I have recently initiated a new website called iPhone in Ed related to the relevance of iPhones as 21C learning tools. iPhone in Education aims to collate, review and categorise applications made for the iPhone and specifically useful in teaching and learning.
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Alas, quite a few Mac related things have been ticking over in my mind. Or is this an open letter to Jonathan Ive? I’ve fantasised about iPhones place in education before; I’ve also publicly fantasised about ePortfolios before - please indulge me again.
Recently I attended a seminar by Professor Richard Kimbell from, Director of Technology Education Research Unit, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. This seminar provided an opportunity for educators in W.A. to learn about the use of PDAs and other digital technologies to support assessment. The event was summarised thus:
Embedding ICT across the curriculum (i.e. getting it out of ICT suites) has been a notoriously difficult and frequently unsuccessful enterprise. Embedding ICT into assessment practice might therefore be thought to be even more tricky. The use of mobile / hand-held digital technologies transforms the debate and makes possible a complete re-visioning of the teaching/learning/assessing relationship. The e-scape pilot (just completed in 15 schools) provides glimpses into the possible futures for e-assessment.
....... continue readingiPhone is perfect for ePortfolios!.
It contains 798 words, 3 images = an estimated 3:12 mins reading time.
I spent some time in University making videos in 3D - a laborious process in Strata Studio Pro in 1997 where renders would take up to 36 hours for 30 seconds of footage. Such time did the G3 266GHz PowerMacs take to render that my team would take turns sleeping in the lab trying to make sure renders were complete.
With Kahootz 3 out around town and freeware like Blender 2.46 kicking around too, there has never been a better time to get into 3D if your a school student. The 3D and CG industry is booming worldwide. And not just for games - in industry too. In WA 3D companies are commanding high prices for their immersive works.
Version 2.46 of Blender supports a new particle system with hair and fur combing tools, fast and optimal fur rendering, a mesh deformation system for advanced character rigging, cloth simulation, fast Ambient Occlusion, a new Image browser, and that’s just the beginning. Check the extensive list of features here … have fun!
I am having a hard time using a digital projector on an iMac running Tiger. I can make it work on the OSX side but I can not make the projector connect on the Windows side. Any ideas? Thanks! Kris
My friends at Inspiration have asked me about what teachers in Australia are currently doing with Kidspiration and Inspiration. They are interested in publishing a few paragraphs about what people are doing and links to their files if you want to share them. If anyone at MICTi is interested or know of someone who is drop me a line ASAP. Many thanks in advance. cheers Greg E: gregalchin@mac.com
Thanks to Peter Murray from Apple for hosting the session at Mt Lawley Senior High School in Perth, Western Australia today. It is great to see so many educators interested in the learning that can occur through the communicative and creative potential of Macs.
Here are links to the tools I did a show n’ tell on today - I’d just like to remind you that some of them are still in beta
Pixelmator, the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images. (Update: this software is in locked beta - thanks Brett and Steve) Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac. Pixen is like a very powerful MSPaint or a simpler, more agile Photoshop. And best of all, it’s Free!
Kahootz is an eduational Software application that allows students aged 5-18 to create their own 3d content. Share designs with schools around the world.
PhotoPresenter offers many gorgeous styles to create animated slideshows with amazing effects.
Jing: the concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.
Virtue Desktops allows you to achieve similar to what Apple Spaces will do when Leopard arrives in October.
Skitch is the Internet age’s Camera and it Rocks! The best screenshot tool in the world from the team that brought you ComicLife.
....... continue reading8 great Mac Apps for Ed.
It contains 309 words, 9 images = an estimated 1:14 mins reading time.
Jenny Ashby has organised a MacEdders online conference on Wed Aug 8th at 7:00pm Melbourne time. As this is an online event using Elluminate you can attend from home as long as you have internet connection. Around 50 Macedders have registered. Elluminate - a Live eLearning solution & collaboration software - is a fabulously immersive web conferencing tool that certainly has to be experienced to be believe.
Please contact Jenny if you’d like to join in the conference. Jenny’s latest BEAUT podcast also has a plug for the conference and more information about what each presenter is talking about. Check it out: BEAUT Podcast 15
Radiologik is a freeware DJ tool that would be of interest to teachers and students alike. I remember when my students produced three CDs of music in GarageBand for the school International Food Day.
This would have been a great way to broadcast interviews with the creators of the “world music” themed tunes in between the tracks.
Radiologik is a set of two programs that seeks to address the specific needs of radio broadcasting in an accessible and focused way.
It is being developed for LPFMs, online streaming radio stations, and school radio stations and it should grow to support commercial operations over the next year.
The DJ portion is ready for prime-time now and along with the scheduler (now in public beta testing) you can have a fully-automated station.
Another for the toolkit is ReelBean. Handy if your students are using their mobile phones to capture video. The .3gp files can be converted to other formats with this and converted back for moblie phones. The ReelBean website details:
ReelBean is a movie converter and player offering many features that are normally only available in expensive pro video applications. Most of ReelBean’s features are available for free.
ReelBean allows you to export your videos to many different video and audio formats, edit videos, extract sections of audio and video into separate files, and displays detailed video information and properties panels. It can be used to extract the audio from a movie and export it directly into iTunes. Individual frames or image sequences from movies can also be saved as image files.
Thanks to Bronwen for bringing to my attention Skitch - the latest highly intuitive tool from the guys at Plasq. ICTs that have *FUN FOR ALL AGES* written all over them are hard to find. Three years ago when Comic Life appeared on the Mac platform it became a quick way to show the amazing simplicity of the OS X interface and the iLife suite integration. Apple loved it so much they began include it free on most Macs. Last month Plasq announced a ComicLife beta for Windows. The Windows beta of ComicLife is currently down but will be up again soon. Treat your Windows using pals to a nice UI! First time users are regularly amazed at the ease of use Comic Life provides. Skitch has a similar “wow why hasn’t anyone done this b4?” factor. For Skitch sign up is req’d to try the beta - I don’t have any invites yet but Plasq promises more soon. Please email me and I’ll pass one on. Possible uses of Skitch in the classroom:
Quick screen-cap and draw function has the most immediately obvious use in an educational setting.
The UI offers many neat features like not having to select the text tool - just start typing.
Web-sharing across schools and annotating resources and user-guides.
Using iSight to capture live video shots that one can scribble and jot on.
Re-size and crop by simply dragging a corner + all sketches are vector and scaleable.
....... continue readingSkitch in the classroom.
It contains 425 words, 1 image = an estimated 1:42 mins reading time.
Every year as a part of Universal Children’s Day Graeme Johnston of Coomera Primary School organises the fantastic “Dream A Better World” film festival. So get your iLife suites warmed up and get creating! From Graeme via the MacEd list:
Just a reminder that the 7th annual ‘Dream A Better World’ Film Festival for Australian Primary Schools is on again in 2007 - 2nd December at Dreamworld.
Just enter a 3 min film made by your class, with some teacher guidance, on an environmental or humanitarian theme and enter it in the festival.
Great prizes on offer from our sponsors and also a great way to showcase your kids skills and talents. All levels of “experience” welcome. By the way most entries are made on macs.
Chris Parcel: iStudyToGo is a cool application that lets you put your school notes on your iPod. It is designed specifically for students studying for the SAT and comes with 5000 preloaded SAT words.
Raul Erazo: Can someone explain how you are using iphones in teaching math? I am interested in cathing up with this trend….
Paul Reid: G’day Kris, commonly in XP you need to toggle with the ATI control panel to get the correct settings. There are more complicated ways of fixing BootCamp projector use for Vista here:...
Lee: that was pretty cool I never used the script editor never new what it was. Can u do that with any other applications??
Kyrne Holloway: I would like to suggest iShowU as an alternative to Snapz Pro as it provides a lot of control over compression settings for the movie you create. School-House is very good. People may be interested in...
Steve Adcock: Just letting you know that Pixelmator is out of Beta is no longer available until it is for sale. For virtualisation, I just wanted to add Crossover http://www.codeweavers.com/pro ducts/cxmac/ which is...
Brett Moller: A great list of apps… May I add Snapz Pro for screen captures etc… Used it recently for a lesson I did with my students that was captured then added as a podcast. An overview of this is on my...
Paul Reid: A big thank you to Jenny Ashby for hosting tonights Macedders conference. Also to Martin Levins and Andrew Douche for their thought provoking presentations. And most of all to the 29 participants for their...
Beth G: Happy to hear you are using Elluminate Live! for your online conference. Please pass on to your attendees that they can use the technology for free with Elluminate vRoom. It’s our free, 3-user virtual room...
Jenny Ashby: Thanks Paul. It certainly is heating up with lots of people registering and excitement building for the night. What a great way to attend a conference. No travel, no time wasted and in comfort. There is still...
Paul Reid: Mark Prensky has some clear ideas on how mobile phones might be used in education here: http://www.marcprensky.com/blo g/archives/000043.html
Judy OConnell: Glad to have you on board David! I’m sure there’ll be lots of ways you can provide input..the younger, the merrier! Cheers.
Steve Adcock: Good One Judy. Its definitely better than Grab and having to use Preview to change picture formats. Nice find. STeve
Steve Adcock: Departments of Education across Australia enforce policy and often the technology policies are never updated quick enough. At pesent in WA schools, in terms of wireless infrastructure, integrators that win...
John Pearce: Hi Paul, Came across this blog via Judy O’Connell’s Hey Jude. The blog is a nice addition to the blogosphere and the Mac world as well. Congrats. Reading this entry was though was one of those...
Chris Craft: Funny that you blog about this, I just ordered this yesterday! They were out out of stock for the one for MacBook Pros until recently. I am looking forward to recording some good video and taking good...
Jenny Ashby: Another handy app for the ipods is called Zapp Tek iPresentit. The app converts powerpooints,keynotes and PDF’s into movies suitable to view on ipods. This can be handy and coupled with an AV cable can...
Paul Reid: You raise some important considerations for network maintennance in schools Steve, especially those using Windows profiles for student/staff movements on the network. In reducing user profile size network speeds...
Steve Adcock: Windows profiles (these are the files that are copied onto the server or files sent back and forth while logging in from a Windows machine) lack the same precise tools that workgroup manager in OSX server...
Paul Reid: Hi Steve, the new AirPort Extreme is potentially a very useful device for school network support managers. It prompts quite a shift in the ways schools will use their network. As far as schools showing forward...
Reg Whitely: Thanks for this Paul. I’ve tried it and it works well. Just remember that it will only convert WAV and AIFF files. I spent some anxious moments trying to convert some mp3 files before reading the FAQs on...
Greg Alchin: Congratulations Paul on putting the hard yards into making a great resource. Cheers Greg
Paul Reid: Testing Testing 1-2-3, Are these recent comments in the sidebar working? I hope so. If not there must be a stray or tag - or something. Now do I get the Trackbacks functionality to work. And does this comment...
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Online hub for Australian educators using Apple Macintosh: Online hub for Australian educators using Apple Macintosh computers & iPods. … Instead of portable notebook trolleys will we see racks of iPhones in the library … Browse…
Orange: 30,000 iPhones sold so far in France: iPhones in education at Aus Mac Ed Online hub for Australian educators using Apple Macintosh computers & iPods. … Instead of portable notebook trolleys will we see racks of iPhones in the library? …
I have recently initiated a new website called iPhone in Ed related to the relevance of iPhones as 21C learning tools. iPhone in Education aims to collate, review and categorise applications made for the iPhone and specifically useful in teaching and learning.
Recently I attended a seminar by Professor Richard Kimbell from, Director of Technology Education Research Unit, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. This seminar provided an opportunity for educators in W.A. to learn about the use of PDAs and other digital technologies to support assessment. The event was summarised thus:
Another for the toolkit is ReelBean. Handy if your students are using their mobile phones to capture video. The .3gp files can be converted to other formats with this and converted back for moblie phones. The 
Thanks to 
Just a reminder that the 7th annual ‘Dream A Better World’ Film Festival for Australian Primary Schools is on again in 2007 - 2nd December at Dreamworld.
