Instructional Design questions? There’s an app for that! …You need to check it out. — by Karl Kapp who points to a new app from Connie Malamed

 

Abilene Christian U supports teachers through Digital Learning Institute — from convergemag.com by Tanya Roscorla

Excerpt:

This summer, Abilene Christian University in Texas hosted its first K-12 Digital Learning Institute for teachers. And this school year, the university will observe teachers’ lessons as they apply what they learned about mobile technology to their classes.

Near Field Communication (NFC): A Quick Guide to the Future of Mobile — from Mashable.by Sarah Kessler

Excerpt:

NFC allows a device, usually a mobile phone, to collect data from another device or NFC tag at close range. In many ways, it’s like a contactless payment card that is integrated into a phone. In other ways, it’s similar to Bluetooth, except that instead of programming two devices to work together, they can simply touch to establish a connection.

So why are some of the world’s most influential companies so excited about it? We’ve compiled notes on what NFC is, why its useful and how it’s starting to permeate the product world.

 

Also see:

MIT launches Center for Mobile Learning with support from Google — from readwriteweb.com by Jon Mitchell

Excerpt:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced the creation of a new Center for Mobile Learning. The center will be housed at the MIT Media Lab. Google supported the creation of the center with a grant from Google University Relations. The center’s first project will be the adoption and further development of App Inventor for Android, a do-it-yourself tool for building apps for Google’s Android mobile OS with no programming skills required.

From the announcement

The Center, housed at the Media Lab, will focus on the design and study of new mobile technologies and applications, enabling people to learn anywhere anytime with anyone. Research projects will explore location-aware learning applications, mobile sensing and data collection, augmented reality gaming, and other educational uses of mobile technologies.

Interactive streaming video technology from Stanford - Summer 2011

Stanford researchers designed software that allows a viewer to zoom and pan while streaming online courses. They recently released the code to the public.

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Cross platform mobile app development — from Tribal Labs (UK) by Geoff Stead
A review and comparison of the top tools for true cross platform app development

 

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Storytelling gets an upgrade: Beyond tactile stories — from digitalbookworld.com by J.C. Hutchins, novelist and transmedia storyteller

Excerpt:

Over the course of my two previous pieces on storytelling upgrades, I showed how tactile and kinetic features native to the iPad can be linked to traditional narrative devices, such as foreshadowing. However, where it gets really exciting is how the device can unlock a deeply interactive and immersive environment in which the “reader” is an integral part of a nonlinear story—all narrative features that cannot be rendered in print.

Up to now, I had been focusing on the tactile and kinetic, but there are dozens of ways exist to leverage the iPad’s other built-in features, including…

Also see:

 

StoryWorld 2011

StoryWorld Conference + Expo is a timely event for:

  • Transmedia content developers
  • Book publishing professionals
  • Television development and acquisition professionals
  • Film professionals
  • Advertising agencies and multi-media marketing firms
  • Game developers (including web, video, roleplaying and alternate reality games)
  • Mobile developers
  • Production companies
  • Literary and entertainment agencies
  • Writers and content creators
  • Media consultants
  • Any firm or professional in the business of producing cross-platform content
Portable Charging Station — from AViiQ.com

 

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This Visible College — from Educause (Vol. 34, No. 2, 2011) by Bryan Alexander

Excerpt:

In this column we’ll explore another part of higher education using only one scenario — but it’s a doozy.

“Class begins when the classroom door closes.” This image is enshrined in many practices, much popular memory, and even campus policies. But the concept may well be turned inside out in the near future as several trends coincide, altering the ways we teach and learn. That shut door is about to be wrenched open and our closed classes drawn into a global, visible college (compared to the invisible college described by David Staley and Dennis Trinkle1).

None of these supporting trends is mysterious or surprising:

  • Social media
  • Mobile computing
  • Open content

When these three trends combine, though, the synthesis surpasses each individual trend. What they do is turn the classroom inside out.

Everything I’ve described is happening now. What happens when these trends continue to grow and cross-pollinate?

 

Future of Higher Education — from Educause (Vol. 34, No. 1, 2011) by Bryan Alexander

Excerpt:

What does the future hold for higher education? How is American academia changing under the impact of continuous technological transformation?

The Future of Scholarly Publication
Scholarly publication is one of the most vital parts of higher education.4 Publications are in many ways the acme of faculty assessment: publish or perish. Our articles and books are the visible, enduring record of academic work, outlasting the lifespans of researchers, staff, and students. An entire industry both depends on and supports this output. Research output is deeply interwoven into many aspects of campus life, from hiring policies to library budgets and admissions materials. It is also a field in crisis, hammered by the Great Recession and torqued by ongoing technological revolutions.

Frog Disection app from Punflay

Per Nicola Santiago at Punflay:

  • We develop educational iPhone/iPad apps for kids. Our Frog Dissection app which is being used in many schools was awarded the Mark Twain’s Ethical Science award by PETA and was also selected as the Best Science app by IEAR. We also have a Rat Dissection app in the store.

Side reflection from DSC:

This type of work shows the power of using teams of specialists. One person can’t do it all anymore — we need to face up to this fact and stop thinking that simply providing more professional development is the answer. I realize that using textbooks brings in teams of specialists — but it seems to me that we still think that simply by providing more professional development, our teachers and professors will be able to meet the constantly (and quickly) rising bar. That type of approach has outlived its usefulness and it just won’t cut it anymore; we do our students a major disservice by clinging to that outdated, status-quo-based model.

How can we move to using more teams of specialists to create and deliver our educational materials?

Nice work to the teams at Punflay in India!


 

 

 

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