Resources
Young and Old(ish) Mac Dogs Learn New Tricks: NewMacUser.Com
Submitted by mott on January 12, 2008 - 17:04
In searching for for something unrelated, I accidentally encounter the newmacuser site. It appears to be full of great tips. And I'm always a sucker for decent logo.
Another Learning Game for the iPod: Brain Challenge
Submitted by mott on December 9, 2007 - 15:30
Just in time for our pilot roll-out of 5 iPods at school, Gameloft has released Brain Challenge for the recent generation of iPods. So far, it's my favourite game. And it really looks like I could use it.
Pros:
Great little puzzles that, they say, will exercise your brain; keeps you motivated by telling you that you have the brain of a 78 year-old (not me, of course), little tips about the importance of maintaining brain health, and competing by against yourself and the "average".
Cons:
Counterintuitive selection GUI design (the "highlighted" answers are actually the non-selected answers); some images are difficult to identify; brain "coach" gets irritating really quickly.
Look out Mensa membership... this year I'm feeling lucky.
iPods in Education: Create iPod Quiz Quizzes for "iPod Quiz" on iPod (for Quizzing)
Submitted by mott on December 2, 2007 - 19:10
The ubiquitous iPod and iTunes are excellent tools for education by allowing students to access educational content, in a variety of formats and learning styles, whenever and wherever they need it.
Surprisingly enough, the iPod is more than just another technology allowing the young to ignore the cynical world of the adults around them.
If we chose to use them, in one sturdy portable device that many students own already, users have access to:
- podcasts
- videocasts
- screencasts
- movies
- music
- images
- spoken word
- text files
- stored files
- and, perhaps suffering from the least educational respect, the much-maligned game
Like the cell phone, the iPod may be the most intrinsically beneficial, economically efficient, and educationally demonized asset that educators blindly refuse to use. The school boards will probably have the committees struck to investigate developing iPod-friendly curricula just in time to be obsolete and when we've started implanting holographic Apple smell-o-Pods into our various body orifices.
In any event, iPods come with numerous games, many of which have been shown to have benefits. Tetris, Sudoku, Poker, and Phase would seem to have self-evident skills-training advantages. However, in case further convincing is needed that something enjoyable can be healthful, there are many studies on the benefits of computer games:
- Visual Games Boost Visual Skills
- The Educational Benefits of Video Games
- The Many Benefits of Video Games
- The International Journal of Computer Game Research
- Daily Computer Game Boost Maths Skills - BBC
And the list goes on... let your Google Search skills go wild on:
...but don't believe everything you read.
In any case, if the research doesn't convince you, just do it for your contrarian Nike propaganda-fed inner-rebel.
A fairly conservative entry-point - gently dipping your toes into the iPod game waters, so-to-speak - would be to download a free application called iQuiz Maker by Aspyr (makers of The Sims).
Now, before going wild there are a few important tips to using this application, at least in Leopard and with the latest iTunes (version 7.5 as of twelve seconds ago). First, for some unknown reason, you cannot download iQuz from the Aspyr site using Safari. Instead, use Firefox. If you're feeling brave, try Firefox 3 (version Beta 1 at the time of writing: remember, you're letting your inner-rebel out).
Once you have iQuiz Maker installed, there is a helpful manual under, surprisingly enough, the "Help" menu.
Creating the quizzes is not particularly difficult, but the trick came in syncing to the iPod. In theory, the application syncs the customized quizzes automatically once you launch iTunes. (Note: Make sure your iPod is set to sync automatically for the transfer of quizzes to work). Unfortunately, if you have a later model iPod you have to do some manual shifting of files because Apple changed the name of the folder for the updated iQuiz (v. 2). Don't worry, it's easy.
Navigate to your iTunes folder. (Usually: Home -> Music -> iTunes)
There you will find a folder called "iPod Games", in which you will find all your games. iQuiz Maker automatically saves your quizzes to the "iQuiz 1.0" folder. Simply drag your quizzes from that folder into "iPod Quiz". Et voila, upon next sync your games will be available as an option from within the "New Game" button in iPod Quiz.
(Of course, if you have the original iPod Quiz, you can skip this step. Your quizzes should automatically sync.
Always remember, as Bill always said, "The play's the thing!"
Resources:
Further instructions from the Apple page below:
"Apple Learning Exchange: Teaching with iPod and iTunes"
cApitaL leTteR GamEs for GraDe 2
Submitted by mott on October 15, 2007 - 00:30
Jerry~C Video Links: Who Needs Teachers?
Submitted by mott on July 7, 2007 - 12:46Jerry~C Video Links (unofficial) is another site pointed out to me by Mark "Teaching-Genius" Battley, and as he mentioned, it's a great example of how education is changing.
In brief, "JerryC" or "Yee-Fan Chang", the site explains, up all night and inspired by the film "My Sassy Girl" (2004), put a quick video of himself playing an electric guitar variation of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. He called it "Canon Rock".
After its stunning popularity on YouTube, JerryC made his backing track available online for anyone to try to record a version themselves. Quickly, new interpretations of his work popped up all over YouTube, and a flood of young musicians started sharing ideas, videos, techniques and creations. It's a remarkable example of the net bringing together young learners interactively across the world.
Et voila, effective learning without schools, teachers or testing.
Oh-oh.
Tips from Mother Apple
Submitted by mott on April 4, 2007 - 00:43We're all keen to learn more about how to improve our personal productivity with a Mac... except, possibly, Michael Dell.
Where better to get some tips than from the mothership herself? Apple has a useful archive of tips on using the features of OS X worth perusing.
One particularly useful tip for educators, other than "quit teaching and go into business", is using the character palette to allow students to find special characters by simply holding down various keys, like the Option or Command keys, and seeing a live keyboard on the screen show the characters.
You can access the Character Palette by Edit -> Special Character in OS X built-in apps, but a better way for schools is to have the students turn on the checkbox in System Preferences -> International -> Input Menu, and leave it easily accessible at all time under the flag in the Tool Bar.
And, hey, just remember, you're all special characters to us...
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