rogerneilson

1. Airvideo – brilliant for accessing media and watching it on your own HD TV
2. Twitterific – looks really nice on the Ipad screen
3. NewsRack – lovely interface – though not as lovely as below – but syncs with google reader
4. Early edition – will be good when its gets through the App store with sync to Google reader lists
5. Good reader – nice pdf reader
6. IMDB – looks great on this screen
7. Jotbook – like a whiteboard
8. Soundpaper – wow make notes and record what’s said at the same time.
9. IAnnotate pdf – does what it says
10. VNC Desktop – allows you to use your mac or PC on your Ipad
11. Shazam – wow
12. Pages – great on an Ipad
13. Keynote as above
14. Bento – looks good and syncs to your mac
15. Right Move – have an Estate Agent on your Ipad.
16. Evernote – looks nice but some functionality has to stay on your desktop
17. Kindle – much more like a book

That’s after 24 hours, anyone got any more that are ‘must haves’?

BTW a ‘plug’ for Phone Disk by myPod Apps www.mypodapps.com which happily reads the Ipad as an attached disc and allos easy file management.

Twenty four hours and onwards

Although I got my ipad two days ago it’s only really from last night that I had the time to start using it. Currently I am sitting in the conservatory typIng in pages, which I will then copy and paste into the blog. It’s the best bit of technology I have used, and has got to become a ‘game changer‘ in so many ways. As a starting point I’d like to give every  educational ‘leader’ one so they can finally ‘get’ what mobile technology is all about.

Why do I say this?

1. It’s superbly ergonomic. I can carry it everywhere, I can use it just about anywhere. It connected effortlessly to my wifi.
2. I can receive email, can reply, can tweet, can read, can draw, can watch, can work, can remotely connect to my network and my computer.
3. When I am not using it I simply lay it down…. on a table beside me, on then seat next to me.
4. The keyboard, in landscape mode is fine for typing – I daresay it would be fine for most people in portrait, but I like the big keys!
5. I have not changed what I do, I was already a pretty ‘connected’ person – it’s the how that is different. For others who are not as used to be connected, it will be an amazing experience.
6. Using it on and off yesterday it started at 8 a.m.  and it was getting near needing charging just before midnight. Now that was not continuous use, but it was a fairly standard day’s work.
7. The Apple case is very good, and the angled landscape mode it gives you is fine for working. I suspect it will be quite robust too, though I am not deliberately going to test this hypothesis,
8. Everyone who got to use it has been ‘wowed’ by it.
9. My normal mode of operating has been to travel with my Macbook and my iPhone – I suspect I can get away with no MacBook for most situations.
10. The apps I already had for my iPhone installed fine, but I have replaced some with Ipad versions and you can see that there is a step change in many of these to take advantage of the bigger screen.

First thoughts, I shall follow up with more as I learn to live with it. I will also blog about the apps I am finding particularly useful.
And I will, of course, set down any drawbacks I perceive as I discover more.

Okay, first drawback I hit. Select and copy all text in Pages – fine. Open Safari, click into edublogs text box to paste – won’t paste!

May be Safari, may be Edublogs…..

Stick text in email to myself, paste it in on my desktop. May be operator error of course!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrovampire/

We are currently hosting a group of SCITT students and they asked if I would list a few things I’d recommend in the ICT I use. Rather than just doing a list it seemed to me to make more sense to publish it for them, but for anyone else who is interested. If you like this is a suggested personal toolkit for a teacher to allow organisation, and collaboration, and resource creation

Aviary: http://aviary.com/

A recent arrival of image and audio editing suite – entirely web based so works with any computer that is online.

Pixlr: http://www.pixlr.com/

Pretty close to Photoshop and free on the web.

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

A very powerful multi track audio editor, downloadable, for both Mac and PC.

Google Applications: get yourself a Google account and you get them all, plus a significant free amount of storage of any file types you care to mention. Increasingly lots of schools are using Google Apps. Use it for your own work, but its really powerful when used  with colleagues.

Evernote: http://www.evernote.com/

Save anything and everything in your own notebooks – absolutely free and on line but also desktop synching. Does text, picture and audio notes – everything is taggable and works with mobile devices too.

Diigo: http://www.diigo.com

If you use bookmarks then why leave them on a computer, use Diigo and you can always have them with you on the internet – also fully taggable, permits sharing links with others painlessly and allows markups on webpages themselves…. and free.

GQueues: http://www.gqueues.com

A way of creating To Do lists that are taggable, that can have sub tasks, that can be sorted in infinite ways, that can be shared, that go directly into your google calendar. Amazing.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/

Its not about when someone is having a coffee! Imagine being in a group of people who all are pretty clever, who all share ideas and things they have found, who will rapidly offer advice when you get stuck.  What you have here is a Personal Learning Network. For most people that’s limited by where you work or who your friends are.On Twitter I have over 600 experts I listen to and get advice from – pretty useful connections - and  you guessed it – FREE!

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/

Cloud computing. never carry stuff around any more. use a Dropbox account to have your work and resources available wherever you can log on to a computer.

Feedly: http://www.feedly.com

Are there regular news publishers on the web, or blogs you like to read, or information sites you like to keep going back to? Get a Feedly account and use it to pull together all your news into one place for you to read as and when you wish. Lovely interface.

The above are the systems I use to manage my digital life and get my professional work done as best as I can. I suggest you give them a try if you have not already done so, but we all have our own preferences – it may be you know of even better ones?

Image via Wikipedia

Just recently I joined a team whose objective is to deliver something. I am bound by commercial NDA not to comment on what it is or why I am am part of it. However I have begun the work and am about a week into it. I did the same sort of thing a year or so ago and am struck by the differences between the two ventures and their applicability to wider ‘teamwork’.

In both cases its an area of interest and expertise I have, so I bring something to the party. The difference between the two is the time of joining, which if you like is the time of becoming part of a venture. The one of  a year ago was well developed, was a team that had worked together for quite a while, and who knew a lot of the material very very well. They had gone through the learning process together and they were a tight unit. I was, from the off, playing catch up and stumbling along behind them – I am minded of Heaney’s line -

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, Yapping always. (Follower)

They were tolerant, but I really was unable to contribute much and indeed was a ‘drag’ on the work. I found it very difficult to motivate myself to continue, I wasn’t part of ‘the gang’, I was an outsider, being given some tasks that befitted my status. It also meant that my own view of what i contributed was defined by my view that I was a ‘passenger’. This significantly limited what I offered, indeed it probably acted as some form of inner censorship. I suspect that this is a feeling that many learners have in many ‘taught’ situations. Learning is being ‘done’ to them. How many ventures are blighted because there is a ‘them and us’ view, and exclusion zone, a one way communication? When one is given a dictat, when one is given a set of ‘rules’ to follow, with no ability to comment upon them, to ask why, to offer a viewpoint the end result will be disengagement from the task and lack of ownership.

The disengaged learner

This time its different, this time I am part of the team from early on, I am afforded the same glimpses, the same learning curve as just about anyone else. I therefore have a status within the team. I am part of the initial concept, I am being asked my opinion. Now that is not to say I’m going to get my way on things, but I am in a forum that welcomes my views and observations – that encourages debate and that above all, values the contributions of all of the team. Result, I feel a much higher status, feel much more that my contributions are of value – and therefore I’d better make sure they are of that – or greater – value!

Involvement, dialogue, respect, being part of a joint and shared enterprise – that’s what gets results. That’s what makes happy learners.

Lee Child has written a series of novels about Jack Reacher. The character is ex US Army, moves from place to place, has no ties, wears clothes until they are useless then buys some new ones and burns the old ones, lives out of far less than a suitcase – is so mobile he  never has to pack, never has to check in, never has anywhere he needs to go. Its a pretty good idea for an ongoing series of stories as Child can simply drop Reacher into any new situation and let him create mayhem., right wrongs and generally make the world a better place. Then he moves on.

I am not like Reacher, except that I pretty well now am self sufficient in terms of my computing.  I carry a laptop, but really I am beginning to question why I do this. To what extent is it a comfort blanket, to what extent is it simply a habit?

Now I am not saying that I will never use a laptop, nor will I ever use a desktop – that’s what I am using now to create this blog entry. What I am saying is that if I examined my week I would find certain times when specifically sat down to work on a laptop or desktop, and for the vast proportion of my week when on the move I used my Iphone.

I recall how I once said that I could not get the hang of a tracker pad and insisted that I always had a mouse to connect to my laptop….. how retro is that now?  We move on, we adapt, we leave our security blankets and dummies behind.

So, last week I set off to Oldham for the Ipod2010 conference. A brilliant day in which 90 plus people who are all interested in the true virtues of the mobility that such devices can offer gathered to tak and swap ideas. Any one interested can and should join the Ning. http://ipodtouchconf2010.ning.com/

There is much on the Ning, what is nice is it is developing post conference into a community of practice. If you are interested it is the place to talk to others. The Ning also has pictures and documentation aplenty and will have video of parts of the day in the near future. The key point made on numerous occasions during the day was that though we were talking about the Itouch at the moment, we may be talking about the Ipad next year, and in a few years time what device/method we use will have changed again. What will not change is the enabling nature of the devices, the freeing up of movement along the learning trail, the possibilities of  personalisation etc etc. In short, the pedagogical opportunities they offer.

Rather than rehash and narrate  the day I have set a target of my top 5 things that I came away from Oldham at the top of my buzzing brain.

1. Richard Millwood’s opening exposition of the learner/consumer. His pdf off the presentation is on the Ning.
2. ESSA Academy’s initial report on the success of flooding the organisation with Itouches
3. The use of BSF resources in Gateshead to explore delivery of Science KS4 materials via Itouches
4. Sharon Tonner’s use of these devices in her training of student teachers - and the glimpse of the Ipad as a way of having an ongoing professional discourse as opposed to an end of line assessment.
5. Seeing the Yr 3 and 4 learners with their Itouches, sitting around at tables, on the floor, accessing materials as they wanted to, at their stage of need, and feeling quite at home with this mode of operation.

Thank you to everyone who participated, the greatest credit must go to three yr 3/4 children who stood up in front of the 90 plus august adults and told us what they thought. In answer to my question ‘How would you feel if the Itouches were taken back from you now’ they were as one ‘VERY SAD’

As the Bard said – or rather one of his characters – ‘Oh brave new world……’

Those of you who know me well will know that one of my interests is military history.  As a young lad this developed and continues to this day. Those of you who know me well will also know that I am as far removed from a military person as you can get! Of all the ‘arms of service” it was the cavalry that appealed to me most, whether it was the dashing Cavaliers or the Napoleonic Hussars or just the ‘mistaken’ thought that it meant you didn’t have to walk – something just triggered my particular passion.

Until they were effectively rendered redundant and obsolete by those infernal flying machines in the Great War cavalry were best used as the eyes and ears of the army – roaming far and wide, checking routes, the best approaches, the most likely areas for foraging and for gaining advantage in a campaign. They were ‘high maintenance’ compared to the footsloggers – but their value was in their speed, their reactions and above all the information they could gather and bring back to HQ.

One of the most famous cavalry commanders ever was J.E.B Stuart, who during the American Civil War was the eyes of Robert E Lee as he successfully outmanouvred and outfought the Union forces. As the war moved on the Union got wiser to the use of cavalry and this, in part aided them to contain and overcome the ‘rebellion’. In 1863 the high water mark of the Confederacy was Lee’s invasion of the north that culminated in the battle of Gettysburg. In advance of the campaign Lee let  Stuart and his cavalry loose on a wide ranging raid to disrupt the enemy and to provide intelligence on what they were doing.

Stuart set off and indeed had a fine old time, raiding, disrupting, tearing up rails, scaring the populace: however he neglected to send word to Lee of what he was doing – and Lee was therefore ‘blind’ for most of the campaign.

Yes I know you are by now probably asking, where is this going, what relevance does this have to me?

I run a City Learning Centre, I have done so for seven years now – there have been one or two changes in that time!  Part of my role (and those of my colleagues) is to scout out new ideas, to introduce new approaches to others – to boldly go….. (ok, no Star Trek references). So, in many ways we have the role of Cavalry, wide ranging, scouting – and sometimes terrifying the local populace (joke honest).

For around 9 months now I have been a pretty regular twitterer. Twitter is amazing as a way of getting amazing information from an amazing network of  eyes and ears.

I have also become a great fan of Diigo, both as a way of keeping my own discoveries and also of sharing, and having others share their discoveries.

So as a scouting cavalryman for the ICT army I think I am doing a pretty effective job of keeping on top of new ideas, new opportunities, new developments.

I do wonder though, am I so busy riding about doing this scouting that I am not getting the messages back to everyone, I am not passing the ideas and information back to the practitioners.  Or if I am, they look at me, in my flash gear, with all my expensive technological garmentry -and they reject anything I say because its from me and I’m not one of them any more.

So the quandry is, how can I get my ‘despatches’ back to people who will read them and value them?  Am I just prancing around on a fancy expensive technological horse?

And the results, in no particular order (as they say on these contest things that I never watch)

1. Lampless Projectors – Casio, just released last week
2. Snow Leopard running on MacMini
3. TedxOrenda
4. Pasco bluetooth cleverness for linking Itouches to dataloggers
5. Smoothwall – looks like a sensible (if that’s possible) internet filtering system
6. Digital Creator 1 – looks much more practically oriented
7. CLC stand – well more like an anti-stand (a visitor kept asking where the brochures and freebies were) – a great place to sit, chat to colleagues, catch up on things
8. CDSM – great developments continuing in VLE and on-line materials
9. Design your own school by www.designyourschool.com
10. Superstory (2Simple)

The list could have been longer but I decided that 10 was the cut off line.

Probably very few of you will remember the original BBC Series ‘Survivors’. The new version has just begun its second run of episodes. The plot is essentially a post apocalyptic recover one where following a plague the few left try to sort out the world. I don’t know how closely the rest of the new series will follow the original but there comes a point in the original series where there is a breakthrough in that a group of survivors who live in a locality are persuaded to set aside a day when they will gather at a local landmark and trade ideas, goods and skills. The beginning of a new civilisation. (Cue hopeful music)

Cut to me, Wednesday afternoon, tired, bedraggled, travel worn, 2 hours that morning looking at a bleak snow scape near Brixton as travel chaos scuppered my morning plans, ‘fresh’ from wandering the lanes of BETT looking for some reason for even being there…..

Its TedxOreanda and over the next 3 hours my whole view of BETT on transformed. The next two days (us northerners can’t do the full 4 days) I put into practice the new view.

No-one is quite sure of what the full costs of exhibiting at BETT is, figures are bandied around, and as you’d expect there is ‘commercial sensitivity’. There is a sense that the ‘big boys’ spend a fortune and of course they only do that because they are going – in one form or another – to get that back – the old adage ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’.  At times it can seem like what we witness are very slick snake oil salesmen who could be equally at home flogging anything else as well. I think this accounted for my extreme dissatisfaction on Wednesday as I  searched in vain, like so many other questors walking the lanes – for the ‘new’ thing. I was seeing BETT as a very glossy, almost obscene capitalist advertising splurge – are the rumours true that the carpets are brand new on the Monday and in  skips on the Sunday?

So, I sat with this unpleasant feeling about the whole ‘binge of BETT’ and listened to these fantastic stories at TedxOrenda and then the one came round about stopping worrying about the market….. so I put on my ‘augmented reality 3d glasses’ and lo and behold I am actually in a very bustling marketplace. Its a place where people come to trade, to sell, to exchange skills, to talk, to ponder, to pass the time of day.

Next two days at BETT were all about trading ideas, giving opinions, offering thoughts. Yes I did buy some stuff, but came away from the marketplace feeling I’d gained a lot of knowledge, and that I’d made a lot of connections.

Now the amount I spent and the contributions I made would not have even covered one of the tiny stands,  but if we are all doing that then probably there is a balance being achieved.

We need the marketplace, but lets not be awed by the sharks out there swimming, and lets remember they need us – and if they ‘gobble us all up’ then where are they going to go for their next meal?

Ok its that time of year again……

Looking forward to the challenge of taking it all in and making sense of it.

Looking forward to meeting lots of people, old friends and possibly new friends via twitter.

Looking forward to a time to reflect and consider…..

Not looking forward to the ache in my legs after two plus days of wandering round

Not looking forward to all the rebadged ‘tat’ that has been there for several years but is just hitched to the latest ‘buzzword’

Not greatly looking forward to the hustle and bustle of London and the travel issues that may well emerge this year.

It would be so easy, just like turning over and going back to sleep on a cold miserable day, to just give it a miss.

Why don’t I?

Because I might just miss some nugget that is hidden away.

Rusty Cogs: attribution and source

A short, for me, blog entry. Sitting here not long to the hustle and bustle of wedding preparations, transport, logistics, therefore have finished work a couple of days early.

End of a term, though for a CLC, unlike schools we don’t tend to think in terms. However traditionally we close at Xmas, and we let the building run on low energy use, and we recharge our batteries.

I’m pretty sure this is the 7th Xmas we have had as a CLC, and to my recollection its the first where the local CLC people have not got together for a meeting, a chat, and a lunch. Increasingly the meetings we do have are shorter, more agenda items, more time pressured. People get to them for bang on time, they leave the second the items are finished.

In a few weeks it is BETT. BETT has always been, for me, a time when all the ‘movers and shakers’ are in the same place, where as much as seeing new things, its about talking new talk. Its about what goes on in between the events as much as the events themselves.  I suspect that fewer people will be there, and when they are the visits will again be much more time pressured.

What are we gaining by this fixation on what must be done as opposed to what could be done? What are we losing by the lack of cohesion, by the lack of familiarity, by the lack of simple good cheer and comradeship that comes from sitting having a coffee, a glass or two of something stronger, and mulling over the nature of where we are and what we could do?

Difficult to agenda such interactions into a packed meeting, but for anyone who who has ever used any machinery you quickly appreciate the need for oil and other lubricants to keep the wheels turning.