My news feeds brought me a little tidbit today from Apple. The story that caught my attention was about 60 second lectures. The University of Pennsylvania is featured in the story but this is similar to projects that we had students do to emulate NPR stories. The idea is to pick a short time frame (we chose 3 minutes) and communicate as much as possible in that time in an interesting manner. The U Penn recordings can be found here. The projects our students did can be found here.
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What can you communicate in 60 seconds?
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Ta Da
You are no longer on the Wooster blog server but on my Dreamhost install. I decided I wanted to update my WordPress and didn’t want to disrupt the College’s blog server that I maintain. That install is also running an old version of WordPress MU. I had been adding all kinds of custom stuff to the server that only I could use and that got me thinking I should move to my own server and not mess with the schools.
The move was accomplished by exporting all my posts and comments and importing them to this site. I made sure to install all the plugins I had enabled on the old site and installed the redirect plugin on the College’s blog server. This is probably the same solution we will use to transition the old blog server to hardware supported by the Digital Infrastructure Group.
The process was relatively painless and I was surprised that the import even copied the files off the old server onto the new one. Very slick!
So keep an eye out for new features as I add more plugins and enjoy my new found freedom (I’ve already added ShareThis.) and update your bookmarks and RSS subscriptions to the new address. Thanks.
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iPhone educational apps (part 2)
After many hours of waiting with a bricked iPhone (like many others), I was able to get the 2.0 software loaded and download some apps. I’ll give you some of my initial impressions.
- Molecules: Molecules seems like it could be a nice app to have available in a class where you want students to get a good idea of the structure of the molecule you are discussing. However, I think there is educational value and potential projects in creating more molecules to view. My version only has three molecules. It may be worth approaching some faculty in Biology and Chemistry about creating more molecules for the app.
- Bookshelf: I did not spring for Bookshelf but there are a number of apps that allow the iPhone to function as an e-reader. Anything that allows people to read wherever they happen to be seems like a good thing.
- QuickVoice: QuickVoice is another app that could have value in the classroom. It will allow students to record a class session for later review and it will allow faculty members to record lectures to be distributed as a podcast.
- Mandelbrot: Mandelbrot is an app that allows one to explore the Mandelbrot set. It would seem to have limited educational value as it doesn’t really provide a lot of mathematical information to the user, but again it would allow students to interact with the set as the class discussed it.
My favorite apps right now are Shazam, Remote, VNC, Urbanspoon, LocalPicks, and BoxOffice. I think the apps that are the most interesting are the ones that make use of the GPS features of the phone. If I discover oher educational apps or if we develop any, I’ll make sure to post about them.
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The Commons (or why flickr is awesome)
In following up on my idea for using flickr to create an image collection for Wooster, I happened to revisit The Commons. I had visited it when it was first announced and looked at some of the images put up by The Library of Congress, but I had not been back since. I was surprised to find that images had been put up by the Smithsonian, The Powerhouse Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, George Eastman House, and Bibliothèque de Toulouse. These are some very well respected museums and some very significant photos. I think this is very positive as it points to the acceptance of flickr as a tool for the serious study of images. One of the concerns expressed about my idea was the longevity of flickr and I see the participation of such institutions as those mentioned above as a sign that flickr is here to stay. Hopefully Instructional Technology will have a chance to pursue the development of a Wooster flickr collection in the coming year. Stay tuned.
Life in the Australian Outback.
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iPhone educational apps
Well, I had hoped to write about some of the educational apps available for the iPhone today. However, I am still unable to use my phone. So I guess I’ll just list the ones that caught my attention and that I am interested in trying out:
- Molecules
- BookShelf
There are some others that fall under other categories that I may also look at
- WHERE
- Whrrl
- Mobile Flickr
- QuickVoice Recorder
- Remote
- LocalPicks
- Urbanspoon
- Where To?
Sometimes I’m an Instructional Technologist and sometimes I’m a Mathematician, but I’m crazy all the time.
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