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Team Seesmic have made some major enhancements to Seesmic for Android, Seesmic for Windows Phone 7, and launched some plugins for Seesmic Desktop. Take a a look at what they have to say below. Read the rest of this entry »

… by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees. She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

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It’s not just a phone today; for some people, it’s a way of life. The iPhone from Apple has not just revolutionized the way we communicate but also the way we access and use information and knowledge. For the graduate student who has crossed one stage of college life and is now in a more serious phase, the iPhone is more of a management and study tool than a source of fun and entertainment. That’s not to say that a grad student’s nose must be glued to the grindstone all the time, just that the apps they tend to prefer on their phone are more the utility kind than the frivolous ones. With that in mind, let’s look at a list of iPhone apps that are suitable for any grad student who’s a natural with this smartphone:

1. iGraduation: Every college student dreams of the day they graduate, whether they’re doing a bachelor’s or master’s degree. Use this app to keep track of your date of graduation and set up a countdown timer with the number of hours and minutes left till you’re officially a postgraduate. The ticking clock also serves to remind you that your time at college is limited and that you need to get started on whatever you need to do before you graduate, be it prepare for your exams or propose to your girlfriend or complete that bet with your friend.
2. Now Hiring: If you’re still a student, you’re definitely going to be looking for a job to work on when you graduate, and with the Now Hiring app, you can search for jobs based on various filters like location and payment among others, and email listings to your mail address so you can apply for them later. This app aggregates all the latest job postings from the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, France and India.
3. iProcrastinate: If you are in the habit of procrastination, then iProcrastinate is just the app for you – it helps you manage your schedules effectively and efficiently and keeps you from forgetting important events and deadlines.
4. iClickr PowerPoint Remote: PowerPoint presentations form a part of every college student’s routine; so the next time you make one, convert your iPhone into a cool remote control with this app. Just use the buttons on the interface not just to play and pause your presentation but also to add annotations on the go and set an alarm so you finish before your time runs out.
5. iBookStore: One of the best and smartest ways to buy books from right where you are using your iPhone is through the iBookStore app; all you need to do is take a picture of the book’s barcode with your iPhone or enter the ISBN number, title and author to find where it’s cheapest, and the make your payment. Better yet, send the link to your parents or well-meaning aunts and uncles so that they can buy the book for you.
6. Wi-Fi Finder: Free Wi-Fi hotspot connections are always popular with the college crowd, and when your iPhone can find the best and strongest signals using this app, why would you not want to download, especially because it’s free as well?

Image: RickyRomeo

Just a few thought on how to get asynchronous communication to work online.

So, what do you do?

I was thinking about this this morning as I did my usual catch-up on Google Reader. Here’s the post that got me thinking:
Imagining a mobile Moodle from iAlja by Alja Sulčič.

There are so many blog posts and so little time. So if you want to get your post read what can you do to increase your chances? Here are the things that appeal to me – i.e. get me to read the whole post not just skim and move on.

Subjects or titles

1. Questions are good, especially if it is a question I an interested in finding the answer to.
2. Numbers, like “21  ways to be more interactive in your online teaching”.
3. Make sure you actually say what the post is about, unless you can write such interesting subject lines that get people curious enough to read on. Alja wrote about Moodle and as I use that a lot it got my attention.

Content

1. Well obviously content has to be relevant to your readers.
2. Don’t write a thesis, if you have THAT much to say write a number of posts, or write an article and post on your website. Alja points readers to scribed to read her conference paper.
3. Include a picture to cue me  to what you are writing about so I can make a quick decision about whether to read further or not.
4. Embed video. Alja put a video up on YouTube of her talk at the conference. Note YouTube only allows videos of 10 mins in length so you will have to split it or upload to somewhere else like TeacherTube or Vimeo.
5. Link to other resources.
6. Don’t just give the opening in your RSS give the whole post. Some will disagree but I only click through to read more if the opening really captures me. So if you only give the first bite, make this hook people.
7. Finishing with a question is a good way to get comments from your readers.

So what would you include in your top ten tips?

Image: Wallyg

This is some great insight from Derek Wenmoth of Core Education:

As Derek said for schools to really benefit this technology must not cost. Local councils and the business sector need to work together with education to make this happen.

The iPad isn’t available in New Zealand yet (pity), but when it arrives, and for those who can already get hold of one, will it be worth considering for educational use?

The Yes’s:

1. It’s cheaper than a laptop or tablet PC. I think this will have a big impact and could see one iPad per child.
2. There will be no, “I forgot my text book” or “The dog ate my homework”. The latter of course has been the case for some time in tertiary since most students do their assignments on a computer. But imagine not having to lug all those text books around with you. I know how my shoulders used to ache carrying books home for home work and back to school again the next day.
3. For tertiary teachers, you will no longer have to be glued to the podium. You will be able to move around the lecture theatre and have your PowerPoint, notes, access to the web etc. etc. right there. This should have a big impact on tertiary teaching in lecture theatres. I really want to get those teachers who can only stand at the front to teach, to reach out and get amongst their students as they teach.
4. Not only will it be easier for lecturers to move around with an iPad it should be a lot easier to move around the tight confines of the university library stacks with your iPad in hand. Not something I would want to do with a heavy cumbersome laptop.
5. Digital books are cheaper, so a school can afford to update texts more frequently.
6. And for the same reason, tertiary students will be able to afford more books for their studies.
7. Keep the cost of photocopying down but still give handouts to students. Again tertiary have been pushing the cost of printing onto students for some time. But if you have an iPad you don’t need to print, your handouts are right there in your iPad.
8. The appeal of Apples products will make it popular to use with teens.

The No’s:

1. There aren’t many education apps available at the moment (but this is changing by the day), but if the iPad takes off and stays the distance, I am sure there will be.
2. The current version doesn’t have a camera. Now how lame is that?
3. No handwriting recognition or writing of any sort. For schools the ability to do writing practice will still be required for some time to come.
4. No multi tasking, so you can’t have the web open and a word-processor for doing your assignment. This might of course be useful for some who get distracted by having constant interruptions from  email, twitter etc.
5. For institutions that already cater for laptops needing power, there will be no issue, but for those first heading that way with the iPad, remember there will be a cost involved with students needing to plug into power or their iPad will die, along with their work and their books.
6. I don’t see any huge discounts for education. Now if I was running Apple I would be giving real big discounts for education. Get your customers while they are young and get them to stick with the brand into adulthood.

And the May be’s:

1. Will university/college libraries be able to loan digital texts that students have on their iPad for the typical loan period. Any librarians out there with the answer?
2. If the iPad stays the distance the availability of eBooks may help bring reading back into “fashion”.
3. At the moment their is no plug in keyboard so I will wait to see how the integrated screen KB fairs in use. Will we see a foldaway KB like those used with Palm come on the market?
4. Apple has said it will not be supporting Flash. It remains to be seen whether this will be a draw back or not with HTML5 now around.
5. Network security in education establishments may give problems for using the iPad there. I think this will be an initial glitch.

So on balance, I think iPad will have a place in education. So I’m watching with interest to see where it goes

What do YOU think? Will you be using one?

Interestingly as I write this the iPad is #1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 in Amazon’s Tablet Best Seller List. Get your iPad here

Here is a copy of my presentation I did recently at the Plymouth eLearning Conference 2010.

A review of the evidence of the impact of digital technologies, on formal education. Includes sections on what the evidence says, and challenges for the future.

Thanks to Susan Sedro for alerting me to this:

I’m a great fan of Jane Hart‘s Learning Tools Directory which she started in 2006.

For 2010 she has completely revised the structure, reflecting how things have changed over the last 4 years. Go have a look, but in brief here are the 12 new categories (taken from Jane’s blog post)

1. Instructional Tools
   Tools for creating, delivering,  managing learning and/or providing a social learning environment.  Includes course authoring, testing, LMS, CMS and SLEs Currently listing 290 tools
2. Live Tools
   Tools for delivering live meetings, screen sharing and accessing/building virtual worlds.  Includes web, audio, video conferencing, live broadcasting, 3D/virtual worlds
   Currently listing 85 tools
   
3. Document & Presentation Tools
   Tools to create, host and/or share documents, PDFs, e-Books and/or presentations. Includes word processing, presentation tools, PDF convertors, document and presentation hosting sites
   Currently listing 177 tools
4. Blogging, Web & Wiki Tools
   Tools to create blogs, web pages/sites and wikis as well as provide interactivity on those sites. Includes blogging tools, web site tools, wikis, widgets, RSS feeds tools, forms,  web poll and survey sites
   Currently listing 255 tools
5. Image, Audio & Video Tools
   Tools to create, edit and/or host images, avatars, audio files, podcasts, screencasts and videos.  Includes image editors, images hosting sites, audio editors, video makers, screencasting tools, video hosting sites
   Currently listing 270 tools
6. Communication Tools
   Tools for a range of synchronous and asynchronous communication activities.Includes email, voice/video messaging, instant messaging, chat rooms, discussion forums
   Currently listing 151 tools
7. Micro-blogging Tools
   These tools are for real-time updating (140 characters at a time) both publically or privately, as well as a range of useful Twitter apps. Includes micro-blogging, back channel tools, Twitter apps
   Currently listing 141 tools
8. More collaboration tools
   These are (further) stand-alone tools suitable for individuals to work and learn more effectively with others – as well as on their own. Includes social bookmarking, calendar sharing, mind mapping, notetaking/sharing, whiteboards, research and other tools
   Currently listing 188 tools
9. Social Networking and Collaboration Spaces
   These social media platforms include public social networks as well as tools to create private collaborative, social spaces for groups or communities, as well as enterprise collaboration systems (with multiple group sites).  Includes public social networks, networking and community platforms, group spaces, Enterprise 2.0 systems
   Currently listing 107 tools
10. Personal Productivity Tools
    These tools are for an individual’s personal working, learning and/or productivity purposes. Includes mind mapping, information and time management tools, web search, and other productivity tools
    Currently listing 149 tools
11. Browsers, Players & Readers
    These tools are useful for browsing the web and accessing web content. Includes browsers, extensions, plugins, bookmarklets, toolbars, readers and players, online start pages
    Currently listing 68 tools
12. Mobile Tools
    These mobile tools are for working, learning and/or productivity purposes.Includes tools for iPhone/iTouch, Blackberry and Android devices
    Currently listing 47 tools
    

Oh and if you want to recommend a tool to be added to the Directory go here.