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A bit more thorough overview of the upcoming iOS releases' features than the one I provided.
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Good review from Wired magazine of today's newly announced iPod lineup.
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No mention of it at today's Apple event, but the venerable iPod classic is still available if you'd prefer more storage space for your mdia (albeit in a larger device).
Stratepedia Blog: Technology news for strategic instruction.
links for 2010-09-02
What is Priority Inbox?
This is our 1000th post! Thank you to all of our readers for helping us get this far. It’s proven to be a great experience for us; we hope you find it useful as well. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post. — Aaron
In the upcoming week, Google is releasing a new feature in Gmail known as Priority Inbox. This tool, an addition to your existing Gmail account, allows email to be sorted according to importance. Google tags the messages of most importance to you (bills, notifications, notes from Mom) and marks them as the first to be read. You decide what is important and can makes changes as you go.
Apple announcement roundup: iOS 4.1 and 4.2, new iPods, new Apple TV
Earlier today, Apple held their annual fall product announcements. Industry experts have come to expect new music-related products at this event, in time for the holiday season. For the first time in eight years, Apple provided a live video stream of the event, so we were able to keep up on the announcements as they were made (as opposed to frantically refreshing live reports from gadget blogs). For the most part, the video presentation was phenomenal–you can watch the recording for yourself–but people weren’t glued to computer screens around the world to critique Apple’s cinematography skills. Here’s a rundown of some of what Steve Jobs announced:
- iOS 4.1: Apple’s taken its lumps over the past few months on a number of bugs and general shortcomings with the iPhone 4 and its operating system (iOS 4). To address these, Apple is releasing iOS 4.1 in the coming days. In addition to the bug fixes (including a promised fix to the proximity sensor, the only problem I have with my phone) Apple’s rolling in some new features, including HDR photography and direct high definition video uploads over WiFi to YouTube and MobileMe. The update will be free for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and most iPod touch models.
- iOS 4.2: Following the 4.1 updates, an iPad-specific round of updates will be available in November. Of note, this will include the multitasking feature already present in iOS 4 and brand-new wireless printing functionality. Yet another yeah-but-the-iPad-can’t-do-this argument is in trouble. This update will also be free.
- iPod shuffle: Apple took the best things of the last two models and merged them into the latest iPod shuffle. The new model has easy-to-click buttons and VoiceOver technology, and costs $49.
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iPod nano: The iPod nano might have received the biggest overhaul of any iPod announced today. It’s tiny and no longer sports the iPod’s trademark scroll wheel. Instead it’s all touch-based, like its bigger brothers the iPod touch (more on that in a minute), the iPhone, and the iPad. I’ve seen mixed reactions but of all the products announced today this is the one I’m most likely to buy, to replace my first generation nano. The new nano starts at $149, available next week. - iPod touch: Jobs announced that the iPod touch is now the world’s most popular handheld game player, outselling Nintendo and Sony combined. I still have trouble believing that, but if it’s true it’s very impressive. New features: Apple’s new Retina Display technology (if you haven’t seen it, go to your local Apple Store and look at a demonstration iPhone 4–the screen is almost as crisp as paper), front and back video cameras to support Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing technology and high definition video recording, and a slimmer design. We’re planning to pick up a few of these to send to schools for experiments with mobile data collection and mobile coaching via FaceTime. The iPod touch starts at $229 and is also due out next week.
- iTunes 10 and Ping: iTunes 10 is available now and has an updated user interface and a more modern icon (no more CD, since iTunes is coming close to outselling CDs). The big new feature is Ping, a built-in social network for music fans. I was skeptical that users will flock to this until I read the suggestion that Ping is not so much another Facebook clone as it is a blow toward MySpace; whose remaining audience tends to revolve around music. I am a little concerned that this new social network being built-in will cause some knee jerk blocking of what is otherwise very useful software for educators, when you consider the vast amounts of podcasts and iTunes U content available from the application. Time will tell.
- Apple TV: To round out the product announcements, Jobs introduced a revamped version of Apple TV, a device that connects to your television and lets you stream content from iTunes on your computer, rent movies and TV shows, stream Netflix (if you have a Netflix account), and watch podcasts. The new version is tiny–no more built-in hard drive; everything is streaming–and costs $99 (the original model was $229 and included a hard drive). I was a faithful user of the original Apple TV until mine gave out on me earlier this year. I’ve since replaced it with a Roku box, which is priced similarily and also streams Netflix (as well as content from other providers) but not local media (that is, stuff from my computer’s hard drive). I’m on the fence on this one–I use my Roku to stream Major League Baseball; I may stick with it through this season and reevaluate after that. I do miss being able to stream music and video from a computer to my larger television screen.
Jobs also showcased some beautiful new Apple Stores in London and Paris, and Game Center, a system to help game developers make their games more social.
links for 2010-09-01
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Nice summary of today's Apple product announcements (iOS updates, new iPods, new Apple TV). We'll be covering things in more detail in the next few days.
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Excellent, level-headed editorial on the damages done when schools "block out the tools that are transforming the rest of society." Please read this and share it with others.
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Thankfully broken down into subject areas. Lots of good apps, many of which are free (or cheap).
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The sale of virtual good is making its way to real-world stores.
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Another interactive, animated book for the iPad has ReadWriteWeb thinking about this format as the future of electronic books. I think he's right that there will be many formats, depending on the content and the audience.
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Twitter's made a major (but good) change in how their login system works. If you're using an old Twitter client you might have problems accessing Twitter. Here's why and what you can do to get your Twitter back.
Create a VoiceThread with Sue Woodruff
Susan Woodruff is an independent professional developer and active member of the International SIM Network. She recently began experimenting with VoiceThread and ways to apply this collaborative tool to education. Read her experience below.
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As I was playing around on the Internet and doing some web surfing the other day, I found an interesting application. Actually, it is the one I’ve been looking for (not all that hard) for almost a year. For a SIM professional developer, instructional coach, students, and teachers alike, I think the only limits of it are our own creativity. Let me start back about a year ago when my son came home from his Advanced College Calculus class. He was a sophomore last year in college, and he had always done well in math. Last year, however, the course was much more challenging. In about the second or third week of school, he came home all excited and wanted to show me how his professor was going to work with her students who had questions. He got online and went to a website. There he was able to access a video she had recorded where she worked through a problem mentally and modeled her problem solving process. Stephen said it was incredibly helpful. What he liked was that he could access it multiple times. Anytime he was doing homework and felt “stuck” he had access to his professor’s thinking by going to that website.
Back to the present…as I was goofing off and procrastinating the other day, I found a short article and demonstration of a VoiceThread. It is actually an online free website that can be used for teaching, collaborating, coaching, nearly anything that you can think of. Documents, videos, pictures, and nearly any other type of document can be uploaded to the site. The creator of a voice thread can comment on it while annotating through a webcam, microphone, or text. Once it is uploaded, others can be invited to view it, or it can be put on the website to be viewed by the public. It is quite simple to learn, and it is actually quite fun after you get used to looking at yourself on the videocamera. I did find that I had to switch my Adobe Flash settings on my Mac, so if you have any trouble recording, check those. I would love to collaborate with a few of you who might want to work on a presentation of something. The VoiceThread is so interactive that it almost feels like someone is there. For only $60 per year, you can buy a subscription that allows you to use a lot more features of the site. My mind is generating all kinds of great ways this could be used. Please check out voicethreads.com, and let us know what you think about it and if you have any great ideas for using it. I’ve made a VoiceThread just for you to check out. If you are brave, take a moment and respond with a note in the following VoiceThread. OK?
-Sue
Interested in writing an article for the Stratepedia blog? Just email Aaron or Amber with your ideas at help@stratepedia.org.
links for 2010-08-31
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More information on Inkling, a new textbook reader for the iPad. I'm looking forward to checking this out.
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Good tips for knowing when and how to put the gadgets aside for a little while.
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Useful for those of you who may have put Google Wave to use before they pulled the plug on it a few weeks ago.
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New Gmail feature filters important e-mail from the rest so you can read it first.
Too busy to blog? Try tumbling instead
I was telling someone the other day about how I currently post to three blogs (this one, a personal blog, and a technical blog for the Ruby on Rails application framework). I got the response I usually get–I just don’t have the time to do that.
I understand. I make the time for myself because I think blogging is important to me for five reasons:
- It helps get my name out there, about topics I theoretically know a little bit about. My name is surprisingly common, but thanks to my blogging habits I come up at the top, or at least near the top, when someone searches my name.
- It lets me give back to a community in a meaningful way. I don’t know everything there is to know about Ruby on Rails, but I certainly remember what it was like to be in a middle area in my expertise–seasoned enough to not need the beginners’ tutorials, not advanced enough for the tough stuff. So I write for people in that middle ground with the hopes that people can learn from my own work, rather than having to reinvent wheels. I’m a much better writer than I am a coder or public speaker, so blogging is a good medium for my contributions to the Rails community.
- It helps me learn. Teachers who use The Paraphrasing Strategy and other reading strategies from the Center for Research on Learning know that being able to put something in your own words is one important step toward understanding. When I blog about something–whether it’s how to add a useful function to your web application or ways I think the iPad will change education–it gives me the opportunity to read up on a topic, think about it, and report on it in my own words.
- It gives me a bigger audience. I tell people that I’m writing for an audience of one when I write. For my personal blog, it’s me. For my Rails blog, it’s me two years ago. For the Stratepedia Blog, it’s Don Deshler (my boss; Director of the Center for Research on Learning). In the last case, rather than typing an e-mail that only Don can see, I type up a blog post that anyone can read and, hopefully, learn something from.
- It helps me frame my thoughts for larger, more important pieces like grant proposals.
Still too busy to blog?
If these reasons have changed your mind, and you’re ready to give blogging a try, great! Here are some ways to get started blogging right now. Would you rather start a little more simply? I suggest starting a tumble blog, or tumblog, instead. Tumblogs are a little more stream of conscious-driven than the longer forms of writing you typically see in blogs. They can also be multimedia–photographs, inspirational quotes, video clips, or random musings are all fair game.
Technically, most blog platforms can be used to create tumblogs, but arguably the two best services are Posterous and Tumblr. If you’ve never blogged before, start with Posterous. Its biggest selling point is you can do everything you need to do to start blogging via e-mail. Attach media to your message for instant online galleries, no web programming required. If you want to customize your blog, use Posterous’ administration backend in your web browser to tweak settings. Scott McCleod’s Mind Dump is a good example of a Posterous-based tumblog for educators.
Tumblr is a little more web-centric, but includes a nice bookmarklet to make it super-simple to post interesting things you find on the web to your Tumblr-hosted blog. Your blog can be ready to go in about five minutes. Check out Things For Teachers to see an education-oriented Tumblr site.
Have you started a blog or tumble blog? Share a link to it in the comments below. Please word things so we can be sure it’s not spam.
Photo: churl han on Flickr
links for 2010-08-30
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Beautiful, educational photos from NASA's archives are now available for viewing and download from Flickr. Definitely worth a visit.
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I've gotten a few shady-looking requests on Facebook recently. This post on Lifehacker walks you through some steps for making sure requests are legit.
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Too early to tell for sure, but the second edition of the massive multi-volume dictionary of the English language (from 1989) could be the last printed version.
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Interesting approach to keeping up on RSS feeds.
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Great list, not just for teachers–professional developers should get to know Dropbox, Delicious, Doodle, and Zamzar in particular.
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New Ning group for educators interested in iPads.
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Nice critique of the state of magazines on the iPad. I expect the user experience of magazines on tablets to only get better as competition joins the fray.
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Good read on the requirements for would-be education (technology) startups of the 21st century. Definitely some good points across the board, but I imagine some of them (1 and 5 in particular) would have their naysayers. What do you think?
Looking at data visually
It’s not that I’m sharing video of TED talks every Monday morning; it’s just that they make it so darn easy. Today is David McCandless’ talk from this past July about “beautiful data.” I had a couple of takeaways from this: First, sometimes the raw numbers don’t tell the story (or the whole story, at least); and second, sometimes it takes more than one set of data to really gain some perspective on an issue. McCandless’ visualizations illustrate these points in the video below.
Want to see more of McCandless’ work? Check out his blog Information is Beautiful.
links for 2010-08-28
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Great perspective from a student whose professor created a Facebook group for out-of-classroom discussions. I don't think the University of Kansas (our employer) allows this; does your school?
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Report of a small study looking at non-anonymous social networking (versus older, anonymous online systems). Are you surprised about what they found?
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That last one–you're fighting a losing battle–needs to be reiterated.
