This story about a type of app construction kit for ios is very interesting. A reasonable way to build apps from components would be very cool.
I keep seeing comments about the value of programming. Not “real” programming, but a way to allow more individuals a way to create software in some way. Some of these ideas seem an argument that tech literacy is now necessary – almost a reverse digital native notion. Push this perspective a bit more and you have a way to lure learners into programming.
The article, if accurate, still describes Apple as just playing around with this idea. Still, Apple could create software that would not be allowed from third party developers and a construction kit would be possible.
The issue of whether the iPad is a meaningful production device is important to many educators. The issue comes up when making the decision whether to invest school money in traditional computers or iPads (and similar devices). Traditional computers, laptops or netbooks, are versatile and the capacity to write and create multimedia as a learning experience is obviously available. The touch interface of the iPad and an operating system that works a little differently when it comes to storing and integrating media elements is unfamiliar to those of us who have a more traditional background and may have originally seemed a barrier to content production.
Apple and those who develop apps are obviously attempting to move users toward a different way of doing things. iPhoto on the iPad, a new offering, is different from iPhoto on a computer and may serve different purposes. For example, one of the cameras I use takes images that are large and it would not be practical to store thousands of these images on an iPad. I use my desktop machine to store images and upload many to Flickr. I can download images from Flickr to the iPad to take advantage of the interesting ways you can edit images using iPhoto for the iPad. I am also exploring the potential of iPhoto (on the iPad) as a way to produce content – what Apple calls “journals” in this case.
I must say that creating an iPhoto journal reminds me of the old iWeb which I thought was a useful produce/service for those who wanted a web site that looked more sophisticated than the time and background of many would allow. iPhoto Journal is obviously more image oriented because it is tied into iPhoto, but it offers the user widgets that pull in things like maps, date, and text boxes to a “collage”-like display. I can see teachers working with their students to create a journal as a final project product.
Screen capture from iPad
Here is a link to a sample product I created available via iCloud. I must say that I struggled some to arrange the objects to position them exactly where I wanted and I do not have the experience to know why. I was working on my iPad 2 and it is very possible this would work more smoothly on the new iPad. it is also possible that iPhoto for the iPad is a 1.0 product and refinements will come. In my opinion, Apple has a mixed history developing such products (e.g., iWeb and mobile me). However, the company is going to have focus in this area or be more accepting of opening up to those more focused on cloud services.
Keeping college students in town the day before a holiday break is tough. It is a tough call on holding class – many will skip and then you have to decide what to do with the half that stay. The class in question for me was Educational Psychology and since the topic of educational technology was to be covered during this part of the course, I decided to use tech to learn about tech. I created a presentation that students would be required to view and posted it to Blackboard. As popular as online courses are, most students who attend classes FTF have never had the experience of trying to learn from online experiences.
I decided to create this presentation using tech tools that would be new to me. Instead of PowerPoint, I used the Google docs Presentation tool, downloaded the slides as PowerPoint slides, uploaded this content to DropBox, and then downloaded the file to my iPad. I decided to create the presentation on the iPad using an app my wife has been raving about – Explain Everything.
I admit learning as you attempt to accomplish actual tasks has some drawbacks. The “eat your own dog food” approach assumes you can think about the project and figure out the tool at the same time. I did take a few tries (an hour + each), but most failures were my own fault. A couple of hints from my experience – remember to save (everyone should know this, but I thought saving individual slides as you go was the same as saving the project) and understand the iPad is kind of funny about exporting large files. It turns out, you cannot upload a large video file from the iPad to Dropbox (this one was not my fault). My iPad is starting to fade from use – I am still using the iPad I – and the USB method of transferring file does not work from my machine because it appears I have worn the power/USB connector out. Wifi and bluetooth are challenging. My wife is one of those tech people who just assumes there is a way and then makes it work. She was aware of this obscure Goodreader hack that turns the iPad into a server (as close as I can come to describing what she did), loaded the video file into Goodreader, and then ask me to connect to this ip number and load the file to my desktop machine. I mean really – who knows this kind of stuff.
I have attached a short demo I created using Explain Everything. I am ordering a mike I can use with the iPad, but this approach (remember $3) is impressive compared to how I might have done this same thing in other ways (remember you can annotate, show images, etc.). One final note – I did convert the mp4 file to mov and resized the movie for this demonstation using Quicktime (the old version 7).
We decided to give the iPad as a family gift to each of our three children. Writing about this decision here will not spoil the surprise because we told them to prevent them from making the same purchase for a spouse.
We decided to purchase this gift after watching the young children in two of the families interact with one of our iPads. If you have an iPad and doubt the persuasiveness of such experiences, find a young child, purchase a few appropriate apps and just watch. There is something about how the intuitiveness of the interface encourages exploration that is difficult to describe. I am not certain how young this goes, but preschool children seem to know what to do – touch stuff and see what happens.
I know not everyone agrees with involving you children with technology. I wrote about this years ago because a close high school friend of mine wrote a book arguing against technology for young children. I wonder what he would think watching kids exploring an iPad. When you manipulate something with your hands does that make a difference?
Others are commenting on iPads and different age groups. Here is an article on young children on iPads and here is another I encountered focused on centenarians on iPads (iPhone). Quite an age difference but the functionality seems to be obvious in both cases.
BTW – I don’t claim to have a professional opinion on this issue and I realize that the attentiveness of young children does not guarantee that the experiences to which they are attending are good for them. I am guessing there are PhD students working as I write to understand this phenomenon.
We gave the newly married daughter an iPad too. We are equal opportunity tech providers.
Ah, the holiday break, a blizzard, and some time to write.
Back in April I generated a couple of posts about writing with the iPad. I liked the iPad a lot and I was particularly interested in ways to connect with Google docs which has been the way I have done most of my writing for the last year or so. I pay some attention to which of my blog posts get the most attention and that post has remained one of the most frequently viewed.
It is time to update my position. There have been some new developments that require that I make different recommendations.
Just use a browser
There is actually no need to use a specialized app to work on Google docs from the iPad. Google has made some internal modifications that allow writing using the Safari browser that comes with the iPad. So, the update here was a Google change and nothing that Apple did.
There are only a couple of differences from the use of docs on a desktop or laptop. First, you could always open Google docs on the iPad, but you could not edit or write. Now, when you open a document, you will notice the edit button in the upper right-hand corner. Tap this button and then tap where you want to enter text.
Google docs automatically saves, but you can also tap the “refresh” button.
Elements and DropBox
Before Google updated the docs tool, I found another way to write with the iPad and I still prefer this second option.
Elements is a writing product from Second Gear available for the iPhone or iPad. I don’t have an iPhone (I live in North Dakota which AT&T evidently does not understand has become a state) and really cannot imagine writing much with a device this small. I do take an occasional notes on my iPod Touch.
Elements on the iPad works great. It is pretty much a text editor – how much formatting do most of us do anyway?
The cool thing about Elements is that it automatically uploads files to a special folder in DropBox. This cross-platform tool creates a folder on each device and then links files between these devices. Elements files end up stored within a folder within the DropBox folder and end up being available on any device from which you make use of DropBox. So, I can write on my iPad and the files I create are available from my office computer. Pretty cool.
There is a free version of DropBox which everyone should have. It is a great replacement for a flash drive. Elements is $5.
A month or so ago we were informed that Bloglines was going away. For many of us, Bloglines was the first rss tool we used to follow bloggers and topics. For those of us assisting others make use of technology, it was likely the tool we taught. Free services face a certain reality no matter how useful the service. There must be some revenue from somewhere to maintain the service.
I did not know the history of Bloglines, but according to wikipedia it was sold to ask.com in 2005. Whatever Ask’s original idea, it decided to give up on the service and shut it down on Oct. 1. many of us moved on. Just a few days ago it was announced that Bloglines was available again.
I think the way this played out was not good. Because Bloglines was not available, I explored a bit and found a method for following feeds that was superior to my experience with Bloglines. I use an iPad app, Newsrack, to follow feeds from Google Reader. The big advantage of this arrangement is the opportunity to process information by sharing items I identify as useful to Instapaper, Delicious, or my email. At this point Bloglines is going to have to offer some new features to get me back.
I have an assignment in my Educational Psychology class that asks each student to try and then evaluate a study strategy. I offer a list with some options and allow students to add their own. Past experience has demonstrated that the students gravitate toward a limited number of options. I now require students to register their selection with me and I cut off an option after it has been selected by 10 students. I want to create a situation in which we have some different options to discuss.
The most popular choice this semester was note cards (flash cards). So much for trying something new. It has always struck me as a little sad that advanced students seem focused on memorization. Perhaps they see the challenges of exams differently than I do. I think I am asking them to demonstrate or apply, but they see the most immediate challenge as recognizing key terms in the questions. Perhaps they feel that once they can translate any unique terminology, the rest tends to be easy. So, I have mixed feelings about this post. Here, I offer a suggestion for a “better” flashcard system. Clearly knowing some things is necessary, but we hope students make the investment to do more.
Handheld devices (phones, iPod, iPad) offer a convenient technology by which improvements to note card flashcards might be accomplished. I see I generated a post in 2008 describing flashcard apps for the iPod Touch. Cindy has been exploring newer flashcard systems for the iPad so I purchased a few myself and spent some time during the football game exploring. My favorite ended up being Flashcard Deluxe. I purchased the version I used to generate the screen captures, but there is a lite version you might explore.
Technology offers the opportunity to improve the traditional flash card experience in several ways. The advantages I describe are available in my recommended app, but may not be in alternatives.
1) A device-based system can collect data on performance. With Flashcard Deluxe, the student determines whether a response is correct or not (actually a three level system is available – strong answer, moderate answer, poor answer) and this delineation can be used to change the probabilities of seeing an item again. You swipe a different direction to indicate which best represents your answer. Items can also be categorized. The self-scoring system also allows the question types to be varied – you could use multiple choice, but why not use open ended questions. Just creating the questions and responses is likely a valuable learning experience.
2) A device-based system allows multimedia. My daughters were heavy flashcard users because of the types of content they studied to become a physical therapist and an occupational therapist. Cindy did get the youngest to use a technology-based system. I don’t know if they would have sketched representations of the things they studied or not. How do you study musculature and the skeletal system with terms and definitions?
3) A digital system allows the accumulation and sharing of content. Flashcard Deluxe allows sets of flashcards to be downloaded from Quizlet and from a collection accumulated by OrangeorApple (the company responsible for Flashcard Deluxe). A student or group of students could create and share study aids.
A couple of screen captures:
This is the card that allows the creation of a given flashcard. There are three sides – a question, the answer, and other info. You do not have to use all three. In the following image, you can probably figure out that the question is really an image (the picture), the second side is the name of the organism, and the third side provides some additional information. I was a bit lazy in generating this example. You can include a lot of content on each side.
So, this would be the “question” side of the card.
This would be the third side (in this case, the deck was intended to be a collection of macroinvertebrates that indicate good or poor water quality).
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