Flip help

We've gotten a few questions for people who have the Flip video camera (which we love!) but have had problems getting the codec to make the video run properly on the desktop. To get this, connect the camera to your desktop and run the Flip video program that is on the camera once, which will load the load 3ivx codec that you need.

Also, if you have the new Flip Ultra, we highly recommend installing the firmware upgrade if you haven't already.

Free literacy resources

I am working on creating some sight word videos from the word lists at FreeReading. (If you haven't seen this site, it is a phenomenal resources for early literacy.) Before I crank out more of these, I'm looking for input from early literacy teachers.

* How is the music? Too distracting or ok?
* How is the timing?
* Does the "pointing finger" idea work?

Any input anyone has is appreciated. I'm hoping to produce a whole library of these to match the FreeReading lists over the next few months. The intent is that they could be used on the web or on mobile devices, such as Palms, PSPs, etc.

Proliferation of new mobile devices

There have been several new mobile devices coming out, and now HP has one as well. The HP 2133 Mini-Notebook is $499 with Linux. (As with all of these new category devices, the price is quite a bit higher with xp.)

As the prices come down a bit (I think $300 is the sweet spot for education), these devices might be a good solution for a one-to-one computing device, falling somewhere between a handheld and a laptop. I am particularly interested in how Web 2.0 applications runs on these and what other educational programs are available.

Stay tuned for more on these new devices and their use in the classroom.