Again like last week this app is not new. In fact I have been using the web based version of Fotobabble for a number of years. But as I said in my recent article for Edudemic Magazine, this app is the kind of classroom resource that will make the technology disappear and the learning happen.
In a nutshell, Fotobbble for those of you who have not used it allows you to take a photo on your iOS device, you can then edit it, even add annotations and then you can add your voice. Then with a simple click the file, providing you have set up an account on the website is uploaded to fotobabble. Once there the file can then be embedded into the location of your choice, wiki, blog, LMS website etc. This has so many classroom based connotations that it is a wonder that it is not more universally used in class. I was working in a Year 1 and a year 3 class last week, I introduced Fotobabble to them for the first time and you can see how easily they took to the app in this video:
Audioboo is not a new service or a new app, but it is a good app. It is a great tool to use on your iOS devices and also as a web based service to capture student voice. And for that reason it is a winner, it can be used everywhere and when you do you are in good company. Stephen Fry uses Audioboo as does the BBC.
It is not necessary to set up an account with Audioboo to record your students’ voices. However if you do all of your “boos,” as they are known, will be collated into one place and on the Audioboo site you can create your own channel. If you use the same account on your iOS devices the students can simply record and upload in a matter of two or three clicks, the technology and the app become transparent, which is what makes for excellent blended elearning in a class. I was using Audioboo in a class last week and the students were working on a range of devices with ease.
With Audioboo you can use it in the classroom in so many ways that they are almost too numerous to mention. However I have used it as a running reading record for students and also as a resource for students to listen to their own reading and to set their own goals. With only three minutes of recording time on the free account available to you, the students have to learn not to waffle or to pause their recordings. It is a great tool to use to capture student thoughts, ideas and concepts and use these recordings to scaffold later work.
In short this app is what good elearning tools should be, greater than the sum of its parts, simple to use, transparent. Oh and its free!
Draw Something is the latest craze in the world of iOS and Android apps. If you have not heard about it the basic premise is that you are given three words to choose from, you then have to draw the word and share your drawing with your friends, who then have to guess the word associated with your drawing. To help, you are given a selection of scrambled letter tiles which include all the letters needed for the word you are trying to decypher from the image plus some others. A screen looks like the following:
Draw Something Screen Shot
The purpose of the game is to earn coins which will enable you to unlock more colours to make your drawings more varied. However this is not the point for education. I think that this game, could be used as fantastic literacy warm up activity for students of any age. Students could all be able to set challenges for each other, so in one session a student could pick up a challenge from one student, guess it and then set another challenge for someone else. All of which would take less than 5 minutes. Using this game in class is a good example of using tablet devices to do more than busy work. By setting word challenges that have to be solved as an image, children are forced to think in terms of homonyms, to think of visual puns and the recipient of the challenge has to do this too and also has the added chalenge of using the letters to decypher anangrams. All of which are higher order thinking skills and make children focus on the meanings of words, great for vocabulary building and fun to boot.
As you earn more coins you can also unlock more words which get progressively harder and each challenge is graded as a one, two or three coin challenge. I have been playing this game with four others for a couple of weeks now and in all of that time I have only found one word which may cause some slight concern for a teacher and hilarity for the students. This app is a good example of how a tablet, or iOS device can be integrated into an existing class programme and have identified learning outcomes related to the curriculum and at the same time engage students in a task they will find engaging and authentic.
Today I had my first play with an iPad. I have been building up reservations about it in the days prior. Comments from Fiona in the last post pointed out that the unit is a content reciever and not a content creator. Content creation and publishing is what we want for education. The chatter seems to be more about what it can not do and what it is lacking, rather than what it can do. Today I tried to use tools such as http://vocaroo.com and http://fotobabble.com and the lack of an Adobe Flash facility on the iPad rendered these sites useless. However, on the fotobabble page I was prompted to download the fotobabble app from the app store. Online tools such as Vocaroo and Fotobabble are brilliant for students to create and publish content quickly and would be the kind of utilities that I would want to use with a tool so mobile as the iPad.
It is the locked in nature of it that worries me, all programs to be installed on the iPad will either be created or vetted by Apple. Today as part of the discussions about its functionality for education purposes, or lack of it, we were developing workarounds using Drop Box etc. These solutions are clunky at best. The iPad can not surf freely due to the Flash embargo, maybe I am missing the functionality point here and am wanting to bend the device to meet a need it was never intended to meet, but still, not supporting Flash? I have heard that Google docs can be viewed but not edited, what is the reasoning behind this? I had hoped that this tool would prove to be a boon for education, but in this first iteration it is too locked down, why I am not sure, other than pandering to my dark Orwellian marketing theories that I could entertain on behalf of Apple.
If the machine can enable content creation, if the installation of third party software via the Internet is enabled, if open surfing to Flash enabled sites occurs, if it gets a camera and a USB port, the iPad still has the potential to be a real winner. As you can see from my images it is smaller than an average NZ school exercise book and almost as thick, it is light and very intuitive to use the tools and apps we have been allowed to install were fun, but not educationally significant, early days I know. I liked it. I liked its feel, weight and interface. It lacks the educational substance, and freedom that I personally desire. But who knows by the time the 3rd black sweatered and overly orchestrated launch comes round it might be a tool that has education potential without clunky work arounds.
I am working in two different schools tomorrow. In the morning I am working with teachers on an induction programme I have developed to get new staff up to speed with the systems and technologies specific to that school. The aim of the programme is to ensure that the individual teachers get up to speed as fast as they can, to ensure that students do not experience a time and service delivery lag as one teacher swaps out of a class and a new one walks in.
In the afternoon I start working with a new client. We will be working on their e-learning initiatives for the rest of the year and specifically focusing on 2011. We will be starting the ball rolling by getting the e-learning policies and proceedures in place. Getting the foundation right is critical for e-learning success and again I have developed a range of tools to guide senior management through this process.
However, our afternoon is likely to be hugely overshadowed by the new iPad that the school has just purchased via the US. The school and I are very keen to see how we can exploit this tool for the education market and we believe that we are the first school in NZ to implement this tool. I have already been approached by an iPhone developer who is keen to also develop apps that can be distributed via the app store education specific software tailored for the iPad. Tomorrow should be fun.
As you know I regularly write for Interface Magazine and my latest article in the latest issue has just been published and by pure serendipity, Apple have also published their newest advert for the iPad at the same time. The article I wrote focuses on the iPad (not sure I like the name) and its potential (and all the touch screen cloners to follow) to be THE education tool for e-learning. Not that it was designed for that purpose, but it is so obviously a winner concept in the classroom that this technology is sure to revolutionise the e-learning landscape for the years to come. Roll on the roll out in New Zealand.
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