Tuesday, January 31, 2012

5 Favorite iPad Apps.....at least for right now


5 iPad apps identified for review
      Part of using an iPad involves hearing about new apps and trying them out.  And as a user, I'm really attentive to two categories of apps: those that are personally interesting to me, and those that I'm evaluating for school use. This means that for me at least, my iPad usage is constantly evolving.  

     I'd like to use this post to highlight five iPad apps that have captured my attention.  Though one might be categorized as an "educational" app, all five are compelling because they work well and I find them useful.
     The first is an app called Living EarthThere's nothing especially fancy about what it does.  It's essentially a clock with a timer and a graphic of an earth spinning in space.  But you can speed up and slow down the earth, get a satellite view of clouds and weather and set the globe to your current location.  The graphics are excellent.  It can serve as an alarm clock, and can wake you to your music library. It cost me $1.00.

      
     Another app that I like is HBO GO

      
     In order to use this app, you'll need a television subscription to HBO.  With your HBO subscription, HBO GO allows you to stream HBO content - movies, television shows, specials, documentaries - directly to your iPad. It's searchable, so if I'm looking to see that documentary about MacDonald's getting sued over a cup of coffee that was too hot, I can search it and watch it directly on my iPad.

It's a bit hard to see, but under the H category, the last listing is Hot Coffee, the target of the search.



 Remote is an app I use daily, and it continues to amaze me a bit.  The app is a utility, working with another system to make it work better.  In my house, I have an iTunes library of music that I can wirelessly stream to sets of stereo speakers in my living room and kitchen.  With the Remote app, I can control iTunes settings, such as music selection and volume, from my iPad. this means that I can start to play music from iTunes on my computer, but then I can have the iPad in any room and change music selections and settings.  It's a remote control for my stereo system. It works perfectly.  The same app can be put on an iPhone or an Android phone. 

 Here's my iTunes library as seen on the Remote app
     Art Authority  is an art museum app.  I first got this app when I was reading a book that made frequent reference to works of art.  Rather than ignoring my ignorance or constantly getting up to find information about an art piece, I downloaded this app and had an instant reference source available.  Since then, I've used this app to learn more about art and artists from different eras and from varying locales.  The graphics are very good, and the information finds the preferred middle ground between "too superficial" and TMI.  Current price: $5.00.  


The romanticism section includes these "galleries:" American, German, English and French and an Overview section.
       Zite is one of my favorite apps, at least for now. It's a fully customizable magazine in which you select topics of interest to you. For any topic - some of mine are Architecture, Music News and Commentary, Arts & Culture, Technology, College Basketball - Zite culls print and online sources for articles of interest.  From years back, you might remember Utne Reader. It's similar in its eclecticism and general quality of selected articles. I always find something of interest in reviewing Zite's daily updates.  

Zite allows you to choose your magazine's sections from a menu, or add your own sections.
The home page of my Arts and Culture section. Each article headline is a link to the full article. Each section will contain about 20 articles culled from a variety of sources.
     Every iPad user could create a list of favorite apps. And lists will change over time as needs change and new apps are developed.  But for right now, the apps above have captured my attention.
    
     PS: Five more iPad apps for the Honorable Mention list: Gameface, Scrabble, Wired Magazine, NY Times, Stack the States. 


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Technology's role in Facilitating Collaborative Learning

     Over this last week-end, I read with interest a story in the New York Times.  Published on 1/16/2112, the story is titled "Split by Race and Wealth, But Discovering Similarities as They Study Steinbeck." The article describes an 8th grade project that has classes in two neighboring schools - one in Plainfield and the other in Westfield - reading John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
     The story caught my attention for a couple of reasons.  I went to elementary school in Plainfield, so there was a personal connection to the locale.  It was definitely a long time ago, but still, it's hard not to pay extra attention when reminded of old haunts.  More significantly, I also was interested to see how technology was being applied to this collaborative learning project.
     The Times article describes two middle school classes, one in the more tony Westfield and the other in the economically-challenged Plainfield, following a parallel curriculum in the reading of Steinbeck's novel.  The classes read the book on the same schedule though in-class conversations differ.  The article points out that teachers with their students will focus on characters and plot developments that resonate in their respective lives.
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Eleanor Hemphill, in back, talking about the novel at Cedarbrook K-8 Center in Plainfield, N.J.
     Though this jointly read book project will culminate in visits to each others' schools, the Times article points out that along the way questions and insights were shared by students via Wikispaces and Skype.  Unmentioned, though likely true, is that students at the schools connected via Facebook as well. Technology has a unique ability to facilitate collaborative learning because so many of the traditional barriers (e.g.: cost, convenience, asynchronous schedules) to distance collaborative learning are eliminated.  But it's interesting to see that applied technologies are not the center of the article.  In fact, they barely warrant a passing mention.  It's a sign of how much social media sites and other technology tools have become part of the way people collaborate.
Matthew Kalafat discussing “Of Mice and Men” at an intermediate school in Westfield, N.J.
       The Times piece clearly shows that this project was created with specific goals in mind.  Yes, students would be reading Of Mice and Men  to become familiar with a classic American work.  But as one of teachers states, “If you become experts in Steinbeck, beautiful, but that’s not my goal,” Matthew Kalafat, a Westfield teacher, told his class of 13 students — 11 white, 2 Asian — holding well-thumbed hardcover books in first period the other day. “This is just a tool to get us to understand our world.”
     The article strongly suggests the students are learning more about their world.  Technology in the form of Wikispaces and Skype, and perhaps in the form of Facebook and an e-reader, is helping teachers and students to reach goals.  And that's the true promise of technology in schools; it's a set of increasingly powerful tools that can help teachers and students reach learning goals.

(Note: Pictures and captions from NY Times "Split by Race and Wealth, But Discovering Similarities as They Study Steinbeck" 1/16/2012)

Monday, January 2, 2012


2012 - Happy New Year!  

   During our winter break, the latest issue of the GSB Alumni Magazine arrived and the lead article concerned technology use at Gill St. Bernard's School.  Kathie Andersen's article was very helpful, because our campus layout does not lend itself to a widespread understanding of all that goes on in each division.  But after reading the article, it was hard not to be impressed with the many and varied initiatives underway throughout our curriculum.  Teachers are finding ways to reinvent the classroom experience for students in ways that make sense.  Students are engaged as teachers challenge themselves to explore new approaches to teaching and learning.
   Beyond the classroom, much has also changed this past year in terms of our technology infrastructure. A new server array, an updated phone system and the extension of our wireless network throughout the campus are significant changes designed to create seamless network access.
   What lies ahead for this upcoming year? We will complete our Blackbaud integration project, a work-in-progress over this last year.  We have plans to begin to move towards a virtualized work environment for specific computer users.  This means that people may do their work at a work station utilizing the software and storage found exclusively on a server drive.  Work stations are environmentally friendly in several different ways, and should provide an improved computing experience for users.  We will continue to monitor our Internet pipeline and improve access as needed. And we'll explore cloud-based solutions for storage and software.  Whether it's Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365 or Dropbox or Box.net, the possibilities arrive at a fast and furious rate.
   What about devices used by teachers and students?  Tablets continue to be a device worth exploring.  We seem to be firmly in a more free market of hardware and software now, and it's unclear if the iPad is the obvious choice for school use.  The lack of Flash support coupled with the lack of USB inputs are serious drawbacks, in large part offset by a great App store and excellent product reliability.  Mobile phones are increasingly finding their way into schools as a learning tool.  GSB is moving cautiously on this front, but it seems clear to me that in the future, smartphones will be commonly used by teachers and students alike to facilitate learning.
   One of the ways technology can help promote learning is through data analysis.  Using computing power, it's possible to sift through and analyze amounts of information that, in an earlier age, could not have been examined.  Data analysis is done by many people and organizations, but perhaps Google is the most prominent practitioner.  No doubt, it helps to have the most visited search engine.  One of things Google has done over the last few years is to re-examine the past year's searches to offer a window on our world.  If you see what has been searched the most on Google over the last year, you get a sense of what we find compelling and important. So before we get too far into 2012, why not take about three minutes and review 2011 via Google and our collective searches.

(Interested in learning more about how Google tracks searches and then parses the data?