Greetings to all. My name is Raul, and I am looking forward to learning more about the uses of mobile devices for learning. The iPhone has made this topic more interesting, especially with all the apps that are now available. I do own an iPod Touch, and I’m considering investing in an iPhone as an educational investment. Apple does provide the opportunity for anyone to develop their own iPhone app, and I decided last quarter to investigate this possibility (of creating my own app) over the summer. The annotated bibliography assignments for this ETEC 676 class works just fine toward this idea.
Dr. Newberry provided links to the history of Apple II, the educational games Oregon Trail!, Olympic Decathlon, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego for consideration. I do not recall ever being exposed to any of the aforementioned, other than Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. My younger family members used to watch that show on television. I was introduced to the Apple II in High School, I think. I do not recall whether the computer was an Apple. In this particular computer class, students were taught how to pre-program the computer’s interface to create their very own game.
After investigating the above links, I asked myself the question, “Are we waiting for someone to create the next great educational game/experience, or should we consider making our own?” I just played the Virtual Apple game, “Death in the Caribbean”. The game is one of dilemmas, and you have to decide to move “forward”, “back”, “left”, “right” by typing either. I “died” from typing in “back”; this command supposedly caused me to walk right into an ant hill. I knew there was an ant hill behind me. The game told me. I just wanted to see what would happen. This game was similar to the one I created back in high school, but no one died from playing my game.
I truly believe the challenge of mobile devices for educational purposes is to decide whether we are going to wait for the politics of education to implement them, whether we are going to wait until the next big “Oregon Trail” type app is developed, or whether we are going to develop our own app/mobile experience for our learners.
An interesting website with articles about mobile devices.
You raise some interesting points! It should be noted that many of the good Apple II games were in fact created by teachers. Of course, some of the really bad ones were too! The thing we have going for us today is the ease of sharing applications for mobile devices and the ease of sharing our results with each other.
Interesting post!
Hello Brian, I assume the sharing applications that you mention to be music, videos, and photos, and the ease of sharing results to mean text messaging and updates to social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. I do have experience in converting video files into MP4s and audio files into MP3s so they can be readily downloadable onto an iPhone/iTouch.
I did some research on sharing applications and found this interesting thesis introducing the concept of Seamless Content Sharing in which content sharing protocols such as UPnP, Atom Publishing Protocol, and WebDav could allow mobile devices to update, upload, and share content easier with other mobile devices. The idea is to create a universal language for mobile devices to share more efficiently.
Hi Raul. I think creating our own apps would do justice in the education system. A friend of mine has the ability to create apps and he put one together called “Philosothaurus” I think. It has different quotes once you shake the iPhone. How great would that be to put content from the classroom behind that. Steps to solve certain problems, important information from a particular standard, etc. All the kids would have to do is shake their iPhone to retrieve the information
Too easy for them!
Hello Heidi, I looked for that app “Philosothaurus”, but I couldn’t find it. I did do a search for free apps on my iTouch, and there are apps that have content from the classroom. Some of the apps focus on particular concepts. I downloaded a “Brain Tutor” app just to see what it contained. Basically, you are given options of what part of the brain you want to study, some text is offered on its location in the brain, the parts, and, with the flick of a finger, three color-coordinated, rotatable images of the brain showing the exact location. I did download the iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit), but I have yet to engage in it.
Hello Raul,
What a great idea to create apps. Apple does encourage this. How great to create one that could be used in the classroom by all of the students. It would take lots of consideration, but anything is possible. Will follow your development of this with great interest.
Joy
Hi Joy, I would be happy if I could just create an app that works! Lots of consideration would obviously come later :0)
I did learn that Microsoft offers a Windows Mobile Application Development software as well. Check it out.
Take care!
Hey, what’s up amigo. I know for one I’m not ready to create a game but inquiry lesson. cloze types of exercises using Quia are a sure thing. I need to get busy and think of a project that I can do without students around during the summer. I need to get really clever and figure out a way for the work to also help with my EDUC 603 class too. Talk with you later.
Hello Barbara, I hadn’t heard of Quia until you mentioned it. Have you tried the 30 day trial? Skype me!!!!