New mashup is available

The new show from Karen's Mashups is up. This one features podcasts produced by elementary students. You'll be impressed by the great work done by these kids and by how much thinking and learning is obviously going on.

If you're doing a workshop or presentation on podcasting for schools, please feel free to share any of these mashups to show the power of podcasting.

TCPMP video player

TCPMP is a great free mobile audio and video player for Palms that we've recommended in the past. You may have noticed that the old web page for the TCPMP hasn't been up lately.

Apparently, like other projects, TCPMP's CoreCodec group has branched off to create a commercial product. We haven't evaluated the commerical product yet, but we suspect it has some useful features. (Money coming in tends to help product development.)

If you'd still like to use and download the old free Open Source version though, we now have a link to it on our site that you can use.

If anyone knows more "scoop" on what's going on with the Open Source version TCPMP (is anyone still maintaining it?), please post your comments.

The "paperless" classroom

Remember when one of the arguments for technology in the classroom was that someday we'd have "paperless" classrooms? (When I was in business school, everyone was excited about the paperless office of the future.) That seems pretty silly now. First of all, technology seems to generate more paper, not less. More importantly though, there are so many great benefits to using technology -- using less paper wouldn't make the top 50.

That aside, this week I worked on a project that used technology to greatly reduce paper use in classrooms. The school already has Palm handhelds for their kids. They use them for brainstorming, research, writing, and assessment, among other things.

They also have a skills-oriented paper-based grammar and mechanics program that they really like, but using it requires making photocopies of hundreds of pages of materials for kids to do short practice exercises and assessments. So the teacher had an idea to put the paper handouts on the handhelds.

Being the tech integrator type that I am, I wanted to get fancier and so explored putting the activities into an assessment program so that they could be automatically scored, etc. In pursuing this, though, it turned out to be more work than it was worth. The activities would have had to been significantly reformatted and in some cases rewritten. In addition, most of the activities were only a few questions, so the benefits of "machine scoring" were trivial. So much for my great idea.

So we went back to just using the handhelds as a way to deliver the handouts. (Believe it or not, we made up paper bubble sheets for them to record their answers on. By consolidating this, we ended up with just 4 pages of paper for each kid vs. a few hundred and save the teacher a ton of time.) Not very technically elegant or innovative, but it worked.

Sometimes, the simple solutions are the best.

FREE poetry resources

As promised, we're making available several poetry curriculum resources for mobile devices (or desktops or laptops) available. You can download them here.

Enjoy!

Podcast observations

In producing episodes for my podcast, which is a mashup of various podcasts and other digital content of interest to educators, I've been listening to lots and lots of podcasts. As such, I have some observations and suggestions to share about podcast production.

- Production issues - The quality level of podcasts varies enormously. Many podcasts would benefit from just a little clean-up in a program like Audacity or GarageBand. Here are some easy fixes that can really help your podcast sound better: 1) Amplify audio of people who don't speak up. 2) Adjust your levels to be consistent, so that various speakers, music, and sound effects are at appropriate relative volume levels. (If you don't have the time to hand adjust each track, try the Levelator.) 3.) Try a noise removal filter to get rid of a steady hum or buzz in the background.

- Copyright issues - A lot of people are playing very fast and loose with intellectual property. Remember that when you publish a podcast online, the guidelines for classroom fair use no longer apply. Watch out for things like using copyrighted (commercial) music or reading copyrighted literature. There are many public domain, Open Source, or otherwise "shareable" resources you can use, so check them out!

- Feed issues - First, you need a feed to be a podcast. (MP3 files posted to a web site with no feed is not technically a podcast.) Secondly, test your feed with a few different podcatchers, especially iTunes and Juice. I've seen a lot of podcast feeds that don't work in one of the other or either. Also, make sure your back episodes show up in the feed for optional download if people want them.

- "Sustainability" issues - OK, here comes the rant... A podcast is a series of shows. One or two shows is not a podcast. There seem to be a lot of people out there who got enthusiastic about podcasting, produced a couple shows, and then ran out of steam. iTunes is clogged with shows that have a couple very old episodes or even nothing at all.

If you have an old podcast out there that is no longer "active," you may want to take it out of iTunes and just leave the episodes on your web site for those who want them. If you are starting a new podcast, think about whether you're ready to commit to it. If you're not sure, try just putting a few episodes on your own web site and see how it goes before you publish a feed. Another great approach is to produce a show or two for one of the podcasts that takes guest-produced episodes.

Hope these thoughts are useful. If you have your own suggestions to share with fellow podcasts, please post a comment.

Effectiveness of textbooks?

There have been a lot of discussions in the press and the blogosphere about the USDOE's "Effectiveess of Reading and Mathematics Software Products" report on a few drill-oriented educational software programs and the findings that their use did not significantly affect test scores. There are many obvious flaws in the study itself, as well as the extrapolation of this research to the use of technology in general. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

This made me wonder though -- has the DOE (or other independent third-party) done comparable research studies on the educational effectiveness of textbooks? I am seriously curious about this. If anyone knows of a study like this, please post a comment or email me.

If no one knows of such a study, I'd like to see research on the effectiveness of textbooks in improving student learning, increasing engagement, and developing critical thinking skills. Anyone out there interested in pursuing this?

Just think of the money that could be freed up for other uses if it were scientifically determined that kids in classrooms that used textbooks didn't score higher on tests.

Affordable laptops

Some of the first devices from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), formerly known as the $100 laptop project, are starting to roll out.

Some are dismayed that there may not be plans to commercialize this product or make it available in the US. Stay tuned also to the Classmate PC project, another inexpensive laptop initiative, this one from Intel. The first of these devices are becoming available as well. Rumors are that these will be priced under $200, making them very affordable.

A lot of school ask me the question "If laptops cost the same as handhelds, which would you choose?" It's really not as easy to answer as it might seem. Laptops definitely have features that handhelds don't (screen size, software availability). On the other hand, handhelds have some benefits over laptops too (easy integration, less tech support, battery life). I think that battery life is a very critical issue -- schools really need a device that can get through the day without charging. I work with many schools who use laptops and have power cords running everywhere, making it very difficult to integrate effectively.

Also, as with any technology, I always suggest starting with your learning goals. Then see which hardware and available/affordable software best supports that.

What do you think? At the same cost, would you opt for laptops or handhelds?

[Image credit: Fuse Project, Creative Commons, Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license]

Podcast for library media specialists

The new episode of Karen's Educational Mashups podcast is up. This show is for library media specialists and anyone who loves books.

The next show will feature podcasts produced by elementary students. If you have a favorite in this category or a recommendation for a future show, let us know by posting or emailing.

Been wondering what Palm's up to?

The rumor mill about Palm has been whirling wildly the last couple months. I haven't posted on this, because most of it hasn't seemed either relevant or likely to materialize.

Yesterday, CEO Ed Colligan announced a new Linux-based OS with product due out by the end of the year. It's been widely known that this was in the works for the last couple years, so I'm not exactly sure this is "news." However, Palm's licensing of Windows Mobile (primarily to pacify enterprise users and cell phone carriers) and then licensing back the Palm OS from Access have muddied the picture.

I listened to Palm's Analyst and Investor broadcast from April 10. Mostly it was a lot of (long, boring) smartphone market info targeted at investment analysts. I expected it to raise more questions than it answered, but there really wasn't enough (any?) new info to even raise questions. You'd think from reading the press reports that there was more there. The entire discussion of the Linux-based OS was about 2 minutes (most of which was quoted in the press articles) of the entire 3+ hour presentation.

Not commented on in the above presentation were rumors about the forth-coming clamshell-type handheld/UMPC-type device (which Jeff Hawkins has already leaked). Stay tuned for more info on that.

For the education community, the best things Palm could do is keep producing great handhelds like the Tungsten E2 (schools don't need an "innovation" every 6 months...we've appreciated the stability of the product line over the last year), continue supporting current apps on any new devices (there are hundreds of great educational programs for the Palm OS), and don't forget the loyal base of educators who have bought and embraced their product over the years.

Michigan's proposal for an MP3 player for every student

Michigan has a new legislative proposal on the table to purchase an iPod or other MP3 player for every student (not surprisingly probably influenced by Apple).

Interesting, but wouldn't a handheld that could play music and video podcasts, as well as act as a word processor, assessment tool, ebook reader, study tool, and web browser be a better use of the funds? It probably doesn't matter, since this proposal is unlikely to be funded, given Michigan's current budget situation.

In my opinion, the money spent on hardware like this is wasted if an equal amount is not spent on curriculum and professional development. Projects that start with "a _____ [insert device of your choice] for every kid" instead of "every kid learning _____ [insert skill of your choice]" are doomed to fail. We've been down that road too many times already.

A new take on the old bookmobile

This is an interesting story about WiFi-equipped buses being used to deliver Internet content to rural villages in India and elsewhere. Apparently, they cache a bunch of pages that they know are of interest and then drive out to the villages for the local computers to slurp up the content.

Having lived in a remote African village (with no regular electricity much less Internet, although I did manage to charge my laptop off a generator a couple hours some nights), I can really see the appeal of this.

I imagine that the next step (if it isn't already happening somewhere) is a bus with a satellite dish on top of it. Brings new meaning to mobile connectivity.

New podcast for educators

I am happy to announce my new podcast "Karen's Educational Mashups."

This podcast is a compilation of excerpts from podcasts and other free audio and video content of interest to educators. Shows will air twice a month, and each show will focus on a different topic. Some will be focused on content for students, while others will feature professional development content for administrators and teachers. Our first show is on history-related content. The second show will be aimed at library media specialists (and everyone who loves books).

Podcasting is definitely a hot topic in ed tech right now. Creating your own podcast isn't for every teacher, but every teacher can use some of the great FREE content that is already out there to differentiate instruction. This show is designed to help you discover some of that great content and to spark ideas. There are a lot of great podcast directories out there, but this is a different approach to helping you find podcasts of interest to you.

I hope you enjoy this podcast. If you have ideas for future shows or a favorite podcast or other content source that you'd like to see featured, drop us a line at mashups@k12handhelds.com or leave a voice mail at 206-984-2258.