Student: “My teachers won’t let me take a photo of the Whiteboard…” (Are you serious?)

On the heels of my previous post about why some teachers fail to realise the efficiency gains of technology, Today I had a conversation with a teenager that went like this:

Student: “My teachers won’t let me take a photo of the whiteboard with my iPad.”
Me: “Are you telling me, they make you copy off the whiteboard with pen and paper?”
Student: “Yes”
Me: “How many of your teachers do this?”
Student: “All of them!”
Me: “Are you serious?”
Student: “They tell us that copying the board will help us remember and understand the information better”
Me: “And do you think it does?”
Student: “No, I’m usually not even thinking about what I’m writing; I’m just copying down the words”

I don’t buy for a moment that students will remember or understand information significantly better by copying! Telling that to students is as disingenuous as it is absurd! When I read the morning newspaper I don’t need to copy out the news stories in order to comprehend them! When researching a topic of interest I read relevant articles, maybe make a few notes and save them to Evernote for future reference but I don’t transcribe the articles in full onto loose leaf! What makes anyone think that copying paragraphs of text from the board will make students remember or understand? As you began reading this blog post, did the thought even cross your mind to start copying it out with pen and paper to aid your understanding? Of course it didn’t! That would be a prodigious waste of your time and would make little to no difference to your comprehension.

Let’s be honest. The real reasons teachers make students copy information from the board are:
(a) It pads out the lesson with busywork, so a very small amount of learning will use up an entire period (It reduces the teacher’s preparation time : class time ratio).
(b) It is the easiest way to “wing it” when a teacher hasn’t prepared a genuine and engaging learning activity.
(c) It keeps students seated, quiet and under control.

In 1989 copying information from the board was a practical way for students to collect a body of examinable subject knowledge to learn (i.e. memorise / encode), because schools didn’t have photocopiers, students didn’t have cameras, and nobody had Google.

In 2015, valid reasons for using a whiteboard might include sketching a diagram to answer an extemporaneous student question, teaching basic literacy skills (character formation, perhaps spelling) or to capture a group brainstorming session. A whiteboard is useful for that kind of thing. (And don’t be ridiculous – if your students have smartphones, let them take a photo, if it helps them!). But I can’t think of any good reason for entering class, with the intention of writing screeds of informational text on the board for students to copy like it were still 1989.

It’s a squandering of class time – a great example of wheeling technology, instead of riding it (to borrow the metaphor from my previous post).

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A USB Thumb-Drive for Both iPad and Computer

If you work with 25 iPad wielding students in a classroom, then you already know that sharing large video files between iPads or between iPads and computers comes with some friction.

Sure,there’s a festival of ways to transfer content from a student’s iPad to your computer or vice-versa, or from a student’s iPad to another student’s iPad.  (AirDrop, Dropbox, Instashare, PhotoTransfer WiFi, Email, just to name a few) but each has it’s limitations – especially if your school’s Wi-Fi is flakey or the internet is slow.

A Mobi My iStick in your pocket is a pretty neat solution. When you plug the iStick into your computer it behaves just as any USB thumb-drive would – because it is a USB thumb-drive.  But slide the slider over, and at the other end is an Apple-approved lightning jack that fits into the lighting port on a student’s iPad.  It’s the first USB thumb-drive that works with an iPad and it lets you copy files directly between iOS devices (whether or not they are your own) and computers, without needing Wi-Fi, bluetooth or an internet connection.

What’s Good:

Copying files to the device from a computer is as simple as can be.  Transferring those files to an iOS device is just as straightforward. When you plug the iStick into your iOS device, a pop-up message asks to use the iStick. You click Agree. The iStick app opens, you select the “iStick” tab and you can see all the files on the iStick, open them, move them to the camera roll etc.  You can even play movies on the iPad screen, directly from the iStick without first copying them to the iPad (Super if you are running out of storage space on your iPad!).

What’s Not:

On the iOS side, things are not quite as simple as they are on the computer. You need to install the (free) iStick app on every iOS device that you want to use the iStick with. Working with Photos and movies is straightforward enough.  Within the iStick app you see a “Photo Library” folder. That shows you all the Photos and Videos on your iPad, which you can then easily copy to your iStick.  For other documents, however, the process is clumsy and slow. You need to first open the document in the app that created it (say, Pages) then choose “Open in” and select iStick.  Then you need to open the iStick app (on the iPad),  select “iPad” (or “iPhone”), navigate to the inbox folder, select the file and chose to move it to the Documents folder (still within the “iPad” tab of the iStick app on the iPad).  THEN (if you haven’t given up by now) you insert the iStick USB thumb drive, navigate to the Documents folder in the iStick app, and choose to move the file from there to the iStick. Once you have done that, it’s simple to drag it off onto your computer as you would with any USB thumb drive, but the process of moving documents to the iStick is horrendous!

My advice:

• If you want to shift large videos or photos between devices quickly and avoid doing this over Wi-Fi – this is a great solution.  It would allow your students to create movie projects on their individual iPads, and then you could pass the iStick around and they could all copy their finished product to it.
• If you want to increase the storage space on your iPad – because perhaps you have a model with only 16GB – again this is a great solution because you can store movies on the iStick and still play them from there without first having to copy them back to the iPad.  If you were to move the videos off your iPad any other way (Eg. upload them to Dropbox) you would then have to re-download them before watching them!
• If you are travelling, and want a way to back up the photos and movies you are taking – or to transfer them from your iPhone to your iPad in the absence of Wi-Fi – it’s great!
• But if you were hoping to use the iStick to conveniently shuttle all kinds of miscellaneous files – PDFs, text documents etc – between iOS devices like you are accustomed to doing with USB thumb-drives and computers … forget it!  Sure, you can move files that way. (It’s not that it doesn’t work, per sé) – but the process is so graceless that you’d be better off attaching your files to a self-addressed email!

Handwriting on an iPad – My Recommendations for Apps and Styli

 

Two years ago, I wrote this post about my search for the best handwriting tools for the iPad.  I reviewed both software (notebook apps in which to write), and styli (pens with which to write).

In summary, I recommended Noteshelf as my app of choice, and the Adonit Jot Flip Stylus as the best stylus.

Twenty-four months later, have I changed my mind?

Yes and no.

First, the Apps.

Most of the apps I reviewed have been updated and improved since I wrote that post.  I still think Noteshelf is the best of them. It is still much the same as it was but has made significant improvements.  The most notable improvement is that there is now an option to create notebooks that automatically sync with Evernote (as Penultimate did two years ago).  Unlike Penultimate, though, you can turn this feature on or off on a per-notebook basis.  I have one notebook that automatically syncs to Evernote. I use that one for quick notes, detailing phone conversations, etc.  It works great.  All other notebooks I prefer to sync manually when I am ready to sync, rather than continuously in the background.

The other feature I previously wrote about preferring in Penultimate, was the way it handles cut and paste using a lasso-drag-tap feature.  It’s incredibly cool and useful. Noteshelf now has that feature too.

I still think Noteshelf is the most responsive and accurate notebook app, with the best set of features. Not the cheapest (Penultimate and some others are free) but the best – even more clearly so than it was two years ago.

Second, the Styli

I still love the Adonit Jot Flip – and it’s still the stylus I turn to when I want to scribble notes on my iPad.  It’s just fantastic. It does have two significant shortcomings though.

1. It really is not an appropriate choice for kids – because that little clear plastic disk is just too easy to break/lose. So is the screw-on cap.
2. It’s no good if you are using a stylus to record a screencast in an app like Explain Everything, Educreations or Collaaj, because the app records the ‘tap-tap’ sounds of the hard plastic disk striking the glass and it’s quite distracting.

I’ve  tried a number of new styli since writing that original post.  Most significantly, I bought the Evernote edition Adonit Jot Script stylus (for more than AU$119), which features a fine nib – the idea of which really excited me.  More recently I’ve tried the Edugrip App Pencil.

Adonit Jot Script

I hate it.  If you are thinking of buying one of these, my advice is to borrow one and try it out first.  Maybe it’s just my handwriting style or something, but I find it laggy, unresponsive and inaccurate.  It requires AA batteries, needs to be switched on each time I want to use it, and needs to be synced via Bluetooth LE to the iPad.   I find the experience annoying, and my handwriting is not even nearly as neat as it is in any other stylus I’ve used! That’s just too much compromise to make for a fine point. Plus there is no pocket clip, no ball-point pen in the back, and compared to the Adonit Jot Flip, it feels cheap and plasticy, and it’s more than twice as expensive! Like the Adonit Jot Flip, it makes an audible “tap” when it touches the glass, so it’s no more appropriate for use in screencasting.  I never use it for anything.  I only keep it so I can show people who are thinking of buying one why they shouldn’t.

App Pencil

This stylus is a new offering, with an unashamedly educational focus.  The App Pencil is actually quite great for its intended market.  It’s basic, robust and inexpensive ($15).

It features a triangular transverse section (like those big grey-lead pencils kids use when they are learning to write) and the material is a sort of dense rubber – so it’s super-comfortable to hold.  It is all in one piece; there is no cap to lose, no plastic disk to break off.  “Unbreakable” and “Child” are two words that can’t be used together.  Nothing can withstand a determined kid, but i think this is about as resilient as a stylus could be expected to be!

What I really like about the App Pencil though, is that writing with it feels surprisingly good.  Most styli I’ve tried that have a rubber tip like this, are hard to write with because the rubber drags over the glass and feels blunt and numb.  I liken it to writing with an eraser. But the App Pencil feels better than most; it slides relatively smoothly over the glass.

Like all styli with blunt, rounded tips, it’s hard to form small characters (because you can’t see the point on the screen where the line is being formed) but for typical note-taking, diagram labelling, etc., it’s a pretty good experience.

The App Pencil has a rubber loop at the back end, that could be use to tie it with a string to the iPad (assuming the iPad has a case that provides something to tie it to).

I wish App Pencil were triangular along it’s entire length, so that it wouldn’t roll, but the ends are circular in transverse section, which means that it easily rolls across the desk.  (not that it will break, though, it just bounces when it hits the floor).

Edugrip claims that the App Pencil works with all Apple and Android tablets except the iPad Air.  That said, I have an iPad Air and it seems to work just fine for me.

It will be the stylus I use when screencasting with Explain Everything.  I’d also recommend it to any teacher planning to booklist a stylus for students to use at school.

Install Fonts on Your iPad

Have you ever crafted a Keynote slide or Pages document on your computer, thoughtfully selecting the perfect font, only to find that when you open the document on your iPad you are greeted with the message:

“The font FortuneCookie is missing.  Your text might look different.”

This morning I made a slide in Keynote on my Mac, and chose the font FortuneCookie.  My iPad replaced FortuneCookie with Helvetica Neue – a nice enough font but not the one I had chosen!

Or perhaps you are just bored by the small selection of fonts on the iPad and want to add a few.

Unknown to many people, it’s actually quite easy to install additional fonts on your iPad.  Start by downloading AnyFont ($2.49)

Fig 1. iTunes on my Mac, Showing the File Sharing section within the Apps tab, of the iPad.

Then connect your iPad to your computer, open iTunes, select your iPad in the devices list, click the Apps tab at the top, and scroll down to the File Sharing section.  Within the File Sharing section, you will see a list of all the apps that are available for file sharing.  Select AnyFont from that list, as shown in Fig 1.

Drag any true type font (.ttf) or open type (.otf) or true type collection (.ttc) from your computer to the left-hand pane titled “AnyFont Documents”.  If you have just installed AnyFont this pane of the window will be empty.  You can see that I have added 14 fonts.

Fig 2. Close up view of the AnyFont app on the iPad, with FortuneCookie.ttf selected. Tap the large icon to begin installing.

Now you can close iTunes on your computer and disconnect your iPad.  Open the AnyFont app on your iPad, and tap the font(s) you have just added.  The app will take you through a few steps to install the font.  (These steps feel unusual as you are doing them, but they are quite easy and safe).

That done, open an app such as Pages, and format some text and you will now see that your new font is available to use.

Fig 3. My Keynote slide, looking nice with the font FortuneCookie.

That’s all there is to it.  Now you can make your presentations and documents look as nice on your iPad as you can on your Mac.

Finally! Record the Screen of Your iPad in Any App, with Narration.

Yesterday X-Mirage added the ability to record not only your iPad screen and audio via Airplay, but also your voice narration.  I’ve been waiting for someone to implement this for ages.

First, Before we get to the details, here’s a little video I made to demonstrate how good the result is.

I’m a fan of iPad screencasting apps like Educreations, Collaaj and Explain Everything, but the limitation on all these apps is that they can only record within the app itself, due to Apple’s sandboxing policy. In other words you can’t use Explain Everything to make a video tutorial about how to change settings in the Settings app, or how to create an eBook in Book Creator or how to write a formula in Numbers or Excel.  Nor can you use them in combination with a content-based app to make a screencast explaining a topic.

X-Mirage is not the first computer application to allow video mirroring from an iOS device. It’s not even the first to provide a video recording function. In fact, both AirServer and Reflector have made this possible for some time now. But X-Mirage does something these others don’t. [Edit: actually AirServer has recently added this functionality too]. It allows you, via your computer’s microphone, to simultaneously record your voice. Now you can simply work on your iPad and describe what you are doing, and X-Mirage captures it all!. When you are finished, the video and two audio tracks are mixed down into an MP4 video and saved to your computer. [It seems that this is only possible on a Mac at this stage. The PC version of both X-Mirage and AirServer will record iPad video and audio, but not your voice – sorry PC users].

X-Mirage is remarkably simple to use. With your iPad and computer connected to the same WiFi network, Launch X-Mirage on your computer, then swipe up from the bottom bezel of your iPad to bring up the Control Centre. Tap the AirPlay button at the bottom of the Control Centre, and choose the X-Mirage option and toggle mirroring to ‘on’. You will then see your iPad screen mirrored to your computer.

To start recording, click the (quite obvious) red ‘Record’ button at the right edge of the window. To record your microphone as well, you also need to click the smaller microphone button immediately to it’s left. That’s in fact the only part of this process that is anything less than child’s play – you have to click both those buttons when you start recording. First you need to start the video recording, and then once that is going, click the microphone button to start recording your voice.

Because X-Mirage uses your Mac’s microphone (not the microphone in your iPad) you do need to be aware of your computer’s proximity (Ie. you can’t be walking around with your iPad while recording). The upside of this, however is that if you have a good external microphone attached to your Mac, your screencast’s audio will benefit from better sound quality than if X-Mirage recorded from the iPad’s microphone directly.

X-Mirage is $16 with discounted educational pricing available from the website.

Even at the full price, It’s well worth the money (in my opinion).

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PS. I do know that it’s possible to use Reflector (or AirServer) to mirror an iPad screen to a computer, then simultaneously use some other screencasting software on the computer to record what Reflector was displaying – I’ve done that myself a number of times.  It’s a lot of mucking around, though, and for all that effort you have to really want to make a screencast for it to be worth the effort!

 

Make screencasts interactive with eduCanon

I’m daily investigating teaching tools in the hope of finding one that gives me the dopamine hit I get from discovering a really great one. Every once in a while, something comes onto my radar that immediately stimulates my brain’s reward and pleasure centres. That’s what eduCanon did.

Like most great ideas, eduCanon is based around a really simple concept; it really only does one thing – but it does that one thing very well. It allows you to embed questions into any screencast (or any video for that matter) hosted on YouTube, Vimeo or TeacherTube, and it tracks your student’s responses to them.

As students watch the video (from within eduCanon), and the playhead reaches the time marker at which you’ve inserted a question, the video automatically pauses, and the question slides in from the left. Once the student has read and answered the question, she clicks “Submit”. Then your explanation appears, either explaining why the response they chose was incorrect, or confirming that it was correct. On clicking the “Continue” button, the video automatically resumes playing until the next question is reached. It’s really quite a fantastic thing to add to your video lessons, helping students to stay focussed and leaning forward while watching.

Because eduCanon uses HTML5, rather than Flash, playback works great on an iPad, too.

The first time students watch a video, they are unable to skip through the video; they have to watch the whole thing from start to finish and attempt every question. Once they have watched it once, however, they are then able to come back at a later date and skip around the video reviewing specific parts. This is useful if (say) they understand the introductory concepts in a video, but want to review more sophisticated concepts toward the end.

The process of building questions into your video is utterly friction-free (that’s one of the things that impressed me most about it). You paste in the URL of the video, then watch it play. When it gets to a point at which you want to ask a question, you simply click the “Build Question” button. Then you type in the question, two or more (multiple choice) answers, click the radio button beside the correct answer, type in an explanation for each of the multiple responses, and click the “Save Question” button. Simple!

You have the option of publishing your videos as “public” which means you can share them with anyone to use for personal learning/revision. If you would like to see it in action, have a look at this sample which I have published as a public video. The answers people choose in a public video are not collected by eduCanon.

The real magic happens though, when students link to you (using your teacher code). You can assign a video to the class, and then eduCanon collects data for you on your class’ completion of the task and their responses to your questions.

One of the most commonly asked questions I receive about flipped and blended learning is “How can you know if your students have watched the video?”. Well, this is one way to know!

I think it’s remarkable that all of those features are 100% free! (and that includes add-free). An optional “premium” subscription ($48/year) gives you additional features, such as the ability to export your class data as a .csv file so you can import it into your own class record-keeping software or Excel spreadsheet. A premium subscription also gives you the ability to create free response questions (whereas the free version only allows multiple choice questions).

Verdict: This is the most exciting new web 2.0 platform I’ve found this year so far. I’d recommend it for anyone who makes screencasts or educational videos for their class.  The small investment of time required to type in the questions should see a big payoff in student engagement.

Collaaj for iPad – An Impressive New Screencasting App to Rival Explain Everything

Since I first saw Explain Everything I have been a fan – sharing it with teachers everywhere I go.  In my opinion it has long been the clear winner in the iPad screencasting space, which is also occupied by Educreations and ShowMe.   In my opinion, price aside, Explain Everything is better in almost* every way than Educreations and ShowMe.

Now… there’s a new kid on the block, turning heads – and recording it!

Collaaj’s compelling feature.

Collaj lets you record your webcam video at the same time as you record the screen!  As far as I know, no other screencasting app (on the iPad) allows this.  Explain Everything, ShowMe and Educreations allow you to record your iPad’s screen and your voice narration, but students can’t see you speaking to them.  in Collaj If you tap the camera icon in the sidebar, voila! your face appears in a little window on the screen.  This can be repositioned if it’s not in the place you want it.  You can even move it during the recording – if you want to write on the part of the screen occupied by the webcam video.  That is pretty cool.   I love this feature because I think one of the shortcomings  of the ‘flipped learning model’ is that video explanations can loose a little bit of humanity.   Our brains are hard-wired to respond to the human face.  Seeing the face of the person speaking to you somehow makes the experience of listening to an explanation more personally accessible.

That is Collaaj’s  winning feature.  It’s a very compelling one.   But in most* other respects I think Explain Everything is still ahead.  The two possible exceptions to this are in the price, and in the video sharing options.  The school context will influence your choice here.

Note: since posting this, a reader has pointed out to me in the comments (see below) that it is, in fact, possible to record your webcam in Explain Everything.  The process is a little more convoluted but it certainly works!  Thanks for that Reshan!

*Sharing your screencasts.

Explain Everything is great if you want to share your video via YouTube, Vimeo, etc as you can easily do this right from the app.  Collaaj, ShowMe and Educreations allow you to upload the video to a private server provided by the app, and then share a link with your students.  Personally I prefer to use YouTube, but in some schools YouTube is blocked and so the “in house” option may be preferable there.  Once you have recorded your video and saved it, it goes into the Collaaj library within the app and from there you can upload it to the Collaaj server and then share a link with your students.

Slide Number

Explain Everything allows you to make multiple slides and navigate through them while you are recording – much more like using an interactive whiteboard.  Educreations, ShowMe and Collaaj each allow you to record just one screen at a time.

Laser Pointer

One feature I really like about Explain Everything is the laser pointer tool.   When I am explaining a concept, and using a diagram or graph to do so, I don’t necessarily want to write on the graph – and doing so always feels just a little bit clumsy.  Oftentimes, I just want my viewer to look at a part of the diagram.  I find the laser pointer a much more efficient tool for this than simply a pen tool.  None of the other three apps have a laser pointer tool.

Zoom

Another great feature of Explain Everything is the zoom tool (indicated by a magnifying glass).  It lets you pinch-to-zoom on part of the diagram so that you can focus on just one feature, then zoom out to look at the whole diagram once more for context.  I really like that feature and wish that Collaaj would implement it.

Fit and finish

When it comes to polish, Explain Everything is still far and away the best of the three.  Educreations and ShowMe just look a bit to plain and basic, and lack functionality in comparison.  Collaaj is kind of buggy.  You can tell it’s new in this space.  As an example, while importing images from DropBox is apparently supported – I can’t get it to work for me.

Price

All these apps are free, except Explain Everything which is $2.99.

The Verdict?

I’m torn.  I love Explain Everything.  I love the finesse with which the tools work, I love the fact that I can upload my videos straight to YouTube,  I really love the laser pointer and zoom functions.  If only it had the ability to record my webcam video like Collaaj does there would be no question as to which to use!  in the meanwhile I’m really liking Collaaj because it brings something to the iPad that has been missing.

Edit: Again, thanks to Reshan’s helpful contribution, I’m back to Explain Everything.  🙂

Three Solutions for Combining Videos from Multiple iPads

Who’d have thought it could be so difficult?

A couple of weeks ago I ran an iPad workshop for teachers.  One of the participants, Judith, raised an interesting problem that stumped me.  I promised to find her a solution.  This blog post represents the fulfilment of that promise.

The Problem

Judith wanted to be able to have several students record video on their own iPads, then copy those separate videos to one student’s iPad and there, combine into a single file in iMovie.  That doesn’t sound like it would be too hard, now, does it?

The problem it turns out is that you can’t get a video into iMovie unless it is in the iPad’s camera roll.  Getting a video into the cameral roll is (stunningly) problematic.  Copying it into iMovie via iTunes’ File Sharing window on a computer doesn’t work. Neither does emailing it from one iPad to another.  You can of course send the video to an iPad via email, Dropbox, GoodReader, Documents, File Storage or any one of a number of other apps – but this doesn’t get it into the camera roll – which means you can watch the video in the app that contains it – but it doesn’t show up in iMovie.

I spent several hours on Google and Apple’s support forums, etc.  That got me nowhere.

Twitter got me further.  In fact a number of my tweeps were very helpful and offered suggestions that worked.   Many of these, however did require the use of a computer as an intermediary between the two iPads.   I was really looking for a way for two students equipped with iPads only, to share their videos.

Since then, I have done a bit more experimentation myself (and purchased numerous apps).  Out of all that, I present what I consider the best three solutions.  Each works well and each has advantages and disadvantages.

1. BOX

(Kudos to Heather Bailie @hebailie for this)   This was the first solution suggested that worked!  Box.com is very like DropBox. Students can upload their videos to their free Box accounts via the Box app and share them with each other.  They can then download each others’ videos to their own box account and then in Box there is an option to save the video to the photo roll on the iPad (this option is not available in DropBox and others).  Once it is there on the camera roll it will be visible within iMovie.

Advantage:  It’s free.

Disadvantage: The video data is uploaded and downloaded via the internet, which makes the process slow and since videos tend to be large files, this will also be an issue for the bandwidth-impaired.

2. APPLE’S CAMERA CONNECTION KIT

Mr. Barlow @mrbarlow suggested a stirling solution which is to use the Apple iPad camera connection kit.  For $35 this stupidly overpriced little piece of plastic lets you connect a Digital camera to your iPad and transfer your photos to your iPad’s camera roll.   The nifty thing Mr Barlow pointed out is that this also works between two iPads.  In other words, you can connect one iPad to another and transfer the photos and videos from the camera roll of the first to that of the second.  That works very well, and is very fast.

Advantages:  It’s fast.  It works simply, without installing anything or setting anything up.

Disadvantages:  You have to buy the connector for $35.  Only one pair of students can use it at a time.  It’s so diminutive an item that you are likely to lose it.  If some of your students have iPad 3 and some have iPad 4 or iPad mini you will also need to buy a lightning to 30-pin adaptor (another $35) – bringing the total cost to $70.

3. Photo Transfer WiFi

Just this week Simplex Solutions released an awesome new app – Photo Transfer WiFi that is exactly what I was looking for! This really nice universal app is just $2.99.  Once the app is installed and open on two iPads, they see each other, once their passwords are shared, the two can simply send photos and videos to each others’ camera rolls.  It’s a thing of beauty and simplicity.   Unlike using the Box solution, it doesn’t send the files through the internet – so it’s much faster.  And unlike the Apple Camera Connector Kit, several groups can be doing this at the same time.

Advantages:  It’s fast.  It doesn’t use the internet, just WiFi.  It’s got a very intuitive interface (unlike many other apps I tried).  It’s affordable.

Disadvantages: There really are none – except that it’s not free.  But this developer deserves every cent he earns.

If you have another solution, I’d sure love to hear about it.  Please share it in the comments below.

Students can now conveniently publish podcasts directly from an iPad app

Some time ago I posted about iPadio a web service that for years has been a key part of my students’ toolkit.  iPadio allows a student to record a podcast (aka “phonecast” or “phlog”) directly to the internet, for free, from an ordinary landline or mobile telephone.  In my experience this is a really easy, no-fuss way to get students to publish their learning orally, anywhere, anytime they have a phone at their disposal.

The service also provides the ability to automatically cross-post phonecasts to iTunes, Facebook or a class blog.  That’s what I had my students do, so that my students and I didn’t have to visit 25 different websites to listen to each others’ phlogs).

I was excited to recently get an email from iPadio, announcing that they have finally released an iPad app which means students, armed with an iPad and having an internet connection can now record and publish a podcast conveniently from the classroom.  The app is incredibly simple to use and the sound quality is excellent because unlike iPadio’s free phone service, the audio is recorded on the iPad at a relatively high bitrate and  subsequently uploaded (rather than using the phone network in real time).

The iPadio app is free and available from the iTunes app store.  It is necessary for students to create a free account to use the service and they should be reminded to take appropriate cybersafety precautions, remembering that their iPadio page and the podcasts on it will be available to the public.

iPad Microscopy

Being a science teacher, I have been experimenting with my iPad, trying to find a way of taking photos through the lens of an ordinary student microscope.  Science teachers whose students own iPads, will immediately see the benefit of this.  Rather than drawing what they see, students can take a photograph, and then import that into another app on the iPad to incorporate into a project.

The difficulty lies in (a) holding the iPad still enough to avoid motion blur, (b) lining the camera lens up with the microscope’s subjective lens (an alignment that must be exact) and (c), holding the iPad the right distance (about 4 mm) away from the microscope lens for the image to be in focus.  It’s not hard to glimpse a fleeting clear image, but holding that precise pose long enough to press the shutter button is frustratingly challenging!

The first time I tried to do this I did manage to get a good photo – but it took me ten minutes of trying!  That is not realistic in a classroom with year 9 students, who may not be as patient as I am!   Patience may be a virtue that we should encourage in our students – but I don’t have time for that!  What I really want is a simple solution that will work 100% of the time.

The solution I found is really simple.  It’s a $2 app called Fast Camera.  Fast camera shoots photos faster than an assault rifle shoots bullets!  I measured 720 photos per minute! (whereas an AK-47 fires a meagre 600 rounds per minute).  You hit the camera button and click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click… it goes.  With the camera firing like that, you can hold the iPad above the microscope lens, and move it slowly around until a clear image makes its momentary appearance.   Once it does, you can stop the camera, leaf through the hundreds of thumbnails, and choose the best one to save to the iPad’s photo roll.  The other several hundred ‘mis-fires’ can be deleted at the click of a button.

Once you have a great photo in your iPad’s photo roll, it can be imported, just like any other photo, into other apps like Pages, Explain Everything or NoteShelf for comment and annotation.

Photo imported and annotated in NoteShelf

Pretty cool, huh?