The iPad revolution is here! Even our youngest students expect a learning space that integrates digital tools, accommodates a mobile lifestyle, adapts to individual learning styles & encourages collaboration. Teachers must become proficient in an mLearning pedagogical approach grounded in an understanding of mobile technologies hardware, software & OS. How does a teacher incorporate all these technology tools into meaningful learning? Help your students use iOS apps to tell their own stories, boosting reading and writing skills. Find out which apps work best for what grade levels and learn management techniques for projects. Attendees will learn about many different iOS apps to support and enhance the reading and writing process. This session will prepare K-5 administrators, teachers and parents to support student use of iOS devices in the elementary classroom.

Posted via email from brueckj23′s posterous

As I was thinking over my To-Do list, one item I wanted to share with the Shiny Youth team was my list of essential information & communication tools that I’ll be packing to use at #OETC12. Here are the items I’ll be using to connect, converse and create at the biggest educational technology conference in Ohio.

iPhone 4 – This is my life blood. Seriously. I take this baby everywhere. Ubiquitous access to any and all information I need. The iPhone is my mobile broadcast center. If I were Christian Slater in “Pump Up The Volume,” this would be my Jeep.iPad 2 16 GB wifi – Eh, it’s ok. I’ll have it and I might use it. Probably runn my presentation slidedecks off of it for the 2 sessions I’m leading. It has all the apps that the iPhone has, plus I have a bunch of ePub files on it that I like to demo and share with other teachers.

Twitter – My primary communication platform. I’ll be following alot of friends and colleagues during the conference and using Twitter to communicate short messages to them. We will question, probe and think together. I’ll also be following the official conference hashtag to make sure I can stay up to date with all the things going on around the Convention Center. App of choice: TweetBot for iPhone. There are a lot of reasons why I use this client. Ask me about them at the conference!

AudioBoo: I love this app for creating short audio podcasts that you can post to your own AudioBoo page and also tweet the URL to your followers at the time of posting. Your podcast has to be 5 minutes or less, but this app is totally free. I use it with my 4 and a half year old son all the time. Since he is just learning how to read and spell, it is the simplest way for him to post messages to Twitter. @bruecka23 rocks!

Evernote: This is my primary notetaking app. I like it because it is free and you can create a variety of note-types. You can record & attach audio files and pictures to your notes. You can organize your notes. I’m not going to lie to you, I still prefer to take notes by hand, with pen and paper, mainly because I am a big-time doodler. I have yet to find an app that replicates the traditional handwriting experience in an authentic way. If you know of any, send them my way!

iMessage/Text Message: I use this pretty exclusively to communicate directly with immediate family members and close friends. It’s the most private and secure platform aside from an actual fact-to-face conversation or a call. It’s also very quick to send & receive messages.

Camera+ and Instagram: These two apps will serve up a variety of photo related services. I’ll use them to cature images around me and post them directly to my Twitter timeline. Photographs and images are a very powerful communication medium. I think everyone should use some type of mechanism to capture and share the unique way they perceive the world around them.

So there you have it. Some of the most essential hardware and software that I’ll be packing for #OETC12. What tools are you bringing? How do they help you create, communicate and connect with others? Looking forward to seeing everyone in Columbus!

Cross-posted on ShinyYouth.com

15 amazing youth, ranging in age from 14 to 18, they are the primary contributors to this space. They represent Lancaster High School, Spectrum Occupational Center (a private school for autistic kids in Lorain Ohio) and Bexley Middle School. With fun and engaging videos, photos and blogs they are documenting the Ohio Educational Technology Conference 2012.

Session Description
We are in a new age, a new time and we need to create new places and spaces that nurture mobile content in the richly literate classroom. From a pedagogical perspective, we are adrift as mobile devices make their way into the hands of our children and spread ever more widely into everyday life. Although a growing body of research points to the potential of mobile computing for influencing children’s emerging literacy skills, empirical studies on mobile learning in early elementary are rare. Even less is known about developing learning spaces that can support our youngest mobile students.

As technology becomes ubiquitous, questions of appropriateness, physical attributes of devices, placement, and usage patterns need to be answered. Young children need age and developmentally appropriate physical environments that are safe, nurturing, and supportive of child-directed play and learning. Active, creative play and exploration is central to healthy child development. The physical environment, including its ambiance, layout, acoustics, lighting, equipment and furnishings has a profound impact on children’s learning and behavior.

Without a doubt, designing a high quality, developmentally and culturally appropriate environment for children, whether for learning or for play, is a highly complex process. Join in a conversation around building spaces that support the elementary child as a unique individual; are child controlled; encourage exploration, experimentation, and risk taking; encourage critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving. Discuss the implications of these type of spaces as young learners transition to secondary schools.

Conversational Practice
User-centered design is a process that focuses on the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product. Rather than forcing users to modify their behavior to accommodate the product, user-centered design attempts to optimize the product around how users can, want, or need to use the product. As we envision and design new spaces for our youngest learners, this user-center approach is critical. In the context of our conversation, user-centered design will become a multi-stage problem solving process that requires participants to analyze our current schools and classrooms, envision new spaces for learning and create rich media objects that will transform our conversation into eBook that can be shared widely with educators so that we may test the validity of our assumptions in real world cases.

I’m going to rush to get this post out ahead of the big Apple Education event on Thursday. All the hype is pointing to some sort of announcement of an easy way to create custom books for the iBook app. While this is certainly exciting news, I’m sure it is going to come with a bunch of “How to Use [Apple's Newest Thing] in Education” tweets,  blog posts, lists and presentations. So ahead of all the hipster, fanboy, and hater posts that will inevitably follow Apple’s big announcement tomorrow, I’m bringing you this post. Option 1 from my Creating Custom Digital Content for iPad: Educators Have Options series!

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the Creative Book Builder app for iPhone and iPad. Created by Tiger Ng, this app is currently selling for $3.99 in the iTunes Store.

Creative Book Builder enables everyone to create, edit and publish ebooks in minutes. Creative Book Builder can import document from Google Docs and parse HTML output into chapter. Create unlimited number of chapters add title, description, images, videos, audio recording, music, links, and lists. CBB lets you sort your content’s ordering within a chapter and customize your cover image.

What I did with CBB:

My plan is to base this project on a second grade Rocks & Fossils unit that my wife and a colleague originally developed in 2005. That unit contains a collection of resources ranging from a section of a science textbook, videos, digital photos and a couple PPT presentations. I have all the various source files stored on my Dropbox account and in my iTunes/iPhoto albums so I can access them as needed across devices.

To get started, I created a new project in CBB app. I’m not going to go through every step in that process, but there is some documentation at CBB website. For this particular eBook, I decided to pull key text passages directly from the text book source. I don’t even know what textbook publisher this text is from at this point, as I am currently working from a few photo copied pages. If you are creating a “spontaneous” eBook “for maximum teaching effectiveness” that will only as an instructional resource for in your classroom, you should be all right in terms of copyright.

I used the free ImageToText app to snap a picture of the textbook and then convert it to a digital format tat I could copy and paste. ImageToText allows me to email the digital formatted text to myself. From there, I can select text text and copy it to the iPad clipboard.

As you can see, the formatting on the ImageToText email is a little off, but deleting a few extra spaces is much more appealing to me than typing in all the text by hand. Once I have selected and copied the segment of the text that I want to work with, I use the multitask feature to open up the CBB app. From my new CBB project, I use the + button to Add Element. A quick double-tap in the text field allows me to easily paste the copied text in this new element.

Using this copy/paste method, I was able to layout my entire eBook in CBB in under an hour. It should be noted, that I chose not to replicate the original textbook entirely. I did use key text passages from the textbook, but I also included other media sources that I collected. I was able to use Flickr to search for Creative Commons licensed photos that were included. One nice feature of CBB is that it provides a LINK element. This allowed me to include proper attribution to the the Flickr source.

Another nice feature of CBB is the VIDEO element. If you create your own video files in iMovie or another video editing app, it is really easy to insert them into your eBook from the iPhoto library on your iPad. In addition, CBB has an AUDIO RECORDING element that allows you to record your own audio in real-time and include in your eBook. For this project, I decided to record myself narrating each paragraph of text. It seems like this would be a helpful feature to differentiate instruction for students. You can give them the opportunity to read the text independently, or listen to the text being read to them.

 As you are creating your custom eBook in CBB, a PREVIEW feature provides quick access to review the “print layout” of the current chapter.

When it’s time to arrange or modify all the various elements you’ve created in CBB, it’s a s simple as a drag-and-drop interface. Simply turn the EDIT feature on and drag the element up or down to place.

When you are satisfied with your eBook, publishing is also a simple process. CBB allows direct export of your custom .epub file to your Dropbox account. You can also email the .epub file from your iPad or iPhone.

The .epub files that you create integrate seamlessly with the iBooks platform. You can move your custom eBook to your iBooks library directly on your iPad or by using iTunes on your desktop or laptop.

When viewed in iBooks, the finished product is really impressive.

In general, I found Creative Book Builder to be a real simple way to create a nice custom eBook that contains a variety of media content. I really like the clean and simple interface of the app. While I did not take advantage of the Google Docs integration for this project, I see that as a quality feature. You could easily layout a complete publication on your computer and pull it into CBB for quick and easy eBook authoring. One thing I have not explored in too much detail is how the .epub files you create work with other eReader devices. If you have any information on that, please weigh in on the topic in the comments section of this post. Finally, if you are interested, you can download a copy of the Rocks and Fossils eBook I created using Creative Book Builder and check it out up close.

One of the things I’ve been looking into lately has been mobile content creation. With the rise of the tablet, I’m finding k12 and adult students are eager for opportunities to learn just-in-time with their device of choice. From an instructional design perspective, this means that to deliver to any & all devices, you’ve got to be looking towards HTML5.

My developer colleagues at the University of Akron’s Center for Literacy cringe every time we talk about HTML5 and designing apps for iOS and Android. To them, HTML5 is a giant step backwards in terms of the complexity and richness of web apps that could be developed with other tools (RIP Flash).

They feel that in the HTML5 arena, animations are stripped down and much less interactivity is available. They are mostly right here. HTML5 has limited the types of instructional interactions we can offer all ages of students in the online environment. As we begin to design web-based user experiences in HTML5, we are essentially creating a duel interface that can be run through a desktop or laptop browser AND a mobile browser. Until mobile devices have processors equal to their desktop/laptop brothers, we’ll never be able to offer as rich of a learning environment on any type of mobile device, yet we are still going to develop custom digital content for mobile…

So what can the average educator do?

Not being a real coder, I’ve been looking for a WYSIWYG type of UI to use  to create my own custom “apps.” In my IDEAL scenario, students would be able to download and install the apps I create on their iOS or Android tablets & smartphones. The apps would be able to include text, images, audio, video and interactive games/puzzles. It would also be great if they could include some sort of assessment features so I could get student data back for review. Remember, I said IDEAL:)

Not surprisingly, I haven’t found that IDEAL digital author tool just yet.

However, I have come across a number of development tools that look promising. I’m still not decided on the end format that I want to use to deliver custom created digital content. Part of me is saying some type of ePub, while the other part is telling me stand alone apps are the way to go. In any event, I’m starting to explore what’s out there and see what I can come up with. The plan is to try out a number of applications, desktop, web-based and iPad apps, using the same “legacy” curriculum unit. I’ll build whatever type of digital content I can and see how they compare.

To get started, I have been using a second grade Rocks & Fossils unit that my wife and a colleague originally developed in 2005. It contains a collection of resources ranging from a section of a science textbook, videos, digital photos and a couple PPT presentations. I have all the various source files stored on my Dropbox account and in my iTunes/iPhoto albums so I can access them as needed across devices.

Here’s a list of some of the applications I hope to try to develop content with. Just a disclaimer, I haven’t had the opportunity to try them all myself, so I’m in no way recommending one over another. Check back on Raised Digital as I hope to add posts about each of the applications and share my digital content creations.

Book Creator for iPad – $7.49

The simple way to create beautiful books on your iPad. Read them in iBooks, send them to your friends, or submit them to Apple’s iBookstore.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/book-creator-for-ipad/id442378070?mt=8

eBook Creator – $3.99

‘eBook Creator’ is the simplest and easiest ebook creation application. Its interface is designed for all ages and skill levels so that young kids are able to make ebooks using the app.

You can make good quality ebooks  using the functions such as image brightness and contrast adjustment,  voice recording, background musics, etc.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ebook-creator/id448273828?mt=8

Creative Book Builder - $3.99

Creative Book Builder enables everyone to create, edit and publish ebooks in minutes. Creative Book Builder can import document from Google Docs and parse HTML output into chapter. Create unlimited number of chapters add title, description, images, videos, audio recording, music, links, and lists. CBB lets you sort your content’s ordering within a chapter and customize your cover image.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/creative-book-builder-create/id451041428?mt=8

Touch App Creator - $3.99

TouchAppCreator enables everyone to create touch-optimized, and content-centric mobile web apps for both iPhone and iPad in a few minutes on the go. No sign up is required. You can edit your app ONCE and generated app supports both iPhone and iPad automatically.

TouchAppCreator provides the easiest way to publish your apps to Dropbox (for public access). You can also host your apps in your own web hosting services and upload web apps via FTP. People can add your apps to their home screen easily by using Safari’s Add to Home Screen function.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/touchappcreator-create-touch/id447590667?mt=8

Scribble Press – Free

Imagine. Create. Publish. Scribble Press for iPad is a book creation platform that allows kids to imagine, create and share their own stories with great drawing and writing tools.

Scribble Press for iPad makes it easy to create an ebook – either write your own or use one of over 50 story templates. How about “My Babysitter is a Zombie” or “The Dog Ate my Homework”? From serious to seriously fun, you can make a book about any topic and instantly publish to the gallery or share with friends anywhere in the world.

Once you’re done, you can upload your book to the Scribble Press server and share it via Facebook, Twitter or email, or add your story to the Scribble Press gallery of stories from around the world.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scribble-press/id487300076?mt=8

Tumult Hype – $29.99

Using Tumult Hype, you can create beautiful HTML5 web content. Animations and interactive content made with Tumult Hype works on desktops, smartphones and iPads. No coding required.

 

Ext Designer – $299.00

Ext Designer is a desktop application that helps you create interfaces faster than ever in an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop environment.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/liewcf/5492108806/

People love the iPad. Everybody wants an iPad. I know a little bit about iPads, so it seems like I get asked some version of the same question over and over again regarding those lovely little iPads. Usually this occurs during casual conversation or small talk type events that happen daily. Occasionally I get a phone call from someone who knows me and is in the store at that very moment. Sometimes I get an email. In any event, I am going to post my most recent response and begin referring people to this post so I don’t have to keep writing the same thing over and over again:)

This time the question came in from my father-in-law, Big Jack, a respected journalism professor at CMU and a diehard traditional literacies type of fellow. It is fairly typical of the question I’m talking about.

We are thinking of acquiring an iPad. Give us your best advice re acquisition costs, program costs, and operation techniques and costs at your convenience.

REPLY:

For casual browsing use, I’d recommend the 16 GB Wifi only model. It will cost you right around $500 and you will be able to use a wireless router to connect to the internet anywhere in the house, most likely out on to your deck too. The 16GB wifi model will also connect to the internet anywhere there is free public access, like Panera’s, Starbucks, Bob Evans, etc… You could purchase this model at Best Buy or the Apple Store. Most likely you could order online as well.

At the home office, you will need to hook up the wireless router to the cable modem and run a wireless network in the house. The cable modem will run into the wireless router and the computer at the desk will be hooked up to the wireless router. If you’d like to set up a secure wireless network, one that would require a password for devices to join, that can be accomplished with a few extra steps.

Programs for the device, or “apps” are plentiful and vary in cost. Not all apps require internet access to run, so you can use the iPad “offline” or at times when you aren’t connected to the internet, like in the car. An example of this would be the iBooks app or the Kindle app which allow you to purchase and sync a book while you’re at home and then access it directly from the iPad whether you’re connected or not.

There are a wide variety of News apps, USA Today, CNN, NPR, New York Times, ESPN, that are free of cost and I would recommend. Also all sorts of games and puzzles the grand children would enjoy, some free, some from $.99 on up to $4.99 or so. Purchasing any type of app requires an iTunes account. These are free to create, but require a credit card. You can set up this account right on the iPad. For security purposes, we can set up the iTunes account so that it will not authorize purchases on your credit card without a password that you will select.

I’ve found the iPad to be a very nice device for surfing the internet, checking email, Facebook, Twitter, etc… while I’m lounging on the couch or in bed. It is lightweight, has great screen resolution and delivers a really nice user experience. One thing I would recommend is some type of cover. Apple makes a really nice cover called the “Smart Cover” that would do the trick. They run about $40 and are available in a variety of colors. There are a ton of other 3rd party cases to choose from as well, available at Best Buy, Target, Apple Store, Ebay, Amazon, Wal-Mart.

Here’s the links to iPad model and case.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Apple%26%23174%3B+-+iPad%26%23174%3B+2+with+Wi-Fi+-+16GB+-+Black/1945531.p?id=1218303031896&skuId=1945531

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Apple%26%23174%3B+-+Smart+Cover+for+Apple%26%23174%3B+iPad%26%23174%3B+2+-+Gray/2343139.p?id=1218321915290&skuId=2343139&st=ipad%20smart%20cover&cp=1&lp=5

Hope this is the information you needed. See you guys soon!

Southwest Institute for Families and Children (SWI) is a non-profit research and development organization focusing on children’s health and education.

Below you will find the slidedeck from my presentation to this dedicated group of early childhood educators, many of whom serve high-poverty children and families from the Navajo nation.

While #ISTE11 in Philadelphia, PA is almost a month past us, I have some unfinished business to take care of here on Raised Digital stemming from my trip to the City of Brotherly Love for the annual conference. Maybe it’s because I’m lazy; perhaps it’s because I’m busy; and it’s certainly so this post didn’t get washed in with the hundreds of other ISTE Reflection posts, I am now recording my thoughts and take-aways from the 2011 ISTE conference experience.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed my ISTE trip this year. From EdubloggerCon, to my model lesson presentation, visiting, sharing and learning from all my colleagues and an enjoyable round of golf with a rag-tag crew of edubloggers, there were lots of great moments. The best part of it all was the fact that I was able to have my family with me. My wife attended the conference and came away with a lot of great ideas she can share professionally in her district. She and I got to spend time together, which is not par for the course when I attend conferences.

Perhaps the the greatest experience was having our 4 year old son with us. While it was challenging at times to haul a preschooler around the Philadelphia Convention Center, I was proud of the way he handled himself over the 4 days we were in attendance. To watch him communicate, create and explore among some of the top educational minds and thought leaders that were in attendance was truly a proud moment for me as a father. I know we had fun and learned a lot together, as a family. I have evidence.

For further review, I submit to you, my thoughts/notes from #ISTE11.

On my model lesson

• Packed model lesson session with great colleagues.
• Sessions are still good, because many people learn that way.
• Twitter sells them out, which is somewhat sad.

On meeting, talking  and sharing with people

• Conversations are helpful.
• Observing how other people construct meaning is possibly the most beneficial part of attending ISTE.
• You need to see, hear and feel how others learn to become a better learner yourself.

Eye opener

• There need to be more kids there.
• Young kids. Middle school kids. High school kids.

The @djakes in me

• There is not enough thoughtful attention to designing spaces that support transliteracy.
• The conversations around libraries are crucial, yet they get kicked in the gut around edtech circles.
• Literacy has not changed, but the forums for access, interactions and modes of interacting with written and verbal communication have.
• Careful attention to the design of “schools” must take priority in our administration of said “schools.”
• Space, device and access all need to support learner goals.
• We should not be talking about “devices” if space and access do not adequately support all learners in an equitable fashion.
• We are still not talking about these concepts of space, device and access or making significant changes to how education looks in our own communities.

Now a little Kanye
While Kanye West takes a lot of flak for his antics, and a lot of people might not respect him, I find this line from his song, “Power,” to be quite insightful and very telling concerning the state of public K-12 education today.

The system broken, the schools closed, the prisons open.

This idea that we are preparing kids for prison rather than life may be even more appropriate in the context of ISTE and what people who attend the annual conference keep talking about doing. The idea that we can transform education by effectively integrating technology has been the talk of ISTE since I first attended in 2004. But what has really changed in that time? We’re still talking about it, debating the pros and cons with each other, and never really moving towards developing steps or a plan that can actually help our schools implement and achieve this. Are students being served an adequate public education when we never get to the point of creating action items to move forward? I go back to thinking about spaces. Maybe the reason edtech PD and teacher utilization of technology has not permeated more deeply over all the years of ISTE is because a majority of spaces we send children to for 185 days a year are no longer viable spaces to support learner needs. Maybe?

Some @bengrey and Mac Miller to top it off

We gonna take over the world while these haters gettin’ mad,

proclaims Mac Miller, a Pittsburgh based rapper. This lyric also keeps coming back to me as I think about ISTE11 and a conversation I had with Ben Grey. We had been discussing the whole ed tech debate/firestorm that is centered around the “what is the best 1:1 solution,” i.e., netbooks versus iPads versus Android versus iOS. Eventually the best we could determine was that we might never know the “best solution” but in order to move our organizations and communities forward, we both needed to make the “best decision for our schools, our communities and our kids at this time” and then do it. We concluded that sometimes you just have to stop the rhetoric and move forward with your best plan, knowing full well that along the way you will make mistakes and when you identify mistakes, that you will fix them. That’s learning. That’s POWER. So while all the debate over filters or no filters, Facebook or no Facebook, cell phone or no cell phones, netbooks or iPads, continues to dominate the ed tech landscape, “we gonna take over the world while these haters gettin’ mad,” simply because we are carrying out our best laid plans and not just talking about it.