"Picks from the App Store" Live Workshop 4-29-09

Please join me on Wednesday, April 29th for Picks from the App Store! This is the first in a series of free workshops for SIGHC members by SIGHC members. Even if you know nothing about SIGHC, you're still welcome join in. Here's the description of the online workshop:

The hottest handhelds today are Apple's iPod touch and iPhone. In addition to being great audio and video players, the iPod touch and iPhone run a mobile platform with over 25,000 software applications available from the App Store. With thousands of apps listed in the Education section of the App Store, it can be hard to find the very best apps for teaching and learning. SIGHC member Tony Vincent shares his educational app picks on Wednesday, April 29th at 3PM PST on Ustream.TV. Tony will present the first half-hour and the second half hour is reserved for participants to share their own picks and to ask questions. You can participate by joining the chat room on Ustream.tv and by calling in your picks via webcam at www.ustream.tv/channel/tony-vincent.

Before the beginning of the workshop, sign up for a free Ustream account so that you can pick out a username for the chat. To create a new account, simply click Sign Up, which is located in the top-left of each Ustream.tv page.

Participants are encouraged to have their webcams and microphones ready so they can talk about their own App Store picks and so they can ask questions. While the workshop will most likely be recorded and archived, I really hope you can join us live.

Oregon Trail for iPod touch

The original The Oregon Trail was released in 1971. If you have a hankering for the Apple II version of Oregon Trail, you can play it online--with old time graphics and sounds--at Virtual Apple 2. Students probably won't appreciate the ancient-looking game. The original version has a lot of text and unimpressive graphics.

What might impress them is the new iPhone/iPod touch version of Oregon Trail from The Learning Company. Available for $6 from the App Store, the Oregon Trail is quite fun to play. Here's the description of Oregon Trail from iTunes:

Westward, Ho! Your favorite pioneering adventure game is back and takes you to an exciting, historical side-scrolling adventure entirely rethought to fit the Touch experience of your iPhone / iPod touch.

• All of the decision-making and problem-solving fun of the original game, plus additional parameters to take the Oregon Trail experience even further than you've played before.
• 8 skill-based mini-games, including 2 accelerometer-based challenges: hunting, fishing, river crossing, rafting, wagon repairing, telegraph, berry picking, and gold panning.
• Random events (disease, bandits, hitchhikers, etc.) faced by real pioneers increases the challenge.
• Side-missions add more excitement to your journey, affecting your westward trek.
• Prepare for your departure: Select the members of your party, choose your departure date and purchase supplies.

Oregon Trail shares information like what clothing to wear, how much oxen weigh, and which is the best seat in the wagon. Of course, by playing students get to practice map skills, conserve resources, and develop a strategy. Teachers using this in school will enjoy teaching students about dysentery (and other historical diseases) as well as having students compare the game to the real struggles pioneers had traveling across North America.

Oregon Trail is getting rave review in iTunes. I've had a blast playing it and I know youngsters who were born after the 80s will too!

Besides Oregon Trail, the there's Westward in the App Store. This $5 game is a strategy game where you "control the destiny of the Wild West by building thriving towns, exploring uncharted plains, dense forests and rocky canyons and guiding settlers to safety and success." Westward is rated 12+ for mild profanity, fantasy violence, and tobacco and alcohol references.

iPods Episode #17: Favorite iPod touch Apps

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #17: Favorite iPod touch Apps was recorded live. It was supposed to be a call-in show, but no one called in. Fortunately, there were live listeners in the chat room who asked great questions.

Besides sharing some useful information about the App Store and installing apps, listen for information about the Google Moderator series designed for educators to vote for their favorite apps. You can find the series at tinyurl.com/edapps. Please contribute your own and please vote!

Tune in for all 16 minutes of Episode #17 to hear all about some of the great software the App Store has to offer. Note: This is an edited version of what was recorded using TalkShoe. If you want to listen to the entire live broadcast, go to this page.

Ranking of Favorite iPod touch/iPhone Apps

iPod touch and iPhone Apps in Education is a Google Moderator series where educators are encouraged to vote on suggestions for educational apps and to submit their own suggestions. The apps suggestions are ranked so when you visit the list, the apps that netted the most votes are listed first.

With over 15,000 apps currently in the App Store, there are lots for teachers to sort through. Perhaps this list can help us find apps that would otherwise be lumped in with the hundreds of apps in the Education category of the App Store.

When submitting, please list the name of the app, a short description of how it could be used in education, and the price (if it isn't free). In order to vote or submit, you'll need to sign-in with your Google account information (or sign up for a free account). Unfortunately Google Moderator doesn't allow for linking to the apps. So, if you read about an app you might want to download, search for it in the App Store.

Is 8GB Sufficient in an iPod?

I'm often asked how much memory should an iPod for classroom use have. In the typical classroom, the 120GB iPod classic is overkill. Whenever I can, I ask to see classroom iPods to check how much storage is actually used. In most cases, it's one or two gigabytes. Now, in classrooms that are using iPods to store dozens of videos from TeacherTube, YouTube, and United Streaming, several gigabytes are used. In almost all cases, 8GB is going to be plenty. The 8GB iPod nano retails for $150.

What about the iPod touch? The lowest-priced touch is $230 with 8GB of storage. Besides storing audio and video, that 8GB also has to have room for all of those wonderful software applications from the App Store. I have my iPod touch loaded up with hundreds of songs (1.7 days worth), several podcasts, 1.9 hours of high quality video, and 571 photos. Besides all that media, I have 89 apps installed.

As you can see from the Capacity Graphs above, I still have plenty of room on my iPod touch. And surprising to me is that although I have it loaded with 7 screens of apps, they only take up 604MB. That's an average of 6.8MB per app. And since you can only load up to 9 screens of apps (for a total of 148), a touch full of apps only needs about 1GB (1,006MB) reserved for that. That leaves 6GB remaining for media, which I think is plenty for classroom use. For personal use, 6GB may not be enough to hold your entire music collection--but I'm talking school use.

Unlike many handhelds and MP3 players, iPods don't have an expansion slot. So when you purchase an iPod, you have to make sure you get the right amount of memory. If you don't get enough gigabytes, you will have to carefully manage what gets put on the iPod through iTunes. If you get too capacity, you end up overpaying (a 16GB iPod touch is $300 and 32GB is $400).

If you want to see how full your iPod is, connect it to your computer. In Tunes, click the iPod in the Devices sidebar. On the Summary tab, scroll down to the bottom of the screen. You'll see a Capacity Graph like mine above. Click the graph to change among number, size, and length of items.

Help iPod touch Find Its Location

Unlike iPhone, iPod touch does not have a GPS chip. But, it can still estimate your location. Your current location is used in map apps, including Google Maps. If you've used an iPod touch, you've probably tapped the location icon in Google Maps to zoom right into your whereabouts on the map (well, at least within a couple hundred feet).

Instead of GPS or cell towers, iPod touch uses the Skyhook Wi-Fi Positioning System. Skyhook's location services work indoors, which can't be said for GPS, which usually needs line-of-sight with the sky. In fact, iPhone also uses Skyhook's services in combination with cell tower signals and GPS so that your device can locate you just about anywhere.

Skyhook has referenced over 50 million Wi-Fi access points in the United States and Canada. Currently that covers about 70% of population centers. Skyhook continues to add the locations of Wi-Fi access points to expand its reach and improve its precision.

You can add the locations of Wi-Fi access points to Skyhook's database to make it even more inclusive and accurate. Let's say that iPod touch doesn't accurately report your location when you are at home (or says that your location cannot be found). Go to Skyhook's Submit a Wi-Fi Access Point page and place a pin on the map with your home's precise location. You'll also have to provide your Wi-Fi router's MAC Address (this has nothing to do with Macintosh computers, by the way) and your email address. After up to 7 days, Skyhook's databases are updated so iPod touches and iPhones near your access point can triangular their current locations more precisely.

If it seems iPod touch isn't giving accurate locations when at other places, say at school or at favorite hotspot, you can submit other access points to Skyhook as well--you'll just have to be able to provide Skyhook with the MAC Addresses. Follow instructions on this page to determine an access point's MAC Address.

Even without a GPS chip, iPod touch can triangulate its current location thanks to those millions of Wi-Fi routers that are registered with Skyhook. Submitting your router and other routers improves Skyhook's positioning services for everyone.

12 Days of iPod touch and iPhone

Happy Holidays! Here's a listing of my 12 Days of iPod touch posts: Palm vs. iPod touch iPod touch and Comics iPod touch and Math Practice Installing iPod touch Apps iPod touch and Animations iPod touch and Podcasts iPod touch and Microphones iPod touch and Games Linking to iTunes and App Store iPod touch and Quizzes iPod touch and Homepages iPod touch Tips

iPods Episode #16: iPod touch Tips

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #16: iPod touch Tips is online. In this video podcast I share some of my favorite tips and tricks for Safari, text entry, and the Home screen.

In the video I do not attempt to show you the basics of using iPod touch. Mostly because Apple.com has a great iPod touch Guided Tour video and 116-page User Guide. Instead, I share tips that I hope are at least partly new to even experienced iPod touch and iPhone users. Here's a quick list:

Safari

• Tap the time to skip to the top of the page
• Double-tap a column or image to zoom in
• Save an image by tapping and holding
• Tap and hold a link to show its URL
• Add a bookmark icon to the Home screen
• Use bookmarklets to find text on a page, find similar pages, look up words, skip to the end of the page, and more
• Turn iPod touch horizontally before entering a web address or search to get a larger keyboard

Text Entry

• Double-tap Space for a period, space, and capitalization of the next word
• Type "im" and "cant" and let iPod touch autocorrect to "I'm" and "can't"
• Move the cursor by tapping, holding, and dragging
• Enter student names into Contacts to add them to the auto-correct keyboard dictionary
• Reset the keyboard dictionary in Settings > General > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary

Home Screen

• You can have up to 9 pages of apps for a total of 148
• Tap the bottom right or left corners to move between pages
• Tap and hold one icon until they all jiggle to rearrange them
• Push the Home button to go to the first page of icons when on any other Home screen page
• Put commonly used icons on the first page
• Put most accessed icons in the dock
• Download Backgrounds free from the App Store for thousands of images to use for wallpaper

Watch all 18 minutes of Episode #16 to see these tips in action!

iPod touch and Homepages

Many teachers have a class homepage because it is a place where they can share information, assignments, and web links. Teachers with a set of iPod touches can make a similar homepage that is formatted to work well on the iPod's screen. There are many different tools out there to help you build a mobile page. My favorite is Wirenode.

Wirenode is a free service and that not only provides a way to build a page, but it hosts it as well. You get to pick a URL and when someone visits that URL, Wirenode actually detects what kind of device is accessing the site and formats the page to look just right. Here's a simple classroom example page I made at Wirenode.com:

A homepage is immensely helpful as it's really not fun for students to type in long web addresses using the iPod touch's onscreen keyboard. Now that you watched my video about how to link to items within iTunes, you can certainly use that knowledge to link to podcasts and apps in your Wirenode site.

When you create a site, you get a WYSIWYG page editor that has text formatting tools along with buttons for hyperlinking and importing images. Below is what the site looks like as I'm editing it in my desktop web browser.

After editing my site in Wirenode, there is a Publish button. The second after I click that button, my Wirenode site is instantly updated. I know in a classroom setting things can be very last minute. As a teacher, I can add links to my class Wirenode site over lunch and then the links are instantly published and available for the afternoon science class. To give students one-tap access to my homepage, I'd have students add a bookmark on each iPod touch's Home screen as a web clip.

Wirenode is simple enough that you can probably dive right in and get started. For those that want a little tutorial, wirenode.com provides a brief tour.

Yes, you can view full-sized web pages on an iPod touch. But, using Wirenode makes it simple to instantly share links with iPod touch-using students and they won't have to pinch, zoom, or scroll much to find those links.

12 Days of iPod touch continues tomorrow when I share my thoughts on iPods versus netbooks.

iPods Episode #15: Linking to iTunes

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #15: Linking to iTunes is the podcast's first video episode and it's is online now. In the video I show different ways to create hyperlinks to items within the iTunes Store, like podcasts and apps.

The episode is particularly relevant for iPod touch and iPhone users, as the same hyperlinks that work with a desktop browser and iTunes also work with mobile Safari, mobile iTunes, and the mobile App Store on the device itself.

I've previously written about linking to items in iTunes, but this video goes into more detail. Watch all 10 minutes of Episode #15 to learn how to link to media and apps in iTunes and see how those links work on an iPod touch.

Transcript

This is Learning in Hand: iPods. I'm Tony Vincent and this is the show where I share tips, how-tos, and ideas for iPods in teaching and learning. Episode 15, "Linking to iTunes" recorded December 2008, happens now!

This is the first of many episodes of Learning in Hand: iPods that is video. More and more of what I will share on this show is visual,especially as the focus changes from click-wheel iPods to iPod touch and iPhone. By the way, I'm wearing these earbuds because they are the kind with a microphone--I tested recording video using a desktop mic and it just didn't sound as good--so I'm using these.

Alright. So, you might have noticed an iTunes icon on webpages. When you click it, your browser redirects you to iTunes and opens on the details page for a podcast, musical album, movie, or software in the App Store. When I click the iTunes button on on the Our City Podcast webpage in my web browser, it opens iTunes right up to the podcast's details page in the iTunes Store.

Now, check this out. I have the Our City Podcast page opened in mobile Safari on my iPod touch. Tapping that same iTunes button on my website launches mobile iTunes on the iPod and opens to the Our City Podcast details page where I can download specific episodes right there on the device itself without the help of a desktop computer.

Let me show you the first of two ways to hyperlink to the iTunes Store. You'll need to go to the iTunes Link Maker atapple.com/itunes/linkmaker or just Google "iTunes" and "link maker" and it will be the first search result.

With iTunes Link Maker, you search for the item in the iTunes Store to which you want to link. I type in Our City and choose Podcast as the Media Type. But as you can see, you can also link to other media types, like Music, Movies, TV Shows, Audio Books, Applications, and iTunes U.

After clicking search, I can see a list of search results. I find the one I'm looking for and click the Arrow next to it. Then iTunes Linkmaker gives me give me HTML code to put into my website, wiki, or blog. Because it's HTML, you most likely can't just copy or paste it into a webpage. You'll need to toggle into HTML mode. I use Dreamweaver for my website, so I toggle to Code view and paste the copied HTML code there. Then I switch back to Design view to see what it looks like. Let's preview this in the browser. I click the button, and now iTunes opens to the details page for the Our City Podcast!

Ok, maybe you want to use just a text hyperlink or use your own image for linking. On that iTunes Link Maker page, you can right-click the image next to Link Test and copy the link. Now I can type text and select it to hyperlink with the copied link. I'm going to paste what I copied from the Link Maker just so you can see what the URL looks like. It's pretty long, but you can see that it links to the store and includes a unique Podcast ID so that iTunes can open to that podcast.

If you don't need that iTunes button or you want more control over what you're linking to, then you can use the second method of linking to items in the iTunes Store. Here's how it works.

Go to the details page for what you'd like to link to. Right-click the Artwork and then choose Copy iTunes Store URL. Then you have that same URL you could have gotten from iTunes Link Maker. But, you can also use it to link to specific episodes. I can right-click a specific episode and copy the iTunes Store URL. Now, let me paste that URL into a Google Doc document just for demonstration purposes. Now when I click that link, not only does it open to the podcast page, but the specific episode I link to is highlighted.

You can use this right-click and copy method in the App Store as well. I can right-click on the icon for Word Warp and Copy iTunes Store URL. Like I would with a podcast episode, I can paste that URL into a webpage or document.

If you read my blog at learninginhand.com, you have probably noticed that I use this method to link to iPod touch and iPhone apps I write about. Here's something cool. So I'm on mobile Safari on an iPod touch. I can tap the link for an app that's I've put on my blog. The mobile App Store on my iPod touch launches and takes me to the details page for that app where I can download it. This is super useful when teachers want students to download a specific app. Instead of the student taking the time to find the app, they can tap its link to have it instantly available to them!

Ok, a couple more tips on linking to the iTunes Store. You can actually copy the link to just about anything you can click on in the iTunes Store. I can go to the Podcasts section of iTunes, select Education, and then right-click K-12 to link to that specific category of the iTunes Store, Podcasts - Education - K-12 . When clicked in a desktop browser or on an iPod touch or iPhone, the user to taken to the K-12 Podcasts category.

You can also link to search results. Let me show you how to do this for "math". On the results page, right-click See All in the Applications results and Copy the iTunes URL. When someone follows that URL, they are instantly taken to the iTunes search results that include Math and are in the App Store. Unfortunately, links to search results only works on desktop browsers and won't work on an iPod touch or iPhone. Also, links to iTunes U won't work on an iPod touch or iPhone because iTunes U does not yet appear in the mobile iTunes Store.

On the desktop side, if someone clicks a link to something in the iTunes store, but they don't have iTunes installed, the link will take them to a page where they can download iTunes, which, as you know, is a free download for Windows and Macintosh.

If you're a teacher with a class website, linking to items within the iTunes Store can help your students and parents subscribe to podcasts and watch or listen to specific media in the iTunes Store. If you're a teacher with iPod touches, it's really convenient to use iTunes Store links to direct students to podcasts and apps to download.

That's a wrap for Episode 15. Thank so much for watching. For more about podcasting and iPods, head on over to learninginhand.com. Stay super everyone!

iPod touch and Games

The App Store for iPod touch and iPhone has over 10,000 apps and a quarter of those are games. Many of the games are ones teachers wouldn't mind having in their classrooms because of their educational value. I thought I'd share six of my favorites.

	Free Word Warp Free Word Warp gives you six random letters and your job is to make words with those letters. You get more points for words with more letters. Each and every puzzle has at least one word that uses all six letters. Free Word Warp has ads. The ad-free version of Word Warp is $0.99. A related game is Letras ($0.99). Letras gives you a grid of scrambled letters. The object of the game is to connect the letters to make words before time runs out.
	Lemonade Stand $0.99 This is the same game I enjoyed playing in the 80s! You are in charge of a lemonade stand where you try to make as much money as you can in 30 days. Each day you're given a weather report and then you decide how many glasses to make, what to charge per glass, and how many advertising signs to make. After tapping the Go button, you'll see a report of how much money was made or lost. I love the economics aspect of this game. I also love the mental math skills students practice as they play. A similar game is Lemonade 2 ($1.99). It has more advanced graphics and more variables, including adjusting your lemonade's recipe.
	Brain Toot Free or $0.99 Brain Toot includes 16 "brain training" exercises to test math, memory, visual, and thinking skills. The free version only has 4 of these exercises. Exercises include Number Pop, Word Scramble, Block Drop, and more. The game has a similar premise to the wildly popular Nintendo DS game Brain Age. Similar iPod touch apps include Speed Brain ($0.99), Train Your Brain ($1.99), Brain Surge (2.99), and Brain Jogging ($0.99)
	SimCity $9.99 You're probably familiar with SimCity and this one is made specifically for iPod touch and iPhone. It's the game where you take charge of an entire city. To play, you must plan, build, and manage your city and deal with taxes, zoning, roads, and disasters. SimCity is a great simulation where students can experiment with what works best in their cities. By playing, they learn about city management, balancing a budget, and patience. The publisher of SimCity recommends that you turn off and then turn back on your iPod touch or iPhone before playing (I'm guessing because SimCity requires lots of memory and rebooting the device opens up the available memory).
	Touch4 Free Touch4 is the iPod touch version of Connect Four. Players try to be the first to place four checkers in a row. Touch4 is a two-player game; your opponent can be the computer, another human playing on the same iPod, a random human from the Internet, or a human with their own iPod on your same Wi-Fi network. A quick Google search brought up some webpages that explain how to win at Connect Four. Two I liked are Connect 4 Tutorial and How To Win Connect-4.
	TanZen Light Free TanZen is a puzzle game of tangrams. A tangram is a set of seven flat geometric pieces. When you play TanZen, you pick a silhouette puzzle. Then your task is to move and rotate all seven pieces to recreate the silhouette's shape without overlapping any of the pieces. TanZen Lite contains 18 puzzles. For $0.99 you can buy the full version that has 405 puzzles to solve. Similar iPod touch apps include Tangram Puzzle Pro Lite (Free) and TangTouch Lite.

These games certainly take some brain power. Palm handhelds and Pocket PCs have had plenty of these kinds of games available. My fifth graders even made some excellent videos when tasked with explaining a Palm game and giving tips on how to win. Besides using games for formal lessons, having games in the classroom is especially helpful when it comes to classroom management. Teachers can expect fewer classroom disruptions from students who are "done" because they have some great game choices to play to keep them out of trouble.

Tomorrow for 12 Days of iPod touch I show you how to link to apps and podcasts in the iTunes Store.

iPod touch and Podcasts

Like other iPods, the iPod touch is perfect for podcasts. Just like click-wheel iPods, the podcasts you have subscribed to in iTunes on your Windows or Macintosh computer are automatically transferred to the touch when synced. If a podcast has artwork, it is displayed on the large screen. Video podcasts look awesome on an iPod touch because of that large screen.

Something that I don't like is that all audio synced from iTunes is found in the Music app--even if the audio is not actually music. That means you have to tap the Music icon to access podcasts. By the way, video podcasts are found in both the Music and Videos apps.

Unlike click-wheel iPods, you can download podcast episodes on an iPod touch without syncing. You'll just need a Wi-Fi internet connection. When in the Music app under Podcasts, tap a podcast to see its episode listing. At the bottom of the screen you'll notice Get More Episodes. Tap that and the mobile iTunes app on the touch will launch and take you to the complete episode listing for that podcast. In iTunes, tapping the Free button downloads that episode onto your iPod. Once the download is complete, the episode appears in the Music app, listed with the other episodes of the podcast. Unfortunately, if a podcast is not listed publicly in the online iTunes Store directory, then its episodes will not appear in mobile iTunes either.

The podcasts section of mobile iTunes is no where near as extensive as that of desktop iTunes, but you can drill down to specific categories. For example, you can get to my favorite category: Education > K-12. The mobile directory is certainly not a complete listing, however doing a search for podcast titles will reveal the podcasts you're looking for. The search seems pretty limited and does not search for individual episode topics--only podcast titles and keywords.

As an alternative to downloading an episode (which is saved in the Music app), you can stream episodes in the iTunes app. Streaming does not display an episode's artwork and you cannot access an episodes lyrics/notes, but streaming can be handy if you don't want to wait for the episode to download completely. Besides not showing artwork, a problem with streaming is that the audio or video may have to pause for buffering and if you exit the iTunes app, then the playback stops and what's been streamed is not saved.

As much as I'm glad mobile iTunes has podcast download and stream capabilities, there are some limitations to note:

• You cannot subscribe to podcasts, only download individual episodes.
• You cannot input a podcast's RSS feed--a podcast must be submitted to the iTunes Store and approved for it to be listed.
• iPhones using the cellular network cannot download episode files larger than 10MB. Almost all episodes are larger than 10MB.
• Oftentimes movie files listed in mobile iTunes cannot be played on the iPod touch and you're given the warning, "This movie could not be downloaded."
• All that great content in iTunes U is not listed.
• The whole process of downloading an episode in mobile iTunes seems clunky. I'm guessing Apple will improve this feature in future software updates.

Having the ability to download podcast episodes right there on the iPod touch is a useful feature. Busy educators often don't have time to sync their iPods. With a classroom set of iPods, syncing often is logistically be difficult. When students bring their personal iPods to school, it's not a good idea for them to sync with school computers. So, it was a smart move for Apple to include podcasts in mobile iTunes as a way to get educational content on an iPod touch without the hassle of syncing with a desktop computer.

Tomorrow's 12 Days of iPod touch is about voice recording--recordings that could be used for a podcast.