How to Cheat

Search for "how to cheat" on YouTube and you might be surprised on how many student-produced videos are online that show exactly how to cheat in school. Methods range from dozens of ways to hide cheat sheets to increasing the length of a term paper. There are even multiple videos showing how to remove, scan, and replace text on a Coke bottle's label. Watch some of the videos below to see for yourself.

Learn how to use an innocent-looking Coke bottle for cheating. The label is scanned, information is replaced, and a new label printed out and attached to the bottle.	This student shows how to hide answers in a skirt. She shows how to make your own skirt that can hold many cheat sheets.
This video shows how to stretch out a rubber band to write down answers. When the band is unstretched, you can't tell that answers are written on it.	Lots of advice and techniques are shared in this video, including becoming friends with the professor, writing on the inside label of a water bottle, and more.
Increase the length of a report or paper by replacing periods with larger ones. A nine page paper can turn into a 10+ page paper with this technique.	See how to make a tiny cheat booklet using paper and a stapler.
This video has insights from interviewed cheaters. "The Buddy Method" is demonstrated in the last half of the video.	This "Cheating Documentary" interviews many students who share ways to cheat, including taping answers inside of one's bangs and writing on various body parts.

Yes, we would rather our students not watch these videos. But, the information is out there and easily accessible.

One concern I hear about inviting mobile devices into the classroom is that students will use them to cheat. Perhaps. While many teachers seem to be focused on iPods and cell phones as cheating tools, they may overlook more prevalent methods of cheating. Watching these videos shows you there are lots of ways to cheat nowadays--and barely any of them involve mobile computers.

Of course, it is possible to store cheats on iPods and other electronic devices. There are videos that demonstrate how to do that too. This one uses the Notes function of iPods. Another video encourages students to record their answers and listen to earbuds in their sleeves while leaning on their hands to listen.

The "Cheating Documentary" above ends with the voiceover, "So students cheat. It is something that will never die. The question is, can teachers keep up in the race against students and their ever-going creativity?" The answer is not keeping up--that will never happen. One answer is creating assessments that students can "cheat" on. Rarely are people without some device that they can use to look up a formula or definition. It doesn't make sense to have school assessments so incredibly focused on memorizing information that is accessible anywhere and anytime. Unfortunately, emphasis in education is on "playing school" instead of learning what's important for today's and tomorrow's society.

The Los Angeles Times recently ran the story Exam Cheating Goes High Tech, But Its Causes are Nothing New. Here's a quote:

There is an increasing body of opinion among educators that cheating may be an expression of the way schools approach teaching and learning. And as schools and teachers come to face more high-stakes standardized testing, the worse it will become, said Gary J. Niels, who has studied cheating behavior and wrote a 2003 paper on honor codes.

Studies found that when teachers were vague in explaining the relevance and importance of curricula, students perceived the lessons as a waste of time and were more likely to cheat. Fact-driven data that had to be "regurgitated," said Niels, also correlated to higher incidents of cheating.

The article also addresses the ethics of cheating:

"It's a mistake to talk about school cheating without referring to society at large," said Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit consulting and training firm. "We need to connect these dots and ask what is our attitude toward cheating, because kids are going to absorb that attitude. . . . And cheating learned in school is habit-forming."

As I was writing this post, a great question was posed on Weblogg-ed: When are we going to stop giving kids tests that they can cheat on? Many extremely astute comments have been made about "cheating" in schools.

As an aside, I am completely offended and disappointed in the comments on the YouTube pages for the videos above. YouTube doesn't moderate comments and it certainly shows. I'm actually glad YouTube is blocked in schools, not necessarily because of the video content, but because of the nasty, nasty comments.

iPods Episode #11: Artwork & Lyrics

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #11: Artwork & Lyrics is online and is all about giving audio files cover art and accompanying text.

Artwork and lyrics are two things you can easily add to an audio file to make it more useful on iPods. While most all references you'll find to artwork and lyrics on iPods deal with music, the audio files do not have to be songs. They can be recordings from a voice recorder, ripped from a CD, podcasts, files from Audacity or GarageBand, or downloaded from the Internet. Wherever you got the audio, we'll explore adding customized artwork and accompanying text to these files.

Listen to all 11 minutes of Episode #11 for tips, how-tos, and ideas for using artwork and lyrics on click wheel and touch iPods.

iPods Episode #10: Photos Part 2

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #10: Photos Part 2 is available and focuses on various kinds of educational image sets.

First, learn about commercial sources of image sets, like iPREPpress and Raybook. Explore many different kinds of image sets, including visual books, study aids, flash cards, matching games, math manipulatives, converters, response cards, and more. In fact, you can visit learninginhand's Gallery of Educational Image Sets and download lots of great learning tools and resources for the Photos section of an iPod.

Although teachers and students can download pre made image sets, the real value is using software like PowerPoint or Keynote to make your own image sets. Creating your own study aids really aids your study of a topic!

Listen to all 18 minutes of Episode #10 for great tips for using and making educational image sets. Refer to Photos Part 1 for basic information about Photos on iPods.

Commercial Sources for iPod Image Sets

If you're an iPod user, you're familiar with sources of audio and video content (namely iTunes). But, you can fill your iPod with other media, including images. Viewing images on an iPod doesn't sound all that glamorous. After all, you can view images on just about any mobile device. However, some innovative companies have sets of images they'd love for you to sync to your iPod. The image sets can be surprisingly educational.

iPREPpress.com offers content from a variety of publishers and formats it for iPods. Much of what they offer can be viewed as text files in iPod's Notes. Additionally, iPREPpress has been adding content that you view in iPod's Photos. The company has a section for graphic biographies and histories. Each biography or history is currently on sale for $1.99 each. I bought The First Moon Landing. Once purchased, I downloaded a folder containing 71 jpeg images. At 320 x 240, the images match the resolution of iPod classic and nano. I synced the photo of images to an iPod. The First Moon Landing reads like a comic book. Once done with one frame, I just press the Next button to continue.

Raybook.com also offers image sets. My favorites are Brain Quest. Yes, that Brain Quest--the set of question cards that are often used in classrooms when there's a few minutes to spare. Raybook offers seven different version of Brain Quest, one for each grade up to seventh. Like The First Moon Landing, you view the Brain Quest cards in Photos on your iPod.

Raybook's content is installed differently than how you're used to syncing photos to an iPod. Instead of mucking up your desktop's iPhoto or Photoshop Elements albums with hundreds of images, Raybook has its own installer. The installer works great on Macintosh and Windows computers. I'm pleased to see that the Raybook installer is careful not to interfere with the other images I have stored on my iPod.

Raybook has done something special with their image sets. They have manipulated the thumbnails so you can easily skip to a different section of the photo set. The also have unique ways of interacting with the images. For instance, Brain Quest for Grade 5 has a listing of animals on one side of the screen and a listing of their collective names on the other. You go through one by one, trying to mentally match each animal with its collective name. Pressing the next button will draw a line on the screen to the correct answer.

Raybook also offers CliffsNotes on popular literary titles like Beowulf and The Red Badge of Courage. Scrolling farther down the page, you'll see flash cards for math fact. One card has the question and pressing Next will reveal the answer.

Raybook offers demos of Brain Quest, but you'll pay $19.99 for the full version. CliffsNotes and Math Facts cost about $5 each. Contact Raybook for school licenses.

Note that image sets from Raybook and iPREPpress may only work with certain models of iPods. Be sure to check that whatever image set you're interested in works for you before purchasing.

iPREPpress and Raybook are just two of a growing number of companies providing learning materials for iPods. Online Education Database just posted 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better. The list includes some familiar resources and many that are new to me. Unfortunately, many of the resources are not free. But, you might just find something worth paying for.

My next episode of Learning in Hand: iPods will be all about image sets and ways that teachers and students can create their own.

iPods Episode #09: Photos Part 1

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #9: Photos Part 1 is online and gives information about getting images and slide shows on an iPod.

You probably know that you can sync photos to an iPod. After all, it’s an option in iPod’s Main Menu. Photos of your children, pets, and vacations are fun to show off on iPod’s screen. Episode 9 covers the basics of putting photos on an iPod and then tells you about viewing PowerPoint and Keynote slide shows on an iPod.

Listen to all 9 minutes of Episode #9 for a how-to, valuable tips, and useful information. Part 2 will feature surprising and innovative educational uses for iPod's Photos.

iPods Episode #8: Manage Manually

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #8: Manage Manually is online and offers help with using one iPod with multiple computers.

An iPod is easy to sync with one computer. In fact, it’s really easy to sync multiple iPods to one computer. But, when you want to sync the same iPod to two or more computers, things get tricky.

You can enable "manually manage music and videos" so you can connect an iPod with more than one computer without having those computers erase the iPod’s content from the other computers. But, it also means that you'll have to hand-pick the audio and video when you want to update the iPod.

Listen to all 8 minutes of Episode #8 for a how-to, valuable tips, and useful information about manually managing iPod content. Listeners may be interested in clicking floola.com to transfer media files from their iPods.

Video Overview of iPod Uses in Education

Besides playing music and video, iPods can display photos, run games, display notes, store data, play podcasts, and more.

Australian teacher Jonathan Nalder shows many uses of an iPod classic in his two-part video, The iPod in Education. The video is a great overview for teachers and is very visual. Jonathan uses one of the newest iPods so you might notice the screens are slightly different than previous generations of iPods.

Part 1 of The iPod in Education covers setting the master volume, coverflow,
audiobooks, iQuiz maker, and exporting quizzes to iPod.

Part 2 shows podcasts, iTunes U, adding your own video, world time, and stopwatch.

Jonathan obviously put lots of time into the video. Thanks Jonathan! I often think that my podcast about iPods should be video. The problem is I don't have the time to produce regular videos, so I stick with audio.

Article: Texas Schools Welcome iPods

The Dallas Morning News published the story Grand Prairie Schools Welcome iPods in Classrooms. It features Whitt Elementary in Grand Prairie, Texas where teachers are using 321 iPods "to teach kids about subjects they might otherwise find boring." The iPods have only been in use a couple of weeks at the school, but the media players have inspired teachers to have these ideas:

• Use GarageBand to produce a song about states of matter. Listen here.
• Help teach English Language Learners and foreign languages.
• Video students being revolving planets.
• Produce a podcast about the American Revolution.
• View video about season changes.
• Allow students to take the iPods home (as long as they are returned the next day).

Whitt's principal, Alisha Crumley is quoted, "This is tech generation. So, when we think of instructing students, we have to think of different ways of teaching, To get their attention in class, we have to keep up."

Whitt teachers are embracing change and are doing great things for students. The activities and teacher/student creation of media seem to be the most powerful parts of how teachers are changing instruction. iPods are not necessary to create these products--the content creation is done almost exclusively on desktop computers. But, the mere presence of iPods and the desire to fill them with something engaging is the catalyst for change and that's a good thing and probably worth the $73,114 price tag.

For more iPod uses click on over to learninginhand's iPods in Education page.

iTunes U Expanded

iTunes has expanded its iTunes U section with more free educational content. Previously iTunes U contained only lectures and videos from universities. Now Apple has included content from other sources and it's not just for university-types. They call the new offerings Beyond Campus. Now Macintosh and Windows iTunes users can download specially selected public radio broadcasts, Supreme Court discussions, science videos, and more from institutions like Smithsonian Global Sound, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and KQED public television.

iTunes U's content looks very much like podcasts (and some iTunes U contributions are indeed podcasts) and are offered for free. Apple has hand-picked universities and organizations to participate. Most iTunes U content is very well produced. Unlike with podcasts, listeners and viewers can expect a high level of quality to iTunes U. Besides just audio or video, many iTunes U's productions are often accompanied by transcripts, educator guides, and discussion questions. When you get audio, video, or documents from iTunes U, iTunes might create a playlist in the Source panel where you can find what you downloaded. If the content is a podcast, it will show up in your Podcasts section of iTunes.

While all of this is available through iTunes, an iPod is not necessary to read, listen, or watch. You can do that on your computer. But don't forget you can drag and drop content from iTunes onto a memory card or player that is mounted as a flash drive or hard drive.As long as the player can deal with AAC audio and MPEG-4 video, it should play after copying the files to its memory.

To find iTunes U and the Beyond Campus offerings, launch the iTunes Store. Click iTunes U in the upper-left corner of the screen. The Beyond Campus offerings are limited, but more are on the way.

iPods Episode #7: iQuiz

Learning in Hand: iPods Episode #7: iQuiz is online and it's all about iQuiz.

iQuiz is a game for iPods with fun game show sounds and slick graphics. iQuiz comes with sample quizzes, but the real power comes from teachers and students making their own quizzes. iQuizMaker is software for Mac and Windows computers that makes it easy to create quizzes and sync them to iPods. iQuizShare.com is a site for downloading and sharing quizzes. Like iQuizShare, iQuizr.com is a place for downloading and sharing quizzes with the added feature of being able to create quizzes online.

iQuiz comes pre-installed on all iPod classics and iPod nanos that play video. It's available for older full-sized iPods that can play video for 99 cents from the iTunes Store.

Listen to all 13 minutes of Episode #7 for how-to and a few valuable tips. Also, check out learninginhand's Quizzes page.

Syncing Multiple iPods

When you're dealing with multiple iPods in a classroom there are some things you should know. First, it's certainly possible to connect multiple iPods to one computer. When connected, iPods not only sync, but they charge their batteries as well. You can see in the screenshot to the right that I have connected all six of my iPods (including my iPhone). The iPods are listed alphabetically and with tiny icon representations under the Devices panel in iTunes. I can click the name of an iPod to view and edit its contents and sync settings.

Here are some other things to know about syncing multiple iPods:

• iPods can be be the same model or a mixture of models. You see six different iPods connected in the image to the right.
• Technically, 127 USB devices can be connected to a computer at one time. Realistically, you'd never connect that many devices to one machine.
• Syncing many iPods at once can slow down your computer and the syncing process.
• Most computers have four or fewer USB ports. If connecting more iPods, use self-powered USB 2.0 hubs. Self-powered hubs have to be plugged into a power outlet.
• iPods connected to a self-powered USB hub continue to charge even when the computer is powered off.
• You can sync items purchased from the iTunes Store (music, videos, audiobooks, and games) to all iPods connected to that computer. You can authorize and copy that purchased content onto up to five computers.
• You can authorize more than one computer to work with purchased items from more than one iTunes account. Simply log out of one account by clicking on the account name in the iTunes Store window and clicking the Sign Out button. Log into the other account, and then they will both be authorized. (Notice that you are not deauthorizing the computer, just logging out). This can be valuable if you have a combination of content purchase through a school account and your personal account.
• Most schools aren't using content purchased from the iTunes Store, so you probably don't have to worry about the five computer limit. Since podcasts are free, they are not considered purchased content.
• You may want a consistent naming structure to keep each iPod clearly identified in iTunes. It might be easiest to name iPods by numbers. For example: "01 Vincent" "02 Vincent" etc.
• You can only make changes to an iPod's settings when it is connected. When disconnected, the iPod's name and icon disappear from the Devices panel.
• Sync settings (playlists, podcasts, calendars, contacts, photos) must be set up for each iPod individually. Think carefully about these preferences the first time you set them so that you don't have to make changes later. For example, choose Sync All Songs and Playlists if the iPod have enough storage space. Otherwise, each time you make a new playlist, you'll have to update each iPod's settings.
• When using more than one computer for syncing, designate which iPods are synced to which computers. If an iPod has been synced with Computer A and then is connected to Computer B, the iPod will ask if you'd like to replace all items from Computer A with those from Computer B. That's probably not a big deal, but it will take time to copy those files. Also, you'll need to input the sync settings again. It's just easier to have each iPod sync to one computer. Using color-coded stickers is a simple way to indicate that iPods with green stickers sync to the computer with the green sticker.
• If a student brings an iPod from home to school and syncs to a school computer, you'll run into some issues. The data from home will have to be erased and replaced with data from the school computer. When the student syncs at home, the data from school will be replaced. Sorry, there is no way to merge the content from school and home together.
• An exception to the above: Files placed in an iPod's Hard Disk Mode are not replaced when syncing. This includes Notes.
• iTunes syncs the time code where you stop audiobooks, videos, and podcasts from one iPod and copies that information to all iPods. This means that students who watch videos and listen to podcasts may have their audio or video begin in the middle of an episode (nothing the iPod's Previous button can't fix immediately by rewinding to the beginning).

Like using Palm handhelds and Pocket PCs, there are all sorts of technical and management issues when using class sets of iPods. If you have worked with multiple iPods in a classroom and have insights, please share them with us in a comment.

New iPods

Apple has updated every single device in their iPod lineup.

iPod touch
iPod touch is a lot like an iPhone without the phone and camera. It has a large touchscreen. Of course it plays audio, video, and podcasts. It is equipped with Wi-Fi and the Safari web browser. Like iPhone, it has an onscreen keyboard that appears when you need it. While I'm disappointed there is no email application, users can use web-based email in Safari. iPod touch is also missing a notes application. One look at the iPod touch home screen, you notice there is a lot of room for more icons. I'm hopeful that Apple will be adding features through software updates in the future. Additionally, there have been so many great websites designed for iPhone. Now that iPod touch can also access the Web,we'll see even more web sites and services will be optimized for the mobile Safari browser in iPod touch.

iPod nano
iPod nano has a new shape to accommodate a larger display. iPod nano now has all of the same features as the full-sized iPod, including video playback and games. In fact, all iPod nanos come with iQuiz, the game with fun graphics and the ability to make your very own quizzes using the free iQuizMaker for Mac or Windows. iPod nano also has been updated with an enhanced interface with slick transitions and a focus on album artwork.

iPod classic
iPod classic is the new name for the full-sized iPod. It's the only iPod with a miniaturized hard drive; all other models use flash-based memory. Hard drive sizes are now 80 and 160GB. That's probably too much storage space for most users. Like the new iPod nano, iPod classic comes with iQuiz and an enhanced interface.

iPod shuffle
iPod shuffle now comes in new colors. It's the only iPod without a screen and has the smallest storage capacity at only 1GB.

With so many iPod choices, which does your school choose? It will probably depend on how much money a school has to spend and if they have a Wi-Fi network. If iPods will be used for listening to select audio and podcasts, a shuffle or nano may be the way to go. If interacting with the Web is important, then iPod touch is a good choice. Apple makes it easy to compare iPod models and prices with their Which iPod Are You? chart.