PATINS PROJECT -Rapid Fire-

Shoot With Your NANO: If you haven’t heard about Apple’s new releases this week, you will!   I’m particularly excited and interested in the new capability of the iPod NANO to shoot video!  If you’ve talked to me much in the last 3 years you likely pretty familiar with the stuff I do using iPods and Self-Operated Video and Audio Prompting systems using free software.  Well, now I’m hoping that the whole video camera component of that workshop can be eliminated!   For $150, a NANO will both shoot and playback our self-operated prompting videos!  If you get one of these, I’d LOVE to get your feedback on the video feature!
www.apple.com/ipodnano …and you know the NANO is accessible with voice over right?  

Online Learning: This week I participated in an ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) webinar on Project Based Learning and Collaboration.  One of the many very interesting components of the discussion in that webinar was some recent meta research looking at online learning.  While the search turned up relative little research in the K-12 world, the results did indicate that more learning occurred online that face to face and even better performance yet was obtained by utilizing a combination of face to face and online training.

PATINS Project Island Main

PATINS Island Open House! Don’t forget to spend 10 minutes:

1. Creating Your Free Avatar:
   www.secondlife.com
2. Download and Install the Second Life Software.  Remember this can be installed to a $5 Thumbdrive and run from there.  No need to install to your computer.
3. Make sure you can access the Second Life Grid by trying to log in once step 1 & 2 are completed above.
4. If you cannot log in, contact me.  I have some ideas that could help.

On OCTOBER 20, ALL DAY LONG, at least one PATINS Staff Member will be available on our Island to greet you, give you a tour, answer your questions, provide you with training demonstrations, etc.  Contact me with questions via email or leave comments on the blog!  Additionally, if you want to log in to SL earlier than October 20th to explore our island and would like one of us to meet you there, just let us know!

Talking Calculator for iTouch/iPhone: Of course you probably are as used to me blogging about the extraordinary educational power in the iTouch/iPhone as you are me blogging about immersive 3D environments!  …but, Nanette from Elkhart came to see me today to pick up her refurbished computer, talk about some accessibility issues, NIMAS and other stuff.  One of the things she was looking for was a big-button talking calculator that didn’t make her student feel like she was standing out or using an “un-cool” tool.  Again, if it’s not socially valid, it’s not likely going to be engaging.  A quick look in the app store yielded a .99 application that is a very simple talking calculator with larger buttons.  It’s not perfect, but for .99 is worth looking at for some students.