March 19, 2010
by jnxyz
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Tag Archives: mlearning
January 30, 2010
by jnxyz
5 Comments
The other great mobile education movement
I am aware dear reader that much of my writings on how learning is handling the inevitable rise of ubiquitous computing centre’s around the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad platform. But in this post I’d like to reflect a little on the other great mobile education movement of the last three years – that of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) ‘children’s machine’. While even the latest version 1.5 of the XO laptop they build and supply has tech that is getting a little behind, it does have at least three distinct advantages over the iPod/iPhone/iPad platform:
1. Designed for children – yep, rather than being a consumer or business device that crafty educators are able to integrate into educational settings, the XO was designed ground-up to be in students hands. I mean its bright green! When a student first sees one, they know already this is for them – and that means their use of it for learning starts at a unique place. This is a factor not to be underestimated.
2. Automatic collaboration – while there are a growing number of iPod touch apps that can use wifi or bluetooth to do some basic screen-sharing or sending of files etc, another of the distinguishing features of the XO laptop is that sharing and collaboration is built in automatically to practically every activity, even the camera. Its not something students even have to think – ‘oh can I work on this with someone?’ (or two, or four etc), but is simply a matter of switching to the dedicated ‘friends’ screen and sending the invitation.
3. Dual screen modes – the announcement of the iPad means that one of the XO’s advantages (larger screen) will shortly be neutered, but the ability of the screen to work as a regular colour LCD indoors, and a black and white screen outdoors with full readability in direct sunlight gives the XO a big advantage over the glossy iPad as far as true mobile learning goes.
4. Ok I know I said three – but this one is not one of mine – Flash support. I don’t use flash hardly at all, but I know alot of educators that do rely on it for hundreds of interactive learning objects that are totally unavailable in the Apple mobile world. How long it takes for these to eventually be ported over to Java/HTML5 or turned into the mobile apps (via Adobe conversion software) that are becoming more of the standard for such software I don’t know, but until then, educators are great hoarders, and so Flash support remains an issue.
Of course there are downsides to the XO laptop also (such as the aforementioned aging hardware, and the fact that a more natural touch-based version may be more than two years away). As a final note to this comparison, I don’t know how many of the 140,000 iPod touch apps are educational, but a developer in that space recently mentioned a figure of 3-4000 to me. Anyone reading out there know how many XO activities (the OLPC name for apps) there are?
December 2, 2009
by jnxyz
1 Comment
iLearn personalised learning unit: Journal 4
This will be the final journal of my current ‘how to learn’ unit before we hit the end of the educational year. Remember the intent of the unit was to shift the emphasis from me teaching to students learning, and especially to students taking responsibility for their learning. The unit has been aided by mobile, ubiquitous devices (in our case, the iPod touch) – chosen because of the power of such devices to put learning tools right into each learner’s hands.
First, I’ll report on how the last weeks of the unit have been going. As alluded to in the last journal, school events such as swimming and compulsory PD I had to attend have really impacted on how much time I’ve had with students, such that we will not complete the unit. Now, two things – first, this is still ok as I’d built the critical thinking/ making learning decisions throughout. Secondly, in reflecting on this I’ve realised that all units suffer from interuptions – I just need to plan less – or maybe not – perhaps I actually should keep planning ambitious units but just plan in agility for the sub-parts.
Agility really has shown itself to be the key to the success of the unit actually. Because even though I planned for reflective points every two weeks, some students only needed one week, some three to work through the ‘solution’ (app) they had found (duh!). To help manage this complexity, rather than go back to a one-size-fits-all unit, in this phase I introduced a data-base tracking where each student was up to. By displaying this at the start of each session via data projector, I could begin each lesson discussing with students exactly where they were up to. This database also includes a cell for student comments – I quiz students constantly about their app – what, how, why questions linking it back to their decision making and chosen focus area. These comments then form the basis of the review that students write once they either complete an app, or decide its not helping them.
So as we near the end of this ‘proof of concept’ run through of this unit, I must ask – did it work? I’ll answer for myself, and for the students. For me, what I’ve found is that this unit has been very hard work. Thrilling yes, exciting, but also – going uphill – ie. creating rather than just using an exisiting program, and stepping back rather than always stepping in. These are not always natural teacher behaviours, and despite knowing in my head lots about student-centred learning, the power of what is established (both for myself and my institution) has shown itself to be very strong. But I do believe in personalised learning, so I’m committed to this now.
For the students – I’ve had comments like – ‘why are we doing this?’, and ‘do I have to come?’ – exactly the kind of questions that students have always asked in regards to being part of learning support. Does this mean it wasn’t the revolutionary change the world unit I had thought? I hope I never did expect so much of it – what I did differently though when asked these was respond back with a question this time – putting the emphasis back on student decision making. I see that it will take more than one unit though to have students take full responsibility for their learning. But now they have successfully completed pro’s and con’s charts for example, they have begun to learn critical thinking. Some students have completed these independently to such a degree that I am sure they will be able to do this.
As for 2010, I’ve already started planning two additional units with the same approach but building on what I’ve learned. And I’d like to set up some ‘critical friends’ as part of this – email me jnxyz at mac dot com if you are interested!
November 5, 2009
by jnxyz
8 Comments
iLearn personalised learning project Journal 3
Do you want the good news or bad news first?
Due to swimming and various other school timetable disturbances, most students are only just now reaching the end of phase 1 – choosing their app. Bit sad that its week 4 of the project and only 15% are actually using their chosen app, but I’m not so worried – because the point of this unit is not time on the device that will magically solve everything, but instead is about teaching critical thinking, problem solving, independent learning. I’m happy that this is embedded thru our whole unit so that the unit itself ‘works’ even if the phase 1 of evaluating their weaknesses and choosing a corresponding app does take a while.
What’s happened since the last journal is that students have been searching the app store, saving screenshots of likely apps, then completing T-charts of pro’s and con’s (yes there is a free ‘T-chart’ app for that! -opens iTunes). They then email this chart to me from the iPod touch which initiates a conversation around how suitable the app is. Then I download the app ready for students to try.
How’s this- the very first student who went to use his newly downloaded app found – it was terrible! Didn’t do what he needed after all. Failure? No – this was a great learning moment where we could discuss with the whole group what happened, and how to make a better decision next time. The student has now written his own short review and submitted it – and how real life is that? Also, as other students with his same chosen focus area have found other apps, he’s finding he can now rely on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ aka personal learning network around him to choose his next app.
Also this week I introduced a new innovation where on the day of the week when I am engaged in regional support duties I record a talking head video of myself giving instructions to the kids. The replacement teacher just plugs in an iPod directly to our data projector with an AV cable (we have the Belkin one) and students can still get their challenge for the day in person. The replacement teacher can even display images of our progress mindmap etc to the students this way. Now I can take my laptop with me for the day knowing that our digital resources are still available to the group.
I’ve also been able to work it such that the school wifi now is usable from within our classroom space – going and sitting outside the office was great for showing off to passerby’s that we were doing an interesting project, but not so great for other reasons. I’m also really happy that we got email setup on the iPod’s now (all using the one generic account, Mr iPod) so students can send records (via screenshots) of their work to me and even to their classroom teachers.
OK! So my learning and teaching environment is starting to feel different most of the time – actually like how I imagine 21st century, student-focused learning maybe should. BUT you know, sometimes I’m still my own worst enemy – because I start teaching again every now and then. Yes, teaching, when I should be sticking to the idea of ‘less me, more them’. I still jump in instead of giving ‘wait’ time, or thinking time where students can develop their own understandings…
Next step is students have 1-2 weeks using their app before another evaluation kicks in – is it helping me improve? If not, students will need to decide to switch to another app, or perhaps access podcasts or other resources instead. Will write another journal then. Just wanted to also add how great it is to be finishing up the year with such a great project, instead of the usual countdown, how long until holidays feeling!
November 3, 2009
by jnxyz
2 Comments
Android mLearning project- in Brisbane, Queensland (in today’s courier mail)
In a sign that mobile computing in schools is becoming slowly ubiquitous, at least as far as entering the ‘experimental’ phase of the Innovation cycle (see http://ceit.uq.edu.au/pages/content/ceit-approach for more info on this cycle), a school in my own backyard (Brisbane, Australia) has become the first in the world to give its students an Android phone.
While there are many such trials occurring with PDAs and non-connected devices, I know of only one other k-12 trial where the students actually have fully connectable smartphones. Very interesting…
via tweetie
October 26, 2009
by jnxyz
2 Comments
iLearn iPod touch personalised learning project Journal 2: Critical thinking via the App store
iLearn iPod touch personalised learning project, Week 2 & 3:
This has been the part where the kids get very excited, something to do with the fact that they get their hands on the iPod Touch at this stage. Why do they get excited? Is it because the touch’s are so ‘cool’? Or is it in fact because they are so relieved to get to use something from the real world, something they are familiar with, when normally this only happens rarely at school? Up to this point, the students had not even seen the iPod’s; I’d made them wait so that we could work through some of the critical thinking goals of the unit first.
After a brief keynote demonstrating to the kids the basics of using the app store again and how to save a screenshot to record their choices, it was off to the space outside our admin block where we can access the wireless network. Obviously the wifi is crucial to this stage, and true to form, it was in and out, working fine for some lessons and not others. But they say that through trials comes learning and I was able to find couple of solutions to the wildest problems, although why the exact same settings work one hour and need to be re-entered another is still beyond me (3COM are you reading this?!).
Just as I’m asking the kids to continually be reflecting on the learning process, so am I attempting to do the same with the unit as a whole. So I’ve already made two adjustments, both arising out of conversations with members of my personal learning network. One was with a project officer who was interviewing me – the process of answering allowed me to reflect and also pick up on one of his ideas. So even though I had set verbal discussion moments up to occur every two weeks where the students reflected on their learning choices, I will now formalise this a little with set questions. The idea is that I can gauge their progress towards independent critical reflection by how much scaffolding they need to answer these questions, with the goal that they will need no help by the end of the unit. The second adjustment is that I found a free app where students can build T-charts to put down the pro’s and con’s of their initial app choice. This is how they will justify to me which ones need downloading (especially for the paid ones).
So that’s pretty much week 2 and week 3. The students have made their choice of a focus area based on their own learning data, and have narrowed down a choice of solutions (apps), with some even starting on completing T-charts to analyse these selections.
I’m still trying to get email setup on the devices so we can easily share content to and from them… But have been successful in getting assistance from our wonderful Principal and P&C to get some of the furniture resources (storage, lockable cupboards etc) that we desperately need.
October 16, 2009
by jnxyz
9 Comments
iLearn project Journal 1
There were three jobs I had for this week if this mobile learning project with learning support students was to get off the ground:
1. intro the personalised learning approach to students
2. explain concept to staff
3. physical setup of space and devices
Here’s some reflection on each of these:
1. very silly of me, but introducing the philosophy of students taking responsibility for their learning (via personalised learning using the iPod touch) was probably the area I found I had least through through. Selling the use of the devices was easy – but helping students grasp what would be expected of them learning-wise is a bit harder to do. My first intro sessions (with students in levelled groups of four) didn’t go so well at explaining this – I had to create a short keynote and incorporate a group mindmapping exercise before these sessions started to achieve what I’d been after. Live and learn. – I must say that being able to use a projector has also transformed this intro. I project up an image (say of a mindmap) which shows students instantly what me drawing and talking about would take a few minutes to do as well.
I’ve also now compartmentalised the steps involved in this first part. Students have just completed part 1 where they are introduced to the personalised learning challenge and have chosen their focus area. Next week is hitting the app store to find an app that will fit with their chosen focus.
2. This has gone well – staff are used to me trying new things etc. And all are supportive of creating self-motivated learners
3. This is proving to be the hardest area as it relies on others… Not that that is a bad thing, and in fact the other staff involved are great. But getting one thing in place (say a lockable cabinet) involves many steps and I’m not even sure if I can get the devices in students hands until next week even though they are here! – I have been able to get a special email account setup (thanks Kate!) so we can open an App store account. – Need to get the devices security coded and get some furniture supplies sorted…
I aim to keep reporting on our progress, good and bad! Love to hear from others also seeking to add personalised and challenge-based ubiquitous learning to their school environs.
September 9, 2009
by jnxyz
1 Comment
Direct observations about where Educator’s are at.
I’ve recently had the fortune to attend major technology in education two conferences in the space of a week that featured Keynote’s from such high-profile educators as Stephen Heppell, Gary Stager, Mark Treadwell and Mark Prensky. As interesting as these were however, I’m not going to write about them here. I can probably post links to the podcasts at some stage, but what doesn’t necessarily get captured on video at these conferences is what the attendees themselves revealed about just where educators are at in this ‘time between times’ – before mobile and ubiquitous computing becomes the invisible norm, but after a time when we could sit back and wait for the digital revolution to pass on by.
So what did I observe?
Firstly, that pedagogy and learning can still be outshone by shiny technology. I saw educators flirting with software and hardware vendors rather than asking ‘where’s the research for that?’.
Secondly, that paper and pens are still ahead as notetaking tools of choice for educators, but only just. Despite one lady failing to bring a notepad or pen as “every conference always gives you free notepaper and pens”, the ratio I observed has improved to about 50:50 between pen and paper and laptops and smartphones. In fact, at both conferences, I had people comment to me that they’d never seen so many laptops at a conference. And there were a lot, at least 50% of attendees I observed were using laptops or smartphones to record their notes. Why the other 50% are even attending a technology in education conference yet still recording everything in un-taggable and un-searchable or un-sharable paper notepads (especially when at least several digital pen options are now available) is …
Thirdly, that just as the Horizon report moves mobile technology into the ‘one year or less’ zone of implementation for education, the promise of anywhere, anytime learning is starting to be taken seriously in my corner of the world. There were at least two sessions around this topic at each conference, and not only was a significant proportion (15%) of educators I observed using mobile devices to enhance their own learning, but many of them are also thinking now about how to catch up to where students are already at in this area.
Lastly, if you do want to see what the connected learners at each of these conferences were thinking and recording, many of them did actually capture it themselves. The fascinating and infinitely useful results can be found by conducting a twitter search for the tags #IWBnet09 or #SC09expo ! Enjoy.
September 9, 2009
by jnxyz
0 comments
These were a big hit at the mLearning workshop I co-ran today at the eLearning Expo, Brisbane.
Jonathan Nalder
Twitter: jnxyz
Homepage: www.jnxyz.net
EdTech blog: http://uLearning.edublogs.org
Sent from an iPhone 3GS
July 30, 2009
by jnxyz
3 Comments
the OLPC XO: further impressions after 5 weeks
Having had the chance to use the XO with students for five weeks now, I wanted to share some further impressions on how using this kid-friendly, unique mobile device have gone:
“Although limited to 12 XOs in a class of 29, I have seen the potential of the XO to transform learning first hand. Students (although not all) take to the machines and learn them very quickly, or are at least prepared to help eachother, a great development that makes it easier for the teacher if you’re willing to give up some feeling of control in this area. The mesh networking/sharing means that every activity has the potential for extension built-in, and students themselves are often coming up with innovative and new ways to use the XO for their learning.
The XO itself is in need of an upgrade (version 1.5 appears in November I hear?) and does struggle at times and suffer from known faults like the trackpad skipping or freezing up, and some activities refusing to close or hanging, requiring a restart. We also sometimes had problems connecting more than two machines at a time for sharing, not sure why. Battery life proved shorter than expected, so dimming of the screen/ sleep mode do need to be aggressively used. Our ‘uptime’ overall was probably 90% for each machine though, and when compared to the previous amount of technology in the class (3 old PC’s), just having such student-friendly, adaptable and capable machines has proven a huge step forward.
July 16, 2009
by jnxyz
4 Comments
Gathering of Educators using ubiquitous devices
Last night from 12:30am until 6:30am I attended my first full day web conference. What could have tempted me to stay up all night you ask? It was the ACU Connected event, and you can go HERE to see what sessions were held. As one of 130 educators from around the world (and two from my institution Education Queensland), we logged on to hear real life stories of Universities and Schools that are integrating connected, mobile, wireless devices into their learning activities. To get an overview, its well worth visiting this twitter summary at twazzup.com – it’ll provide you with the most popular links and tags that were shared.
So was it worth staying up for? Well I’d be a dill if I hadn’t made sure beforehand that it would be worth it! But yes, it was. Its one thing to read about and even take small steps oneself towards see effective teaching and connected, mobile learning come together; its quite another to hear directly from the actual practitioners involved in large scale rollouts. ACU has over a thousand students with iPhones or iPod touch’s. FHU has many more. Even some of the K-12 schools had up to 800. It was also a big help with my thinking about the small temp trial of OLPC XOs I’m managing at present. In some ways, the XO is like a big, kid friendly iPod touch… more on this in a future post.
Here’s some of my favourite quotes/ideas:
- Effectiveness of connected mobile platforms for student use is a big debate as alot of the apps classified as ‘education’ are rote based only.
- “treat mobile devices as full participants – media players AND content creators”
- “don’t extend outdated pedagogies into new media”
- Campus bookstores sweat as faculty move away from expensive textbooks to mobile readers and cheap/free learning resources (via @ruben_r)
- MCG medical school has a youtube video showing their mobile learning www.mcg.edu/mobile
- interesting FYI: iPhone vs iPod Touch in education – ACU finds iPhone users more satisfied/ use the device a fair bit more.
- William_Rank (ACU) “We’re having so much virtual contact with students now that we’ve changed university policy about office hours.”
- FHU 7 mobile learning objectives (link)
- At FHU 87% of faculty felt comfortable requiring use of mobile device for class activity (via @allisonoster)
- “I’m not sure that personal productivity & learning can function separately with these sorts of devices. It’s an artificial distinction.” “many see learning as seperate to personal productivity. Is there a distinction?” (via @agrie8)
July 9, 2009
by jnxyz
0 comments
Review of the iPhone 3GS from a uLearning perspective
The iPhone 3GS is the most advanced converged mobile device and as such, is one that teachers and educators need to be familiar with. Its really a signpost on the road to ubiquitous computing, where mobile, miniaturised, wirless and cloud-based devices proliferate.
This review looks at how the 3GS is an update to the 3G – its faster speed, video recording, better camera, universal access tools, compass, Nike+ and improved battery all make a compelling case for this new model to find a home with educators. The review details what each of these improvements means for educators looking to advance 21st century learning.
Go here to view in 3 parts: http://www.youtube.com/user/jnxyz
or here to view in full (21mins) http://gallery.me.com/jnxyz/100260
June 11, 2009
by jnxyz
5 Comments
ubiquitous computing for kids – via the OLPC XO
Having written about the One Laptop Per Child’s XO laptop project back in 2007 when it first started, imagine my happy surprise at getting to manage a small trial of this device at my school at the moment! The OLPC Australia website currently states that 500,000 XOs will be rolled out to remote communities across Australia in the coming months, and as a fair few of these will be into Queensland schools, some in-context knowledge about how they fit within the education system I work for will come in pretty handy.
So what are my first impressions? Firstly, as the only designed-for-kids-first device of its kind, its a wonderful wonderful machine. Unlike some organisations whose rhetoric uses all the right buzz words but fails when it comes to living up to them, the XO device really does encourage creating, sharing and connecting just by its very design. I’ve only had limited time with two XOs in connected mode so far, but they are so easy to hook up via their built-in mesh networking that almost every activity can be shared between multiple students. This includes co-writing or drawing, or even controlling each others camera, or using the sonar sound activity to measure distance between machines. It really is the learning theory of connectivism personified in a device.
Even the Sugar OS that they run has an interface of brilliant simplicity, with every activity running full screen and auto-saving, while a ‘journal’ of every activity they have done is accessible with just one button push. I’m also looking forward to using them outside regularly thanks to the special LCD screen they have that allows full readability in sunlight.
Be sure to head over to http://www.laptop.org.au/ to read up about the full vision. If mobile devices are becoming more and more ubiquitous as we know they are, why shouldn’t kids get to use ones designed for them rather than for business or universities? We’ll see how this mass rollout goes across Australia, but if the logistics and training of teachers with the devices can be properly managed, there is a ton of potential here ready to be released.
June 3, 2009
by jnxyz
1 Comment
The iPod Touch for mobile learning: a presentation
I was recently fortunate enough to be able to present at the Innovative Technology in Schools Conference in Brisbane on the topic of mobile learning. Imagine my excitement at having a set of 30 iPod Touch’s available for the participants to learn on! This was a chance to show what the combination of current developments like ubiquitous mobile devices, wireless connectivity and cloud computing (via services like Evernote) will mean for learning in the near-future.
Despite various technical hurdles (ie. batteries being flat, proxies keeping us from using the wifi fully, twitter search being down!) the attendees seemed to have a great time discovering what possibilities mobile devices hold for education. So here are several ways that you too can experience what I was able to share:
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1GNs3193w
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/jnxyz/ipod-touch-for-mobile-learning
Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16041976/iPod-touch-for-mobile-learning
May 30, 2009
by jnxyz
9 Comments
The first Web2.0, comprehensive iPhone education app?
By Jonathan Nalder, and Shane Roberts
One common problem for educators seeking to use the iPhone or iPod touch in their learning environment is the fact that the most common uses of the devices for things such as taking attendance, voice recording or interfacing with learning management systems (such as Moodle) require constant exiting and switching between several different apps. All this switching has the potential to keep teacher eyes off students for the precious seconds it takes for them to go off-task. Excessive app-switching will also increase the number of applications accessing the device memory, resulting in a slower operational and response time.
Helping to solve this problem is a new app from iKonstrukt thats simply titled ‘Educate’. Unlike many other education apps released so far for the platform, ‘Educate’ groups several common functions into one program, meaning that running a lesson requires less app-switching. These multiple functions include an inbuilt calendar with welcome widescreen mode, an attendance and grade marking database, a stopwatch, voice recorder, photo tool (take images and add text to them), reference area (with numerous teaching strategy tips) and link to online learning system Moodle (apparently integration with the other main LMS Blackboard is being looked at for a future release).
So can this app live up to its ambitious name of providing everything needed to educate a student? Bearing in mind that this is a 1.0 release, and still has a few quirks (that running the ‘free memory’ app first often helps with), it has in our 3 days of testing proved to be a great start at accomplishing just this lofty goal. It does need the ability to import student names as well as calendar data before time-poor teachers may really start to use all of its planner and tracker features to the full.
What may really convince some Teachers to purchase Educate is its Moodle integration, but I haven’t been able to test this, with my school being Blackboard-based. The app does however seem at this point to only allow the posting of content to Moodle; I’m not sure if …
Another unique Educate feature that should be noted is its in-built link to the app’s Facebook support page where help forums and the growing number of other educators using the app can be directly accessed, again all without closing the app itself.
So is it worth its price of US$6.99 ($8.99 in Australian store)? The answer to this question may depend on how much your school could benefit from mobile access to Moodle, but for those doing the math (one function which you do still have to switch out of Educate for – think I’ll make a calculator a feature request), Educate’s price is cheaper by quite a bit than buying separate apps to get the same functionality.
On the other hand: Why I won’t purchase Educate (personal opinion of shanetechteach);
1. Lesson planning is “trapped” within the device. I can’t access it from my other devices, or share it with others. How can my students see my planning?
2. Doesn’t integrate with BlackBoard.
3. Grade and attendance data seems to be trapped within the application.
I will stick to the use of multiple and free applications until it has a process to copy data from the iPhone or iPod Touch to your laptop or desktop. Where recording of grades and attendance is completed in one program, export is required for school specific processes so that teacher work is not increased by double input. For example, my school uses IDAttend for attendance and OneSchool for reporting. Cohort grades are centrally recorded on a network spreadsheet. As a Head of Department it would not be in my interests to have each of my teacher’s grades stored separately, and only on their device.
So I personally will stick with Google calandar (synced to the iPod Touch calendar) for my lesson planning; iTalk and Evernote for images, notes and voice recording. BlackBoard will still require me to use my computer so no advantage there.
In summary, its great to see a specific education application developed for teachers, however it does not offer the services that would convince me to purchase it - yet?
By the way readers, there’s an active feature request page HERE:
Full details:
Educate: iPhone & iTouch App for Teachers
Educate is an iPhone/iTouch application designed to support teaching professionals in schools, universities and colleges. Featuring inbuilt lesson planning, student tracking, teaching strategies and eLearning tools, Educate provides teachers with a holistic approach to engaging students in 21st century learning environments.
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWzPFgZKY9w
Key Features:
Plan lessons: Educate’s inbuilt weekly planner allows teachers to personalise their timetable and plan lessons all from a single interface.
Monitor student attendance and progress: Quickly and easily track student attendance or performance in classes via ready made scales.
Engage students at a deeper level: Access easy to follow strategies for engaging students during individual or collaborative activities.
Implement eLearning: Post real time content to Moodle learning spaces, anywhere, anytime. Also, access critical tools such as a voice recorder for anecdotal notes, a camera that allows you to label images and a stopwatch for time-critical tasks.
Collaborate with other Educate users: Connect online through Facebook with other Educate users to discuss pedagogical practice, suggest application features and seek support.
Price: $6.99 US
Itunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=313379802&mt=8
May 19, 2009
by jnxyz
2 Comments
6 Queensland Educators talk about the iPod Touch
This new paper describes how Australian teachers are using the iPhone and iPod Touch to A. assist them as Educators, and B. to enhance learning. As such, it presents a vital survey of apps and ideas to be shared with other teachers also beginning to use this platform. Thanks to the included Teachers for their keen responses.
February 15, 2009
by jnxyz
6 Comments
Masters thesis: ‘The Dawn of uLearning’
February 14, 2009
by jnxyz
0 comments
Launch of cc.mlearnopedia.com
ANNOUNCEMENT: this blog is now part of the fantastic content and online community @ http://cc.mlearnopedia.com
Head over there to discover a wealth of mobile learning content, and click below for the press release.
February 6, 2009
by jnxyz
0 comments
Mobile, ubiquitous access to 1.5 million books
Any educators still doubting the power of mobile devices and web technologies really needs to see the following article. Not only is the around 1.5 million books that Google has scanned now available for searching and reading, but a new iPhone / iPod Touch / small-screen-optimized interface means it can now be done simply and easily from anywhere in the civilized (read cell-connected) world. Surely that must be useful for some students somewhere?
I was only discussing yesterday with my schools librarian about what he was planning to do about physical resources vs web-based (ie cheaper, less time and resource hungry) ones… TUAW.com link with more info:
Via TUAW.com
Direct link to book search:
January 21, 2009
by jnxyz
0 comments
PocketPhonics an example of the opportunities a natural digital interface provides
Education apps for literacy in the lower primary school age bracket have been thin on the ground since the app store opened. However, a new program called PocketPhonics has just been released that looks set to appeal to just this market. I know of several teachers in my state of Queensland and across Australia who are experimenting with iPod Touch’s in the primary school arena – and this app takes a great drill and practice method to learning phonics and letter-sounds.
More than this though, it harnesses the devices visual, audio and even motion-sensing abilities to engage students. It doesn’t hurt that research has proven that such a multiple learning-styles approach (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) is one of the key ways to increase early success with phonics. This app is definately showcasing just what advantages a natural digital interface (in this case multi-touch and shaking to erase) can bring to education, while at the same time making learning phonics mobile. There is even a lite version you so you can try it out.
