An iPod for Every Michigan Student?

Michigan lawmakers are proposing $38 million dollars that would provide iPods or MP3 players for all of the state's public school students to use as learning tools (reported April 6, 2007 in the Detroit Free Press). The Michigan Technology News reports:

Rep. Matt Gillard (D-Alpena) said the state needs to redesign its education environment and instead of kids checking their iPods at the door they should be incorporated in the learning process. He said using more individualized learning programs and doing more professional development for teachers is part of that plan.

With a $1 billion state deficit, many taxpayers are not happy with the proposal. The editorial, An iPod for every kid? Are They !#$!ing Idiots?, in The Detroit News demonstrates an unwillingness to fund such a project. The writer says purchasing iPods for students would be "wasting money on early Christmas presents for Michigan kids."

While iPods are certainly useful in education, are they the best learning tool for the money? How about Palm or Pocket PC computers with keyboards? They can play MP3s and run thousands of different programs, access the Internet, and cost about the same as some iPods. Michigan's proposal doesn't specifically say it would use iPods. Other MP3 players have more features, but they don't sync as effortlessly as iPods + iTunes. The new Sansa Connect MP3 player has built-in Wi-Fi and can be used to surf the Mobile Web--something you can't do on an iPod. What is nice about iPods is that they are easy to operate and won't take much technical expertise to incorporate into classrooms.

Details of the Michigan proposal are scarce so it's unknown what device or exactly which students would get them. The details probably don't matter as it seems unlikely the proposal will pass. But, it is refreshing to hear when lawmakers are considering providing students with new learning tools and teachers with professional development.

Update: The Detroit Free Press did not accurately report what was proposed. Anne Campbell adds some important information in her comment to this post:

Appropriates $38,000,000 for 21st Century Learning Environments. DOE shall work with districts, intermediate districts, business and industry leaders and innovative education organizations to create a statewide initiative with new learning environments to create academic content and knowledge in digital forms. Funds shall be used to provide professional development, create a statewide content repository, coordinate efforts with other programs, and assist districts in obtaining innovative content creation and distribution tools.

Save & Convert YouTube Videos

Perhaps you checked out the video I posted yesterday. It's hosted on YouTube, the free video sharing service owned by Google. YouTube offers no way to download video as they'd prefer you to visit their website each and every time you want to view a movie. If you do manage to download the video to your desktop, YouTube videos are in Adobe Flash format (.flv), which requires special software for playback.

There is software that will download and covert YouTube videos for you. YouTube to iPod Converter is free for Windows users and PodTube is $5 for Mac users. Or, for $15 Windows or Mac users can use TubeSock. Whatever software program you use, you simply paste the web address of the YouTube video you wish to download. The software will pull the video from YouTube's site and then convert it into a friendlier format of your choosing. I prefer videos to be in MPEG-4 format because then I can play them in QuickTime, on an iPod or PSP, or in The Core Pocket Media Player (free) for Palm or Pocket PC.

If you don't want to mess with software, you can use the online service Vixy.net. Like the software options above, you paste the YouTube URL into Vixy's web page. Vixy will convert the video for you and then save it to your desktop--no software required. Don't be fooled by the option that says MPEG-4 for iPod/PSP. Even if you're viewing on a Palm, Pocket PC, or desktop computer, that's your best option. It does take a while for Vixy's servers to convert your video, but you can't beat the price and convenience.

Bits & Pieces

It's time again to list many of items that are piling up in my inbox and in my Bloglines feeds. There's a little something for everyone: Palm, Pocket PC, iPod, Mobile Phone, PSP, and podcasting users...

There's a new Google Maps application for Windows Mobile. It's also available for Palm OS. It requires an Internet connection.

Some Australian schools are using the Nova5000 with students. Read about their experiences in the NOVA5000 Australian Trials blog.

Some U.K. schools are using PSP (PlayStation Portables) in classrooms. Read about their experiences in the PSPTeachers blog. They are using the PSP's WiFi connection to deliver RSS feeds to the students. Be sure to check out their cool charging and storage cart. Click on over to this article from Popular Science to learn how to read eBooks and watch videos on a PSP.

Doug Hyde is a library-media specialist at a Wisconsin middle school. His blog, Classroom in Your Pocket, has a useful post about showing video from an iPod on a television or projector.

Karen Fasimpaur wrote about PocketPicture, a great paint program for Windows Mobile. It's free!

The Podcasts for Educators Weblog has a post titled evaluating podcasts. It links to a PDF file for evaluating podcasts for teaching and learning. In the future, the blog will be publishing an evaluation for students and young people to use. Also at the weblog, learn about podcasting through their Online Learning Studio.

Leonard Low posted his Top 10 Freeware Apps for M-Learning on his Mobile Learning blog. His suggestions focus on mobile phones and Windows Mobile devices.

Rolly Maiquez has a couple of blog posts you might want to check out: Useful Palm Handhelds and Language Arts Curriculum Integration Links and Funding Links.

Lynn Lary points to curriculum resources for a interesting lessons using MIT's free participatory simulations for Palm handhelds. Included are materials and handouts for a unit called "Future CSI" and a unit about the Big Fish-Little Fish simulation.

Those of you who are Windows, Palm, and iPod users may be interested in Palm2iPod that sends your contacts and calendar from Palm Desktop to your iPod.

Here are several new freeware applications for the Palm OS:

• SequenceM: Sequencing application for elementary classrooms.
• ClipExtend: Bypass the 1000 character clipboard limit so you can copy and paste larger amounts of text.
• HealthCalc: Calculate BMI, body fat, heart rate zones, and more.
• Pepe Palm Chat: Send text back and forth through infrared.
• Checklist by Paper Trail Software: Create and manipulate checklists.
• Dekses: Puzzle game where you follow the right number order and move the digits to their correct places.
• Target: Game where you make words out of a 3x3 grid of nine letters.
• tejpWriter: Word processor with a surprising number of features. I like that it can export to HTML. The applications is a little buggy, though.
• SimpleChart: Plot up to three columns of data.
• Subscribe to Palm Freeware's RSS feed.
• Dale Ehrhart has produced many free educational applications. Read about them on his Pre-Service Teacher blog.

And here are some freeware applications for Windows Mobile:

• Hubdog: Read news feeds and subscribe to podcasts on your Pocket PC.
• Free PDA Keyboard: Full screen keyboard for easier text entry.
• Pocket Notes: Notebook program with different pen sizes and colors.
• Subscribe to Pocket PC Freeware's RSS feed.

iPod: Criminal Tool

A student at Clay High School in Oregon, Ohio is accused of hacking into school personnel and student files and transferring private information to his iPod. According to the Toledo Blade, the high school junior was charged with unauthorized use of a computer. He was also charged with possessing a criminal tool, his iPod, since it was used in the crime.

An iPod can do more than play music. One of an iPod's many functions is that it can be used like an external hard drive or flash drive by putting it into Disk Mode. A computer doesn't even need iTunes on it for the iPod to show up on the desktop (Mac) or in MyComputer (Windows). Furthermore, you don't even need iTunes to enable Disk Mode. Here are instructions on how to force your iPod into Disk Mode without activating it through iTunes.

Clay High School's student connected his iPod (with Disk Mode enabled) to the USB port of the school's computer. He could then copy or save files into his iPod's memory. Those same files could then be copied to another computer. Fortunately, the iPod with sensitive data was confiscated the same day it was used in Oregon, Ohio's crime.

iPod Shuffle

Despite its lack of display screen, Apple's $79 iPod shuffle can be more useful than you might think. I recently grew my iPod collection to include a 1GB shuffle. The iPod shuffle's memory can store more than 12 hours of audio, which means the battery will need to be recharged before I've listened to all of the audio. Since I'm always near a computer for syncing and charging, the 1GB of memory (compared to my 60GB iPod) isn't as limiting as I thought it would be.

To sort an iTunes playlist by date, right-click the Name column header and select Date Added. Then click the newly displayed Date Added header to sort newest-to-oldest. Click again to sort oldest-to-newest.

In classrooms where students are listening to a limited number of podcasts, the shuffle could be useful. Students could check out the shuffle (perhaps for a center activity). They can even clip the shuffle to their clothing so they don't drop the device. Now that the iPod shuffle comes in five different colors, they make handy additions to classrooms; content on the iPods could be color-coded. For example, the orange iPod is loaded with history podcasts while the the green one has episodes about volcanoes.

With a name like shuffle, you might think that the player would only be good for listening to music in a random order. But, the iPod shuffle has a switch to toggle between random order and going in the order synced from iTunes. While you can't navigate playlists on the iPod shuffle, in iTunes you can create a playlist for the shuffle and move the audio around in any order you want before syncing. You can even create a Smart Playlist in iTunes that automatically places certain podcasts on the iPod. Another tip for listening to podcasts on an iPod shuffle is to organize your iTunes playlist by Date Added. That way the newest (or oldest--your pick) episodes are played first.

And a note for podcasters: Without a screen, it's important for audio to be immediately recognizable. It's always nice when podcasts identify themselves within the first 10 seconds so you know which podcast and which episode you're listening to.

iPods for Teachers & Students

With nearly 100 million iPods sold, Apple's digital media player can be found everywhere. iPods are showing up in schools and they can be used as engaging learning tools. Teachers and students may already have their own iPods, just waiting to be used for teaching and learning. Some schools are spending money on these devices but may not be using them to their full potential. Sure, most people know iPods can be used for listening to audio and watching video, but there are many more features that educators can use.

I've added an iPod section to learninginhand.com that demonstrates the uses of iPods in education. Learn about functionality like syncing calendars and address book contacts, dictionaries, text files, PowerPoint slides, multiple choice quizzes, and other interactive content.

Unfortunately, iPods don't have the ability to run software applications like Palm handhelds and Pocket PCs. While this limits their usefulness, iPods can still do quite a bit to help teachers and students. Check out iPods in Education to see what iPods can do.

Soft Reset #18: Quizzler

Soft Reset #18 is online! The episode is about Quizzler, software that works with Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, Windows, Macintosh, iPods, and the web—so just about everyone can put Quizzler to good use. John Covele, the developer of Quizzler, joins Tony and Mike to tell about Quizzler's new features.

Show Notes:

• Tony's Tip: When making eBooks and quizzes for handhelds, keep all of the files you used to create your content. You never know when you need to make changes to the original.
• Mike's Tip: Rename Palm .prc files to indicate different versions of applications. Also, backup your files online for free at at AOL's Xdrive.
• Palm users can make quizzes on their handhelds using Quizzler 4. Here's a handout to help.
• Learn about Quizzler 5's new features.
• Quizzler Maker for Mac & Windows. Create quizzes with 10 questions or less for free. Export quizzes to Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, iPods, and the web pages. Here's a screenshot.
• Quizzler Pro Website from Pocket Mobility, Inc.
• Quizzler Server: Collect scores wirelessly & turn your handhelds into a set of clickers.
• Free Quizzler Quiz Library.
• Download Quizzler software.
• Visit Soft Reset's Discussion Forum to discuss the show!
• Leave a voicemail for us to play on the show! 206-333-1942
• Email Tony and Mike at softresetpodcast@gmail.com.

Enjoy the show! Click an icon below to listen or subscribe.

Learning with Handheld Technologies Handbook

Futurelab is a nonprofit U.K. organization committed to sharing the lessons learned from research and development in order to inform positive change to educational policy and practice. Last month Futurelab published the handbook Learning with Handheld Technologies. The 35 page PDF has implementation ideas and detailed case reports. This handheld book is useful for schools just starting to explore handheld computing and for schools who want to improve their current program. It's based on two years of research from the University of Bristol, which observed and interviewed some of the leading practitioners of handheld learning in the UK.

The second page of the handbook lists the key recommendations from the research.

• There should be an authentic purpose with clear learning goals.
• It is harder and takes more time to manage a small set of devices than it is to manage models of use where each learner "owns" their own.
• Professional development is very important. A collaborative community of practice that involves the whole school will help embed handheld technologies in the curriculum.
• Wireless internet connectivity is preferred because it makes the devices much more useful.
• Schools need to figure out long term storage of students' data as they will produce so much work it won't all fit on the devices.
• Spare handhelds should be on-hand for quick replacement of broken units.
• Teaching styles must accommodate personal ownership of learning.
• Successful projects used handhelds for accessing content and for producing projects.
• Adoption of handhelds goes smoothly when integrated with with existing technologies like interactive whiteboards, software, and data projectors.

All of the recommendations in Learning with Handheld Technologies seem to apply to all school technologies, not just handheld devices. The handbook also contains a listing of many handheld learning projects from around the globe. The projects include all kinds of devices like Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, and iPods. You can download the PDF or request a free hard copy of Futurelab's handbook.

More Blogging from NECC

Although thousands educators no longer inhabit the San Diego Convention Center, the National Educational Computing Conference continues online. Dozens of bloggers have and continue to blog about the annual conference. I've been keeping up on blogs from NECC by subscribing to this Technorati tag search for "NECC". There were several session about handheld computing that I didn't get a chance to attend, but others did blog about them. Here is a rundown of some of the blog posts:

Handheld acceleration in Missouri!
from eLearning Blog
Julie Lindsay from Bangladesh attended a session by Mark Yehle and Stacey Franks from SuccessLink in Missouri. SuccessLink is a state-wide agency that finds best practices and resources and disseminates them to educators. They see great power in handhelds and have spread handheld computing across the state. Mark and Stacey admit that web browsing on a handheld is quite limited. Julie write about some of the handheld computing activities that were shared.

NECC 2006: Ubiquitous Computing Session
from Ubiquitous Thoughts
Mark van 't Hooft from Ohio took detailed notes during this session about everyone, everywhere computing.

NECC 2006 - Day 2a
from The EdTech Advantage
Rolly Maiquez from Guam blogged the session “Playing the Part: Using Handhelds in Participatory Simulations” presented by Betsy Frederick. Rolly tells about the virus simulation from MIT. Everyone participated using a Palm handheld.

Live Blogging: I Learn, therefore, iPod
from The TechSavvy Teacher
Jason from Montana reviewed a session about using video iPods with middle school students. Besides doing the typical stuff with iPods (audio, video, podcasting, and photos), they used Zelek Software's iPod Flash Cards software. It sounds like the project took all of its cues from best instructional practices.

iLearn, Therefore iPod
from Bethany's Education Blog
Bethany from North Carolina also wrote about the same session Jason attended. She clarifies that the iPod Flash Card software from Zelek works with either Mac or Windows. The presenters loaded iPods with audio and video to build students' background knowledge before reading Diary of Anne Frank. Bethany also lists the 8 Rules of Effective Podcasting by Kirk McElhearn. I couldn't agree more with Bethany about her thoughts on Rule #8.

NECC: iPodagogy
from Pondering
iPodagogy is the study of teaching methods using iPods. Two teachers and five students from Edinburgh, Scotland presented a session and shared their findings.

iPod Ideas
from The Savvy Technologist
An extensive list of ideas generated during a workshop about iPods, iTunes, and podcasting by Tim Wilson from Minnesota.

Tags: necc06 necc

Developing Learning Applications for PDAs and iPods

It's 10 AM and I'm attending the NECC session Developing Learning Applications for PDAs and iPods. Kitty Salinas tells us about a grant to the Alliance for Distance Education called MATRIX, Middle School Achievement Through Technology-Rich Interventions. Besides Kitty, Alan Amundsen, Mike Lawrence, Amy Murphy, Ed Hill, and Gail Tiemann are presenting. People are mobbing their booth to learn how iPods can help middle schoolers with math. Mike Lawrence says that he has always thought the iPod has so much more potential than for just listening to music.

The MATRIX project is developing a curriculum, resources, and applications that will be tested in the fall. They will be using Palms is Ohio, Pocket PCs in Kansas, and iPods in New Mexico and California. The students are from a remedial environment and below proficient academically. The MATRIX project is making lessons that are suitable for supplemental education services under No Child Left Behind.

In Ohio Ed Hill's project is using Palm Zire 72s and TXs. They are focused on value-added use of technology. He explains that they are investigating the motivation factor that they can't get with paper and pencil. Ed notes that Electronic Mobile Technology (EMT) has these features and benefits:

• Mobility (Wi-Fi, multimedia capture, beaming)
• Standard applications (MS Office)
• Input/output of content & information
• Control of learning in student's hands
• Tool for authentic performance/assessment

In Kansas, they are making games for Pocket PC to help students master math vocabulary. They are planning for professional development to help teachers use what they are developing. Their games are based on what you can find on 4kids.org. The products will be available there. It sounds like they are planning some interactive, engaging games.

Kitty notes that iPods have limitations compared to PDAs. Alan Amundsen talks about developing for iPods. They chose iPods because students ask for iPods for Christmas, so they decided to take that and make it fit to their goals to improve math skills. The problem with iPods are that they are a one-way delivery method. They start with the math concepts and then figure out how to get the technology to fit it. The lessons for iPods will include:

• Number Lines
• Ratios
• Proportions and scale changes
• Percents as special proportions
• Rates and ratios

It sounds like there will be video episodes with interactivity. I'm really curious to see how this will work in the real world on a real iPod--how do you make content on an iPod interactive? The lessons for the last 10-20 days of MATRIX's curriculum include

• Introduction to Ratios "The Eye of Power"
• Part:Part and Part:Whole
• Equivalent Ratios
• Scale Changes (including map reading)

Ok, they explained how to they are going to make the videos interactive. Once a student finish a video and answer questions correctly, he or she is given a code. The student will use this code to play the next video on the iPod. This means the videos all have coded titles in the playlists on the iPods. I guess students could just play any video, but then they wouldn't be played in the correct order.

The presenters showed "Intro to Ratios Episode 1.1: The Eye of Power." It was a very entertaining video! It had a great plot and has a math mystery at the end. Then they are told to proceed to the computer to answer the question and solve the mystery. It's shame that students cannot answer the question on the iPod [but that could be done on a Palm or Pocket PC and those same devices could play the video! Why bother with the iPods is what I'm thinking]. After answering the question on the computer, a student is given the coded titled of the next video to play. As part of the lesson, students will keep a blog/math journal and will participate in online chats. The MATRIX project's vision is to make the iPod portion interactive, like Choose Your Own Adventure books, using hyper linking. Currently, that's either not possible or very difficult to do on iPods [but I know that is very doable on Palm and Pocket PC devices].

Those involved in MAXTRIX are furiously writing for the videos, handheld games, and other software. This five-year project, is indeed a work in progress at this point. This presentation didn't have any solid, complete examples of that they are trying to do. However, I think what they are developing looks promising and I hope it will be freely available for others to use.

A PDF of the slide show for this session can be found here. The session concluded at 11 am.

Tags: necc06 necc

A MegaVCR in Your Pocket

I walked into Hal Davidson's NECC session titled The MegaVCR: Media in Your Pocket. He had an iPod hooked up to the projector and he was already playing clips. The clips are VCR quality and would look fine on a television screen, not so pristine on a computer screen or projector (but still very useable). He demonstrated playing and pausing video, just like a VCR. Over 4,000 United Streaming video clips fit on a 30 GB iPod. (that's 250 of hours of video--not that you'd want to really have that many). The videos can be organized in playlists. Videos, PowerPoints, Flash, Music, Photos, and Animated GIFs will work on an iPod.

To connect an iPod to a TV you need a special cord ($19 from Apple). If your television if old, you may need to connect the red, yellow, and white cords into a VCR connected to a TV.

Hal then showed a PowerPoint with video playing of the iPod. Hal recommends that you get QuickTime Pro ($30) if you want to edit video clips--you can just highlight portions and delete. QuickTime Pro also lets you download movies from the web to your hard drive more easily.

When you download videos on the web to put on your iPod, you need to download as a file QuickTime can open. Remember, QuickTime works on Windows, not just Mac, and there is a free version. If it runs in QuickTime, you can get it to run on the iPod. To do that, launch iTunes and choose File > Import. iTunes will suck the video in. Once it's in the Library, it won't necessary go onto an iPod. Right click (or Control-Click) the video and choose "Convert Selection for iPod" from the pop-up menu. Hal says that sometimes this doesn't work, but tends to work 90% of the time. Then in your Library you'll have two versions with the same name. Drag the version that is in mv4 into an iTunes playlist (choose File > Get Info to see which one is which) for transfer to an iPod. Sync your 'pod and it should be ready for viewing on the device.

Hal showed how to convert a PowerPoint to view on an iPod. First, in PowerPoint, choose "Save As" and select JPEG. Choose a location in a folder on the desktop. Then in QuickTime, choose File > Open Image Sequence.. Open the first JPEG and then it will ask you how long you want each slide to appear on screen. It will turn this into a video you can import into iTunes for playback on iPods. With QuickTime Pro you can paste a video inside the already-converted movie. However, if you are a Mac user, you can just go to File > Make Movie... Doing this will play embedded videos for these lucky Mac users. This option isn't in PowerPoint for Windows. Remember to follow the steps in my fourth paragraph above for playback on iPods.

Hal's PowerPoint will be posted on this website: www.haldavidson.net. I'm disappointed that the session focused on iPods with no mention of other players like Palm or Windows Mobile handhelds. I will tell you that TCPMP is a free player that can play most all formats on a Palm or Pocket PC from an SD card--no need to covert the video like you do for the iPod. In addition to other devices, I would have also liked to learn sources with free videos for education (but there was barely time to cover getting video on iPods).

The session began at 2:00 and ended at 3:00 Pacific Time.

Tags: necc06 necc