Constitution Day

September 17 is Constitution Day. (Federal regulations mandate that all schools receiving federal funds hold an educational program related to the Constitution on September 17 each year. Since the 17th falls on a Sunday this year, this can take place the week before or after.)

If you are looking for good resources to teach your students about the Constitution, stay tuned for K12 Handhelds free handheld curriculum unit on the Constitution. This unit will include interactive ebooks, quizzes, activities, and more.

We will have this posted to our web site in early Sept. Email us if you want to be notified when it is available, or just check back here.

Palm registration message

If you are annoyed by Palm's invitation-to-register-your-handheld message often popping up on your desktop, here's how to get rid of it.

Go to C:\Documents and Settings\user\Start Menu\Programs\Startup (the exact path may be slightly different depending on your system). In that folder, there will be a shortcut to Palm Registration. Delete it.

RSS aggregators for handhelds

One way I keep up with news and all the web sites I read regulary is to subscribe to their RSS feeds and have them automatically downloaded to my handheld. That way I can read them whenever I have a few minutes.

One tool I use for this is MobiPocket, which is also one of my favorite FREE ebook readers. MobiPocket has a desktop tool that lets you subscribe to RSS feeds and sync them to your mobile device. (MobiPocket also has great support for multiple handheld devices.)

I also use QuickNews, which has a few additional features, like the ability to download podcasts and sync them right to your SD card. (Unlike MobiPocket, this tool is not free, but it's pretty affordable at $14.95). QuickNews supports downloading through syncing or via wireless.

If you have other RSS aggregators that you like, post a comment and let us know about them.

Wikipedia

I hear a lot of interesting talk at schools these days about Wikipedia. If you aren't familiar with Wikipedia, it proclaims itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

The conversations about Wikipedia around schools range from schools who are banning it as a valid research resource to those to aren't aware of how Wikipedia differs from other souces like Encyclopaedia Britannica or Encarta. (Many teachers seem to have picked up on the "free" part, but not the fact that it is editable by anyone.)

So, back to "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"...??? I don't know about you, but when I was growing up I thought that encyclopedias were something created by really smart guys somewhere, not just anyone. As a result, my initial reaction to Wikipedia was skepticism.

However, research has shown that the accuracy of Wikipedia is comparable to mainstream sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica. (This is the power of active wikis. More on that in a future post.) My own experience with Wikipedia is that it gives you everything that more traditional sources gives you plus a lot more.

The real point here that we as educators need to help our students understand is that no source of information is definitive. Every source has its strengths and weaknesses, its biases and perspectives.

When I use Wikipedia (or any other research resource, for that matter), I generally open it in one browser windows and another source in another window. (It's sometimes amazing to find three or four different reputable resources with completely different portrayals of the "facts.")

In the current days of the Internet, podcasts, wikis, and more new sources of information every day, we should all be critical consumers of information and use multiple sources. Given that, Wikipedia is usually on my list of sources to consult.

Podcast from your phone

Many of you have seen me demonstrate the amazing application with which you can record a podcast from any phone and have it posted directly to a web site without having to touch a computer.

To do this, you first need a Blogger account. (Blogger is a cheap, easy way to publish your own classroom blog or web page. Just make sure your district doesn't block it if you intend to use it at school.) Then you need to set up an AudioBlogger account. The whole thing is FREE (except that the number you need to call to post is a toll call)!

This is a really powerful, yet simple, technology. What I like about it is that anyone can do it -- all you have to do is dial a phone number and talk. No creating a web page, no FTP'ing files, no HTML.

This is a great way for teachers to get information about homework assignments and class activities home to parents. Just call on your way home from school. It's also a good way to have students post oral responses to questions or prompts.

Folding SD card

The coolest new gadgets I've used in a long time is the new folding SD card from Sandisk.






This storage card literally folds, allowing you to insert it right into the USB port of your desktop or laptop computer. No more card reader/writer needed! This also means it doubles as a USB drive. Very, very useful.

RCET Ubiquitous Computing DVD

On a long plane ride today, I took the opportunity to watch the Kent State's RCET Ubiquitous Computing DVD. It was well-produced and had a lot of thought-provoking information. I was especially intrigued by vignettes about cell phone use for education and handhelds used as museum guides.

I have been thinking a lot about cell phones and schools lately. While a year or so ago, I felt that cell phones were not a viable or practical tool for use in schools, I'm beginning to rethink that. Clearly, today's cell phones are becoming powerful computing tools. And a large percentage of the populations, especially kids, have them. So why not use this tool for educational purposes? Of course, there are many classroom-management reasons that this is challenging, and I'm still not sure I'd allow cell phone use in a classroom, but I am starting to think about it. :)

Anyway, back to the Ubiquitous Computing DVD...it provided several compelling examples for future mobile computing applications and also included good supporting resources and some much-appreciated research data. If you haven't had a chance to get a copy, I'd recommend it. Visit this site to order your own copy.