Another episode of the Learning in Hand: iPods podcast has been published. Episode #6: Notes is all about viewing text on iPods.

When you think of iPods, you think of those white earbuds. While iPods are designed for audio (and some for video, too), iPods with screens can also display text. In the Extras menu, you’ll see the Notes option. That's were you can view text files that have been placed on the iPod. Learn how to copy notes to iPod along with the limitations and workarounds.

Listen to all 7 minutes of Episode #6 for how-to and a few valuable tips. Also, check out learninginhand's iPod Notes page.

Labels: ipod, learning in hand: ipods

Michigan School District Cracks Down on Cellphones, iPods appears in USA Today. Rather than having electronic devices confiscated or serving a detention, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools have begun automatic suspensions. Students are slapped with a one-day suspension for the first violation. Students could be suspended for up to five days for more than three violations.

The main reason for such harsh consequences? You guessed it: they might be used for cheating. Forget that handheld devices have potentially great educational value. Forget that assessment should be more than memorizing facts that can easily be looked up. Forget that outside of school, looking up information on your mobile device is not cheating, it's being resourceful (and becoming a necessary life skill). Forget about teaching ethics. Just ban utensils that could enable cheating. Perhaps this should include paper and pens, which are much more commonly used for cheating. Heck, ban the air supply so students can't possibly whisper answers to one another!

Plymouth-Canton's director for student services is quoted in the article, "This was not done capriciously. ...We want to teach people responsible use." What? First, I had to look up the word capriciously. Knowing what that means didn't clear up my confusion. Automatic suspension is not teaching students responsible use. Suspending a student for bringing an iPod to school is in no way guiding learners in how to use technology responsibly. I'm not opposed to suspensions for cheating, but for simply bringing a potential learning device into school? No way.

I enjoyed reading the comments on Michigan School District Cracks Down on Cellphones, iPods:

• genxer65 wrote: "Kids do need to learn when to use these devices and when not to."
• o050441 wrote: "Humans survived thousands of years without a cellphone. There is no NEED for this technology to live day to day. It's a luxury, a privilege or even a crippling disease."
• Eldiablo wrote: "Don't use them during school hours, how hard is that to follow?"
• mistamilla wrote: "There's another issue being overlooked: the damage / theft of iPods and cellphones. I know this firsthand...as a teacher, you'd be STUNNED at the number of calls our school gets.....get this now....the number of parents that want us, the school, to REPAIR or REPLACE Johnnie's or Susie's damaged property."
• commonpurposecon wrote: "Suspension just allows them to use the devices all day long and not in school. Have the library confiscate the devices with no guarantee that they will see it again."
• RD72987 wrote: "Its not just iPods and cell phones, get rid of all of the elements of cheating....People copy other peoples homework in study hall, heck that's what study hall was for."

I realize cheating is an important issue. I know phones and iPods can be distractions. But, schools should integrate students' miniature computing and communication devices into learning. Banning and suspension is cheating students of access to valuable tools.

Labels: ipod, mobile phone

Soundsnap is a new place to find sound effects and musical loops. It's like YouTube for sounds because users can download sounds and upload their own--all for free. Everything uploaded to Soundsnap is copyright-friendly for podcasters to use. Here's how Soundsnap describes itself:

Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD's.

It was originally started by a small group of sound people from all over the world. Our common belief is that sounds and samples should be free for everyone to use in their projects, commercial or not.

Our users are a diverse mix of sound designers, sound artists, web game developers, filmmakers and music producers. Hobbyists and home video makers are welcome too.

Soundsnap is fully searchable and sounds are also categorized and tagged for browsing.

You can download an MP3 or WAV version for most files from Soundsnap. I recommend downloading WAV files to import into your podcasting projects. WAV files are usually higher quality. You'll be compressing the audio later, but it's nice to start with the best sounding audio available.

Soundsnap started with 30,000 audio files and is growing. Check it out!

Update: Soundsnap is very much like YouTube, where not all uploads are appropriate for school. It's probably not a good idea to let students loose on Soundsnap (and it's likely to be blocked at school). I suggest that educators download a whole bunch of useful audio files from Soundsnap to their hard drives and organize them into folders. Burn those folders on a CD or place them on a flash drive that is always available for when sounds are needed.

Labels: podcasting, video

I Didn't Know You Could Do That with an iPod was the name of a session I presented at last month's National Educational Computing Conference in Atlanta. The room was pretty much full when I entered to set up. By the time the session started, people were crammed in every square foot of space. In fact, blogger David Jakes gave his Most Ironic award to the fact that there was "so much interest in the educational application of a tool that is banned in most schools."

Kyle Stevens took great notes during the session. You can read his notes and listen to a recording on his Final Curve blog.

I used an iPod as a fun way to give away a prize. One of the possible prizes was an iPod Key Chain Connector. Lots of attendees wanted more information on the connector, so I wrote about it here.

I got many questions for more information about the camera I was using to show the iPod's screen. Unlike Palm handhelds and Pocket PCs, there is no software that allows iPod's screen to be transmitted directly to a computer. So, the only solution to show an iPod to a group of people is to point a camera at it. Often I've used a document camera. This time I used my iSight camera on top of a flexible stand. The stand is available from MacMice, but you must already have an iSight camera (Apple no longer sells them). Any USB camera can be used, but you'll want it to have a flexible stand so that you can position it over an iPod (or whatever you happen to be showing). USB cameras can be as inexpensive as $30, making them much cheaper than document cameras.

The camera does me no good if I can't show it on a computer screen. I use Monitor Mode, a free Mac program that takes any video source and displays it in full screen mode. With my Mac connected to a projector, I can show what's under the camera to a whole room. I've searched for a Windows alternative to Monitor Mode but haven't yet found one.

The NECC conference was a great event, with thousands of educators everywhere. Many of them blogged from the conference. I was tickled that Diana Laufenberg wrote the she was star-struck to see "the beloved Tony Vincent." Can you see me blushing, 'cuz I am! Furthermore, I got to meet the very sweet Midge Frazel and the brilliant Wesley Fryer, both of whom blogged about meeting me.

While it was a busy conference, the best part was meeting so many great educators. I didn't catch her name, but one technology teacher said she didn't retire this year because of me. She learned about podcasting from me and her students absolutely love it. She enjoys doing it so much, that she's staying on for another year. This is exactly why I share everything I do online!

Next year's National Educational Computing Conference is in San Antonio. Perhaps I'll meet you there!

n07s611

Labels: events, ipod

Micah Ovadia from Ohio has spent more than a year working on his PoducateMe Podcasting Guide. His time was well spent, as the guide is gushing with 186+ pages of information for podcasting in education. One look at the comprehensive Table of Contents and you can see why it took a year to create.

I'm always on the look out for how people define podcasting. Here's PoducateMe's definition:

A podcast is simply a collection of individual audio episodes typically recorded and edited on a computer, encoded in the MP3 file format, then uploaded to a Web server. Users of "podcatcher" software, such as Apple's iTunes, are then able to download episodes from the server to their computer and listen to the recordings on their computers or transfer them to a media player such as an iPod. Because episodes may be listened to at any time and anywhere, a popular analogy is to think of podcasts as TiVo for radio.

I noticed that video is not addressed in the definition. PoducateMe's guide includes some references to enhanced podcasts but none for video podcasts. After reading through more of the guide, you'll understand that audio podcasting can be complicated, simply because of all of the options in hardware, software, and publishing. PoducateMe often suggests alternative solutions to what I generally recommend.

I'll share one new thing I learned from browsing through PoducateMe. I've mentioned SyncTunes before, but it's worth revisiting after reading through Micah's guide. SyncTunes is free software for Macintosh that allows you to automatically sync podcasts (and other audio files) from iTunes to devices other than iPods. What about Windows users? There's BadApple, a free plug-in for the Windows version of iTunes. It's not as slick as SyncTunes, but BadApple allows Windows users to sync iTunes content to any device that mounts as a USB storage device, like Pocket PCs and memory cards.

Another way to automatically sync podcasts to non-iPod players is to skip the use of iTunes all together. myPodder is an alternative "podcatcher" that works with the online Podcast Ready service to automatically deliver podcasts to your desktop computer and portable device. There's even a version of myPodder that runs on Windows Mobile. That means your internet-enabled Pocket PC can subscribe to and receive podcasts without ever syncing to a desktop computer!

There are plenty of other useful bits of podcasting goodness in the guide. While the entire PoducateMe Podcasting Guide can be read online free of charge, it is available as a fully printable 29 MB PDF file for an educational price of $17.95. (The online version cannot be printed and the text cannot be copied.)

Labels: palm, pocket pc, podcasting, windows mobile

The fifth episode of the Learning in Hand: iPods podcast has been published. Episode #5: Troubleshooting gives advice on solving problems.

iPods are great little devices and almost all of the time, they work just fine. However, use an iPod long enough, and you’re bound to have a problem or two. After checking to make sure the Hold switch is in the off position and the battery has a charge, it’s time for the Five Rs of iPod troubleshooting: reset, retry, restart, reinstall, and restore.

Listen to all 8 minutes 20 seconds of Episode #5 for several iPod troubleshooting tips. Also, check out learninginhand's iPod Troubleshooting page.

Labels: ipod, learning in hand: ipods