Category:

These are very small touch screen devices — smaller than a tablet but not a cell phone!
(These devices have the capability to install a variety of apps. There are many other devices that support audio and video playback, but not other interactive uses.)

Manufacturers and models:
These devices used to be more plentiful with Palm and Windows mobile handhelds, but now there are just a few.

• Apple (iPod touch)
• Samsung (Galaxy Player)

Pricing:

$200+

Strengths:

• Ultra mobile
• Low cost

Weaknesses:

• Limited uses
• No built-in keyboard
• Consumption-oriented

Killer applications:

• Multimedia viewing
• Ebooks

Things to consider and some opinions:

• Think about your curriculum goals before deciding on any devices.
• While these devices are no substitute for a laptop, there is still a lot you can do with them. (Remember all the great things teachers and students did with Palm handhelds?) Having a few of these low cost, highly mobile devices can be a boon for differentiation.
• These devices come with different operating systems (Android, iOS) and have different applications available. If you start by thinking about what you want to accomplish with the devices and then look for a device that has applications that support that purpose, you’ll be ahead of the game.

The post Mobile devices: Handheld multimedia players appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

It has all the features I look for in a good MP3 player for schools: rechargeable battery, built-in recorder, low cost, and a display. It also has a few new things (for Sandisk) such as a clip and a standard mini-USB connector. And it’s super small, and I like small!

The post The ideal MP3 player – the ongoing search appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

I’ve structured this in a wiki, and it is intended to be used for either a face-to-face workshop or as an online self-guided learning experience.

This is licensed under a CC BY SA license, so you are free to use it for your own purposes as well.

This is my first attempt at using a wiki to facilitate both a F2F workshop and a self-guided experience. If you go through it, let me know what you think.

The post Free online workshop appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

I started with Quizzler, a program that I really love for handhelds. A big benefit of this is that if you already have a bunch of Quizzler quizzes created, it’s an easy port. However, the features of this are pretty basic and include no multimedia support.

Next I got the quiz program PodQuiz Maker. It’s basically a front end to the Notes program. Good idea, but not the greatest implementation. It does have a way to link to sound and video files, but it’s very awkward.

Then Apple announced the new iQuiz program as an iPod game. (Tony Vincent has written a review of it here.) It has a beautiful interface, but no way to link to sound or video files. For my envisioned application in education, this misses the whole point. (We want to be able to provide information and then have a way to interact with it.)

Next, I found Mogopop. This is getting closer. They have a nice web-based interface for content creation. You can link to sound, video, and images. There’s no built-in way to do quizzes, but you can do this through hyperlinks. The program is very new and seems a bit buggy in places, but it has definite potential.

Here’s a sample project I made:

(You’ll need to download the Mogopop Manager program to download this to your iPod.) Once you get it to your iPod, it will be in Extras.

The next thing to build into this is recordkeeping. That’s a big project though.

Does anyone know anything else out there for creating interactive content for the iPod? I’m not sure whether to wait until Apple realizes that closing their device to developers is unwise (probably a very long wait), hope some developers come out with better tools, or start working on something myself.

The post Trying to make iPod content interactive appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

The post New media player/recorder options appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

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.

The post Michigan's proposal for an MP3 player for every student appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

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