One of the challenges of Web 2.0 apps is that there are frequent changes to the business models, often resulting in services that were originally free going to a pay-per model or sometimes going away altogether. I understand that everyone needs to be self-sustaining, but it’s a challenge for schools using these tools. (This is one of the reasons I love open source software — you know it’s always going to be free.)

This recently happened with two tools I use. One is Gabcast, which used to be free, but now has a time limit of 4 minutes as a free trial plan. In looking for another free tool to do phonecasting (recording audio from a phone and posting it directly to your blog of podcast), I haven’t quite find one that fits the bill. I tried phonecasting.com but had some challenges getting it set up. I’m still looking into a few other options, so stay tuned. (drop.io allows you to record files by phone but is lacking some other useful features. It is really intended as a broader file sharing tool, rather than just a phonecasting app.) If you have an app for this you like, please let me know.

I also used a web site for checking for plagiarism that was free but now charges. In looking for alternatives, I found The Plagiarism Checker from the University of Maryland, which looks good. They also offer a premium version for a fee, but the basic one worked fine for me. (I tested out others as well, but they seemed to think everything written at a high level was plagiarized, even original work of my own.) I have not used this application extensively, but in trying it out, it seemed to work well.  I also looked for open source alternatives, but didn’t find any.

If you have your own favorites in these categories, please add a comment and let us know.

For those of you in my session “Using Mobile Technology to Differentiate Instruction,” here are the links to the cell phone stuff we did:

Photo blogging from a cell phone

Audio blogging from a cell phone

Polling via text messaging

And here are the results of the survey:

After a few hours of reading more about the new Foleo and watching Palm’s video conference on it, here are a few more of my thoughts.

- The Foleo can be used as a standalone device (i.e. without a smartphone). It has built-in WiFi, a USB port, a VGA port, an audio-out jack, and slots for SD and compact flash cards. (There is no hard drive.) I think Palm is purposely under-selling the Foleo’s potential as a low-end laptop, but in fact, that seems to be what it is.

- The price is right. I was expecting more of a UMPC-type device, and at $1,500-2,000, these devices are way too expensive for what they are. However, at $500, the Foleo seems affordable. And you can bet the price will drop over time.

- A drawback of the Foleo is that it is one more device to carry around. How this works for you will probably depend on your personal preferences and how you use different devices now. Personally, for “real work,” a big screen is important to me, as is access to desktop applications. Currently, I use my phone as a wireless modem for my laptop. I have a very small notebook that I love. (For entertainment like music, reading, etc., I prefer mobile devices.) My laptop is 2.8 pounds and has a DVD player, a 40 GB hard drive, and a 1.6 GHz processor. It’s a “real computer” that can boot Windows or Linux, and it’s not a lot bigger than the Foleo. I do like the form factor of the Foleo, though I wish it had a tablet-style flip screen. I think for people who have been able to wean themselves from a laptop and are able to use their smartphone as their mobile computer, the Foleo is a great product. For people like me who still find a laptop indispensable, it’s probably not as relevant. (Maybe I’ll evolve though….:)

- I really like that Palm says they’ll support a variety of devices, including the iPhone. The whole idea of using Linux (although Palm has their own version, which could be a concern) should be to open the device up to developers. As they’ve done in the past, Palm is opening their device and encouraging lots of development. Apple has chosen not to make their devices accessible, and I think that’s a mistake.

- There is apparently no support for old Palm OS apps. (In fact, Palm is reaching out to developers to develop PIM apps.) While this is a little unfortunate, it probably makes sense.

- Is this device relevant to education? It’s hard to say. I’d guess not too much in its first release, but very possibly down the road. If the price comes down to under $300, the processor gets more robust, and some solid educational applications are developed — all of which seems likely — this could be a decent educational laptop. With all the new Web 2.0 apps (and the addition of offline syncing), this could be very powerful. In fact, it could be a step closer to the super-user-friendly, book-type form factor computing device we’ve dreamed of for schools. Of course, we’ll watch what happens with OLPC and the Classmate as well.

All in all, I think this is a good move for Palm.

Tech coordinator Darren Draper is doing an informal survey to see how many students have their own cell phones. If you have time, please do a quick survey of your students. Then either post your results to the spreadsheet linked in the blog or email Darren the info.

The deadline for getting data to him is May 23, so act now!

Thanks. We’ll be eager to see the results.

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.