those who want to give students access to any and all technology in classrooms will witness the excited reactions of Bart Simpson's classmates as evidence that using today's technologies are a very good thing--learning should be chaotic.

The happy medium that I prefer is using school-owned devices. A class set of iPod touches checked out to students for the school year can be more easily managed. Each student would have access to the same hardware and apps. The teacher can control what apps are installed and what features are enabled. Of course, it's costly to outfit a class of students with handhelds. I do continue to be interested in the idea of students bringing their own devices to class. It would be less costly and demonstrate to students that any device can be used for learning. But it has to be done in the right way with the right philosophy behind it. What are your thoughts about mobile phones in schools? Please comment.

If you enjoy The Simpsons brand of humor, you'll get a kick out of other gags in the show. Those in the U.S. can watch the entire episode, "Bart Gets a Z," on Hulu.