Talkin' 'bout my cerebration.

There has been a lot of action and discussion on the use of iTunes applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch and their relevance and usefulness in education.  Indeed many schools are purchasing class sets to use as digital learning devices.  Now I am a self confessed geek who loves his share of geek toys, and I regularly use a range of geek toys in my learning environments.  Therefore I’d like to indulge in a review of these toys and how I apply them to self management and pedagogy.

This post will focus on the iPod Touch.  I own one, and this is the one I use in class.  This will be a very different context to those teachers who are fortunate enough to have multiple items, however I believe the applications and their utilisation could translate.  Please be aware as you read, these are the applications I use and they may be alternate applications in existence.  All the apps I use are free (or at least I installed them on a promotional offer), which means there may be more functional applications in the repository.  Also, I generally use this in the absence of a wireless internet connection.  Where functionality requires wireless internet I swill mention it in the review.

One obvious use is access to podcasts relevant to the learning context within the class.  Access to these is a repetitive searching process to ensure a stream of media, however there are podcasts that can deliver a constant stream of useful media.  For me, one such podcast is the TED talks.  They are fantastic for inspiration, motivation and discussion.  Due to the range of topics that are presented in the TED talks, I believe a teacher could find at least one relevant to their context.  Alternatively, teachers (or students) could produce media that is exported to the iPod Touch as alternate learning.  I have successfully done this with tutorial videos and videos as stimulus for a response.

If stimuli is placed on the iPod Touch, I like to have a method for student response to be directly input to the device.  There are a number of applications available to enable this.  Firstly, there is the standard pre-installed “Notes” application.  Students could create a new note and type their response to the stimulus in.  If writing input is preferred, “Writepad” allows this.  Writepad can even convert handwriting to typed text.  Alternatively, voice input can be achieved with Griffin iTalk among others.  You will need to have a microphone to utilise this in the iPod Touch.  If you install the iTalk Sync program on your computer, you can move recordings from the iPod Touch to the computer over a wireless connection.

Sometimes, written or verbal responses don’t encourage the artistic or createive desires in our students.  For this purpose they could build a response in “Flipbook Lite” which is a stick animation program.  Alternatively, students could create a concept map in SimpleMindX.

For general reference and retrieval, I’ve installed “Dictionaire” – a simple dictionary.  I’m unsure of the extent of its database but I am yet to ask it a word it does not have a definition for.  I’ve also installed “TouchCalc” – an enhanced calculator and “GraphCalc” – a graphing calculator.  “MultiConvert” performs conversions in a range of categories, and “The Chemical Touch Lite” provides a range of information for the elements in the periodic table.  The standard pre-installed “Clock” and the enhanced “LabTimer” cater for all my time calculation needs.  “iTrain” contains an extensive database of exercises, including instructional animations – especially useful for us HPE teachers.

A couple of applications, using the concept of flashcards, are great for memory testing.  Where possible, I direct the students to create the flashcards as revision or quizzes for each other. “iFlipr Lite” has a bank of flashcard sets in its online storage – these can be downloaded over a wireless connection.  “gFlash+” uses Google Spreadsheets as an input for its card sets, therefore they can be created by anyone.  Often the creation of the flashcard set is a much greater pedagogical exercise than using the flashcard set.

The two most often used applications for me are “Calendar” and “Evernote”.  I sync Calendar to my Google calendars, which is where I do my planning for class.  It will automatically sync over my wireless when I am at home, however the details are available even when offline.  Evernote will also automatically sync when a wireless connection is available.  I use evernote on the iPod Touch primarily for input, which can be typed, voice or photo.  I am starting to enjoy using evernote in combinatio with SimpleMindX.  Create a mindmap in SimpleMindX, save it to the camera roll, then import into evernote.

Each of these applications allow me to use the iPod Touch in class to enable learning outside of a wireless connection.  The inclusion of this device in my class has certainly increased the engagement of some students who prefer to use it.  I have also downloaded some games that require thinking, and these are permitted to be used outside of class time or in a designated “your learning” time in class.  These games are “Scramble” – a word find game, “BrainTuner Lite” – a braintraining game, and “Tiki Lite” – a problem solving game.

I hope this breif overview of a number of apps provides some insight into their pedagogical application.