Mobile devices and Bluetooth…the underdeveloped resource?

I’ve taken the leap and decided to get an iPhone. While I’m not completely over the practicalities of using a mobile device as a teaching tool, I figured that immersion is the key to understanding.

There’s been quite a lot written lately about mobile devices in schools

Some encouraging like this……

Some discouraging, like this…..

I’ve been interested in what others have done, and there is plenty to contemplate.

Mr Robbo has done something interesting. His work with this bluetooth server deserves some further attention.

And as far as iPhones go there are plenty of  ideas here

I’ll be working out how I can use this obvious yet underdeveloped resource in my classes.

Don’t forget the video! This one is a classic – New Order “World” – it looks like it been made in one continuous shot.

Kid in a lolly shop

In the last week, I’ve had a chance to look a bit more at the software that’s been loaded on the DER laptop. Like a kid in a lolly shop, it’s hard to choose what I want to use first. My mind springs to the possibilities of what is now at my disposal, but in reality my choices are made for me in a way.

As there are no students with them yet, the main purpose for using them at the moment is simply display and my own self development. I can’t really lead my faculty in their use, as not all of my faculty have them, nor can I collaborate with the kids because they haven’t got them either.

So, what to do? I’ve decided to play with Adobe Captivate, with the view to creating resources that will be useful for both future staff and student users of the laptops. Captivate allows you to create learning modules from any application you can see  on the screen of your PC. The modules can be pure presentation, or can be made to be interactive to support learning a new task.  It looks like it will fit well with Moodle or any other online classroom structure.

I found a pretty cool site with stacks of tutorial modules in Captivate, so let the self learning begin!

What I’m after now is a way to create a “How to Use a Magellan eXplorist 100″ tutorial for my Outdoor Recreation kids. Captivate would be the obvious choice, except the eXplorist 100 doesn’t have a PC interface, and so a screenshot isn’t possible. These things are sent to try us!

And, to keep up my video of the week tradition, I’ve got this little beauty from Children Collide. Happy viewing and see you next week.

3 Cool sites for the Technologically curious teacher

Check these sites out for cool teacher stuff:

Royalty Free stuff -   Mixtures of free stuff and Collections of free photos, sounds, music, gifs, clipart, fonts, icons, satellite images, cartoons, graphics, animations, etc

Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners – someone’s Top 10, anyway.

25 Free Apps for websites for technology loving teachers – not a bad place to look and learn.