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? Read the rest of this entry…
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Last summer at ISTE 2010, I had a blast at the IEAR Birds of a Feather session. Not only did I get a chance to share some of my favorite apps with the attendees, hang out with my IEAR colleagues @smeech and @jepcke, but I also got an opportunity to create some musical soundscapes with @kevinhoneycutt during an impromptu jam session. Ever since that event, I’ve been wanting to build my own portable music production system that lets me create, record, produce, and perform music with my iOS devices.
This week, I took a major step toward making that happen. I finally broke down and purchased a variety of hardware that I can use both at home and when I’m on the road giving presentations. With the current configuration, I can plug up to 5 iOS devices into a small mixing board and either run the sound out to a small amp for a live performance or into a laptop, desktop or iPad with Garageband or Audacity for recording purposes. I’m looking forward to embarking on my expert knob twiddling adventures and I’ll be sure to keep Raised Digital readers in the loop. For now, here’s a quick run down of the equipment I’ve started to assemble.
Hardware
Software
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As IEAR app reviewers, we sometimes stumble across an app that just oozes of potential but isn’t there quite yet. With a $14.99 price tag, Pictello, from AssistiveWare packs quite a punch with its unique opportunity to create and publish visual stories. However, IEAR app reviewers can’t help but notice there are some critical features that are missing from the app at this time. Meg Wilson (@ipodsibilities) and Jeremy Brueck (@brueckj23) share their educational insights into the positive features of the app, provide possible areas of classroom application, share their Pictello story codes and point out some places where they hope to see Pictello grow in future releases and updates.
Read the rest of this entry…
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e-Books will likely be a part of future early childhood classrooms, and in light of the thin evidence base on their role in curriculum and instruction, we undertook a formative study to investigate what e-book pedagogy for early literacy might look like in the early childhood classroom [1]. We approached our research from a design perspective—much like an engineer—creating a prototype model for implementation in the classroom and testing it to begin a winnowing process that informs the educational design (e-books in preschool for purposes of early literacy instruction) and identifies design features that are feasible and preferable in an instructional model [2, 3].
At this early stage of prototype creation, we conceptualized an e-book instructional model that was purposefully under-specified to allow a wide-angle view of what it takes and what happens when e-book technology is inserted into the preschool classroom. The model consists of four components grounded in e-book studies [4] and the knowledge base on early literacy instruction for young children [5]:
- The e-book as a technology-mediated environment
- The physical place of e-book reading in the classroom
- Engagement in e-book reading for small groups and individuals
- Explicit instruction using e-books
Our research objectives were to observe, define the salient attributes and rate the functioning of each component in situ toward the goal of framing a model for replication and further testing. To this purpose we employed a qualitative approach that focused on sorting, clustering and aggregating observational data to derive quality indicators and design features.
The following is a brief overview of some of the data collected during Phase 2 of our 2010-2011 study.
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Today is the official launch of EdReach.us, the educational media network, a collaboration by educators from all over the United States.
Why EdReach?
Do we really need another Educational blog? There are so many others out there- aren’t there enough?
Well, that is true, there are a lot of voices out there. So many voices. So many, it seems that it’s getting harder and harder to hear them, harder to cut through the volume and rate of information, harder to even keep up with well-known colleagues, and harder to be heard.
EdReach.us aims to cut through this.
The EdReach Educational Media Network (EdReach.us) aims to gather these voices together, and create one stream of educational news, blogs, commentary, and interactive media that highlights the innovation, highlights the ideas, highlights the cutting-edge best practices that are happening in the world’s schools every day. Read the rest of this entry…
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I’m trying to find the simplest way to produce an audio only file from the Screenflow file of a Skype conference call. Right now, I grab the screencast, which is usually 2 tracks; Screen/computer audio and the audio only of my USB mic. From there, I level out the 2 audio tracks and export as a .mov file. I then open the .mov in Quicktime 7 and export SOUND to AIFF, which gives me an .aif file. Then I import the .aif into GarageBand and then export as a .m4a file.
This seems all convoluted…is there an easier way? In the end, I can’t even find where I can export to a .mp3 file. Your suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
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The IEAR community is happy to announce the opening of nominations for the 1st Annual IEAR App Awards. We are looking for community input as we seek to identify the appsolutely best apps in the following categories: Read the rest of this entry…
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I’m pleased to announce that I Education Apps Review has been nominated for a 2010 Edublog Award in the Best Group Blog category. All votes must be cast by noon Eastern, December 14. Winners will be announced shortly after. I’d encourage you to spend some time checking out the lists. Make sure to vote for your favorites!
While I can take very little credit in the success of our community to date, I am proud to be a part of such a wonderful group of educators. It really is the work of the community that has built IEAR into what it is and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the tireless work of all those involved in the blog. A special thanks to Scott Meech, who had the vision for what was and is IEAR.
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Every year in October I’m faced with the same dilemma; pulling together a costume for some type of Halloween related party or event. I know there are tons of commercial costumes available at the stores and online, but between the cost, and lack of imagination, and the fact you end up with a half dozen people all looking the same at a party, I often like to go the homemade route. This year I decided to go with a homemade iPod Touch costume.
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Fresh off a 12 day trip to Europe where my research team presented a paper at the SSSR 2010 Conference, I wanted to share the different iPad apps I traveled with. I loaded the device with a variety of apps and media that I hoped would allow me to be productive during the trip. It was my hope to use the iPad the entire time in place of the MacBook Air I normally rely on during travel. In the interest of full disclosure, I did have the Air with me. (Hey, you ALWAYS need to have a back-up plan!) Also important to note, while I did use a 3G model during the trip, the AT&T data service is not accessible in Europe, which limited the availability of some apps at certain times.
My iPad strategy for this trip was to use the iPad for both Creation and Consumption purposes. I really wanted to try to be productive during the 6-7 hours of both flights, not just spend the time watching movies and listening to music. I also wanted to diligently eliminate all that paper-based clutter (and weight) from my satchel, i.e., take text files with me rather than carry books, magazines, paper copies of articles and printed PDFs.
I’ve created a Google spreadsheet to share direct links to the iTunes App Store of all the apps I will share. The spreadsheet also includes a brief overview of the ways I find myself using each app and the cost of the app. This time around, I really tried to keep things free, but I did decide to try a few Paid apps. Currently, I have around $12 – $15 invested in the apps that will be showcasing. This post, we’ll focus on the apps I targeted for CONTENT CREATION.
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