It is called Evernote Peek, and it replaces the old flash cards using an iPad 2 and the new iPad Smart cover. Take a look at this video to see how it works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqVjruCt6yg&feature=player_embedded

You can even include pictures in the answer and score which one you got right or wrong to replay the wrong ones. This is the type of ingenuity I am expecting with iDevices and the learning/education market. We are starting to replace textbooks with eBooks, and we learn astronomy with Star Walker and now we replace old flash cards with Evernote Peek.

I love using technology to learn!

You will now be able to mirror you iPad 2 via wifi (and an Apple TV) to projection screens/TVs. Before you had to hard cable to the TV and it was cumbersome and clumsy but now, a bunch of thought providers with iPads could connect to an Apple TV and show what they have on their ipad to their students! Love it!

Think about being able to rome around the room and talk about a subject while student are engaged with the projections on the screen and then a second content provider, uses the same screen to add additional information or video or whiteboarding.

So now when your asked what you want in terms of technology, ask for iPad 2′s and Apple TV’s, so you can connect, display, demonstrate and do amazing things to engage your students. Everyone wins!

http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2011/05/12/interactive-teaching-methods-double-learning-engagement-in-large-undergraduate-physics-class/

I completely support their observations but also have to say DUH!

Those of us in Corporate training and particularly conducting Leadership and Management Development training have been using interactive teaching methods as part of our learning process for a long time and it is successful.

I think what this comes down to is particpation. Many groups of students such as large lecture environments is not great spaces for participation, it is a one to many scenario. Intereactive teaching demands more from teachers and the students and will also help them build community by working together.

This article is interesting and reaffirms that learning can be enhanced with activities that re-inforce the learning.

But what I want to talk about isn’t the iPad or the classroom, it’s the people involved. Yes students of this generation are familiar with smartphones and touch technology, but what about their teachers. Many that I know of, are not comfortable with technology or have limited abilities to use it and I think this is one of the bottlenecks/challenges we have today. Brining an older generation into this one so students can expand their learning in amazing ways.

I am a big believer in using technology and tablets in the classroom, I just think we need to help those not as familiar to better learn and understand, most teachers want the best for their studetns, we just need to give them more tools, and pay for them too!

Just my thoughts!

I have always supported the One Computer Per Child program but that seems to be waning in its ability to expand and is dependant on governments to support it. This is about low cost ereaders like the Kindle getting into the hands of children.

Cory Doctorow has an awesome piece including a video on his site at  http://craphound.com/?p=3420

Being a technology educator and using technology in education is important and ensuring children who barely get to go to school can read  and learn about our world through books, of all kinds, is a wondrous thing.

Support this if you can or if you know of an author with a good book, ask if they will donate it in ebook form to this program.

I have commented before on this blog about using iPads or tablets in the classroom and for mobile learning and I support that completely. This blog is about how content providers can move their material to the digital realm. One has a number of options, such as create a complete app for iDevices, which can be expensive or use a converter to take your content and convert it to ePub format.

But Why should I use the .epub format?
Because it’s a completely open and free standard.

ePub is the Open eBook standard from the International Digital Publishing Forum (http://www.idpf.org/). ePub is supported in Stanza Desktop, iPhone, and iPod Touch, as well as in Adobe Digital Editions, Apple’s iBooks, and the next generation of e-ink readers like the Sony Reader.

The .epub is a standard for eBooks consists of basic XHTML for the book content, XML for descriptions, and a re-named zip file to hold it all in. Anyone can make these eBooks, and since they’re essentially just XHTML, anyone can read them.

What this means is you can quickly move your material into digital format. The caveat here is that all you have done is converted not “enhanced” the material. As you see in many publications in apps or iBooks, the use of photos, video and interactive components is valuble for the digital form.

As a creator of content, it is very handy for me to have that content on a device that allows me to hold hundreds, if not thousands of my books/documents at a time, relieiving me from carrying around paper-based versions. Now that they have become digital, I can then expand the features I want to use like interactive

What is connectivism? At its heart, connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks. Knowledge, therefore, is not acquired, as though it were a thing. It is not transmitted, as though it were some type of communication.

What we learn, what we know — these are literally the connections we form between neurons as a result of experience. The brain is composed of 100 billion neurons, and these form some 100 trillion connections and it is these connections that constitute everything we know, everything we believe, everything we imagine.

And while it is convenient to talk as though knowledge and beliefs are composed of sentences and concepts that we somehow acquire and store, it is more accurate — and pedagogically more useful — to treat learning as the formation of connections.

Hmm an interesting hypothesis, and a new way of looking at how we learn and how we teach learners. It seems to comes back to the old saying ; “it’s not what we know but who we know”.

Every new connection we make , be it a  person, an idea or whatever, we are constantly learning and this is where I find this concept so interesting. Maybe we should spend more time encouraging learners to create more connections so they will be able to learn more. Another question is how can this be incorporated into a corporate or educational institution or is that what Social Media and Networks are already doing.

Just think of all the pictures of places and cities you have seen from your friends on Facebook. Have you learnt anything from them and the connection to that person? I think so.

Interesting? Yes / No?

Stephen’s full article is here.. The full article is here..http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-downes/connectivism-and-connecti_b_804653.html

It stands for  – a massive open online course or what we used to call Webinars. It seems someone has come up with yet another acronym for an old method of getting information from one person to a lot of people.

At one time we used Town Hall meetings to keep staff up o date, then came web based systems and we called those same meetings webinars. Now it’s a Massive Open Online Course.

Hmm, this seems like what Oprah did when she and Eckhart Tolle did with his book and millions of people logged in to watch and listened. It is a great way to get your message across or just present to a large number of people what skills you have. The important bit here is the content, if it is not solid then people won’t be engaged and you will lose them forever.

I strongly recommend this type of online learning when Senior management want to disseminate information or policy to a large group but for good quality learning, smaller more manageable groups up to 20 is better.

So my question to you is, do you prefer smaller web based groups for learning or MOOC’s?

As a learner, technology should be:
1.Everywhere, ready to use.
2.Easy to use.
3.Desirable to use.
4.Challenging my skills.
5.Sharable
6.Collaborative
7.It should play to my passions
8.Used in useful contexts (from the learner’s perspective)
9.Authentic

Personally, I agree with all this list but would place the importance to items differently.

So what do you think of this list and do you agree?

So what does this mean for learners?

Well for one, I think it’s the opportunity to search and carry huge numbers of books and reference materials around in our computers or tablets, allowing a learner to navigate and reference information and writings anywhere they want to learn.

Technology like the iPad and the new tablets to come offer students/learners untold opportunity to have the world at their fingertips and the ability to reference or read 15 million books means they will hold a library in their pockets.

Now this may pale in relation to the Library of Congress that holds 130 million books but most of those are not in a digital format (yet) and so Google’s actions will offer a learner more reference knowledge in a smaller space.

And, if I can read a book without going to a Library or checking it out and lugging it around, I for one am happy to have that ability.

Some people fear Google may try to control all these books, but I encourage people to support them and emphasize to Google that they are moving in the right direction. Teachers take note, this can and will affect how you teach in the future but that’s another post