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Facebook iPads mobile phones popular culture sociology

Look up (and put your gadgets down)

Look up

You might have seen this  video doing the rounds recently….over 19 million YouTube views since 25 April…..good for class discussion. Writer and director Gary Turk produced his 5 minute “spoken word film for an online generation”, highlighting the social isolation resulting from constant online connectivity. Turk says “Look Up is a lesson taught to us through a love story, in a world where we continue to find ways to make it easier for us to connect with one another, but always results in us spending more time alone”.  

Yes…ironic that a film about putting down your gadgets goes viral….and it might be a bit sentimental but it’s sweet. Think about what you’re missing out on….look up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/look-up-video-lifechanging-film-about-quitting-social-media-ironically-goes-viral-with-tweets-from-andy-murray-and-jordin-sparks-9323510.html

Are you addicted to your smartphone?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201307/smartphone-addiction

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books ebooks iPads libraries literature

Indie Book Awards

Interesting to see the winners announced on 26 March, chosen by the independent booksellers of Australia (200 shops nationally)…

Indie Book Awards

The narrow road to the deep north by Richard Flanagan was voted as the booksellers’ favourite Australian book from last year and the winner of The Indie Book of the Year Award 2014.    

Category winners:

FICTION AWARD:

The narrow road to the deep north by Richard Flanagan (Random House Australia)

NON-FICTION AWARD:

Girt by David Hunt (Black Inc)

DEBUT FICTION AWARD:

Burial rites by Hannah Kent (Pan Macmillan Australia)

CHILDREN’S AWARD:

Kissed by the moon by Alison Lester (Penguin Australia)

http://www.indies.com.au/IndieAward.aspx

 

Current Indie Top 10 bestsellers include Burial rites, The fault in our stars, The blazing world, I quit sugar for life (!), The Rosie project, Beams falling….

http://www.indies.com.au/Default.aspx

 

Interesting/cute article in the Sunday paper last week (does anyone buy them anymore?) – iPad dad who won’t let his (2 and a half year old) son read books…and the mum who smuggles them in:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/the-ipad-dad-who-wont-let-son-read-books/story-fni0cx4q-1226868554082

The article included a comment by Sophie Higgins from Dymocks, who said the market for children’s books has felt no impact from tablets like the iPad. “Sales of children’s books last Christmas were up 11.4% in value, that’s huge growth, and that growth was consistent all year.”

Other interesting info in the article: 376 public libraries in NSW; 3.2 million members and 35 million visits in 2012. Yay for libraries!

 

 

Categories
ed tech iPads

Transformation Sentences : iPad app

Here is a powerful educational iPad app for teachers of sentence construction, sentence transformation and spelling: Transformation Sentences ($1.99 in the App Store; requires iOS7). It would be very useful for teachers of students who are learning to read – primary, high school, adult and ESL.

It was developed specifically for several teachers at Dickson College who wanted an app to support the Scaffolding Literacy program in the Secondary Introductory English Centre. Students here have just started learning English in Australia and will later move to ESL classes. The teachers wanted an app that wasn’t full of fancy bells and whistles but supported the teaching of literacy skills. The app has been used very successfully in class.

YouTube video demonstrating the features of the Transformation Sentences app: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slX6TwDG0gU

Features include:

Sentences: Enter text, rearrange and drag individual words. Use for prediction games, cloze exercises etc

Spelling: Separate a word into letters or sounds.

Shuffle: Places all words in a sentence into random order. Students then reassemble the sentence.

Extra words: Add extra words and label parts of a sentence (eg. Who? What? Where?).

Save data: Save up to 10 sentences or spelling lists in folders. Send the folders to other iPads via Bluetooth or wi-fi (this enables the teacher to type a paragraph just once, which is then sent to the students’ iPads).

Draw: Use your finger as a pencil to write words directly on the screen.

Customise: Choose font, size and background.

(The app was created by my son Bryan Hathaway).

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ed tech Facebook Games and gaming Google iPads media mobile phones news newspapers popular culture sociology TV websites Wikipedia YouTube

ICT news and the online world

Some ICT news…useful for sociology, media studies, popular culture, business studies, psychology and BYOD schools….

 Australian Online Landscape Review Sept 2013

This Nielsen report found 16.4 million Australians were actively online in Sept 2013.

Top 10 brands in order: Google; Facebook; Mi9; YouTube; Microsoft; Yahoo!7; eBay; Wikipedia; Apple; ABC Online. More hours are devoted to Facebook per person than any other site and people spend longer on eBay than Wikipedia.

Online video streaming – top 10 brands in order: YouTube; Facebook; Mi9; VEVO (music videos); CollegeHumor Network; Yahoo!7; ABC Online; smh.com.au; news.com.au; Vube (video sharing contests). Men streamed 30.1% more videos than women and most streaming was done by 18-24 year olds.

41% of daily browsers came from a mobile device or tablet and 58% from a computer.

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/au/en/reports/2013/Nielsen-Australian-Online-Landscape-Review-September-2013.pdf

http://www.nielsen.com/au/en.html

 Australian Multi Screen Report (Q2 2013)

This Nielsen report found 92% of all video viewing is on the TV set; 80% of homes have the internet; 33% of homes have tablets; 22% of homes have internet-connected TVs; 65% aged 16+ own a smartphone.

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/au/en/press/2013/australian-multi-Screen-report-media-release-october-2013.pdf

Australian tablet sales poised to eclipse desktop computers and laptops

Telsyte predicts tablet sales & use will eclipse PCs, Macs & laptops within 2 years. In the first half of 2013, Australians bought 2.3 million tablets – more than for the whole of 2012. Smartphone sales continue to rise, with 14 million users in Aust. By 2014 in Aust., more people will access the internet on smartphones than computers. Tablets will follow.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/aussie-tablet-computer-sales-poised-to-eclipse-those-of-traditional-desktop-computers-and-laptops/story-fni0cx12-1226710882032

Most popular websites on the internet for 8 Nov 2013

Top 12 in order: Google; Facebook; YouTube; Yahoo; Baidu; Wikipedia; Qq; Linkedin; Windows Live; Twitter; Amazon; Blogger. Click on the entries for interesting info about the companies – website review, news, traffic graph, website worth.

http://mostpopularwebsites.net/

Alexa top 500 sites on the web

Similar top 10 to above. Alexa ranks Bing at 19; eBay at 20; Pinterest at 26; Instagram at 40; imdb at 47.  http://www.alexa.com/topsites

Top 500 sites in Australia: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/AU. Linkedin is 8; Gumtree is 12; realestate.com.au is 18; Seek is 26; Pirate Bay is 33.

Search top sites by country: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries

9 ways video games can actually be good for you

Mothers of gamers – stop stressing! Play games, increase your brain size & stop aging!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/video-games-good-for-us_n_4164723.html?ir=Technology&utm_campaign=110713&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-technology&utm_content=FullStory

Video games represent the most powerful (and potentially dangerous) era in storytelling

Video games are expressive &  formative and, relative to other forms of storytelling, allow for choice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-runge/video-game-violence_b_4067069.html

 

Categories
ed tech iPads

Apple Volume Purchase Program now in Australia

The Apple Volume Purchase Program is now available in Aust….. it makes it easier to put apps on multiple iPads and other Apple iOS devices (iPod Touch, iPhone).

 

Good news – many apps may cost 50% less.

Macworld 5 Sept 2012:  “Apple has launched its Volume Purchase Program (VPP) in Australia today, allowing educational institutions to bulk-buy apps for 50 percent less than individual iOS App Store pricing.

The program is open to primary and secondary schools, universities and colleges, and allows Apple devices to be used as teaching tools in classrooms and courses.

Apple said the program “allows educational institutions to purchase iOS apps in volume and distribute them to students, teachers, administrators and employees. Through the VPP, participating developers can provide their apps for 50 percent off App Store prices in quantities of 20 or more.”

The program requires institutions to appoint a Program Manager and a Program Facilitator to create a unique Apple ID for the program, and oversee and purchase (via credit card) the necessary apps.

The apps are bought through a Program Education Store, separate to the traditional iOS App Store, which provides individual codes that can be emailed to students or employees to redeem on their own iOS devices, or placed on an internal website for the recipients to download”  http://www.macworld.com.au/news/apple-launches-volume-purchase-program-for-aussie-educators-71175/

Apple info:  http://www.apple.com/au/education/volume-purchase-program/

 

Sounds like it will make things easier!

 

Categories
iPads

ISTE 2012 #03 – There’s an App For That

An entertaining and informative session on new iPad apps

http://anAPPforTHAT.yolasite.com

Categories
ed tech iPads

Apple iOS 6 and iPads

 

Trivia: What literary character has had more film and TV portrayals than any other literary character?

This character has been depicted on the big and small screen a total of 254 times.

Clue: It’s not Hamlet. Alas, poor Hamlet has appeared only 206 times!

Find the answer here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2146091/Sherlock-Holmes-portrayed-literary-character-TV-film.html

 

15 great iPad books

For young readers, judged on exceptional use of animation. The site also links to other app review sites.

http://digitalmediadiet.com/?p=1560

 

Apple announces iOS 6 (due out around Sept. onwards)

Some interesting new features include enhanced Facebook for the iPad – users will be able to post photos & videos directly into Facebook.

iOS 6 Maps app (beta)

Apple announced that it is creating a 3D map of the world in competition with Google. Did they really need to do this? Google Maps & Google Earth are pretty awesome. Already Apple has a fleet of planes & helicopters flying over major cities – you can run, but you can’t hide…and all that aviation fuel….sigh. You will see 3D maps, standard maps & satellite views.

It will also provide turn by turn navigation for iPhones and use anonymous real time data from iPhone users to get traffic data. We’ll probably get this in Australia a while after the US.

iOS 6 Maps: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=bGJABnoA2Xw&list=UUsvdAmvbn2k_1WtUR6hc2Eg&index=4&feature=plcp

 

New Siri features in iOS 6

Your voiced personal assistant will  now be available on the iPad (new version) when iOS 6  is released. Hold down the Home button & up pops Siri. Speak to Siri and it will launch an app for you. Siri will also give you info – initially it will be just be sports, movies & restaurants but eventually who knows! http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/siri/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY-MkVK_Cvs&list=UUsvdAmvbn2k_1WtUR6hc2Eg&index=3&feature=plcp

 

VoiceOver: the read aloud feature for current iPads on iOS 5

Users of iPads running iOS 5 can currently access VoiceOver which reads selected text to you. Hold your finger over any selected text and you will get the options box. One of those options will be the read aloud feature. You must turn the feature on: Settings – General – Accessibility – VoiceOver – On. Some iBooks come “enhanced” with a read aloud feature.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8681610_can-ipad-read-out-loud.html

 

Teach twice: “publishing stories from around the world in order to create learning and to fund education in the country from which the story came”

Their first story is now available: My precious name – a story from Uganda.

http://teachtwice.org/

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/03/teach-twice-takes-off/

 

Photo finish (ABC Thurs 8 pm)

Hosted by Andrew G., this looks like an interesting show for photography teachers & students. Each week 3 photographers are given a photographic task to complete and they are then judged on their work.

 

Categories
books iPads

Top 15 iPad Book Apps

Top whatever lists often leave you scratching your head about the selections and the omissions. This list however comes with a bit of authority, created as a result of fairly extensive research of the genre and has some interesting inclusions. “Here you will find the fifteen apps we consider to be simply exceptional for both the quality and contextual use of animation for storytelling in an iPad book app for children.” The top book “Flip” is unknown to me but must be good to knock “The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore” into second place, certainly a list worth investigating.  Read the full list here.

Categories
ed tech Facebook iPads

Facebook; tablets; apps

21 May 2012
Facebook – now valued at $US104 billion
18/5/12: Shares were offered at $US38 each. The 8 year old company is now worth more than Amazon, Disney or McDonalds. Google is worth $200 billion, Apple $496 billion & Microsoft $246 billion. The sale of shares means more money to operate the data centres that hold all the status updates, photos etc shared by Facebook’s 900 million users.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/money/facebook-stock-slightly-big-wall-street-debut-article-1.1080799
And he just got married too! http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/marriage-caps-mark-zuckerbergs-week-to-like/story-fnb64oi6-1226361594407?from=public_rss

Zuckerberg the musical
Watch this 4 min. musical tribute to Zucks and the 8 year history of FB, using great showtunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_hkk6lFTb4
Interesting milestones in Facebook’s history….. was the best thing the “like” button?! http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/milestones-in-facebooks-history-20120518-1yuab.html

Why we like to brag on Facebook and Twitter
Harvard neuroscientists monitored brain activity using MRI and found that self-disclosure heightens brain activity in regions associated with reward and pleasure. People were even willing to forgo money to talk about themselves.http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-self-disclosure-study-20120508,0,7870124.story

Tablets will rule the future personal computing landscape
Forrester Report 23/4/12: By 2016, they expect global tablet sales to reach 375 million units, compared to 56 million sales in 2011, with around 760 million tablets in use worldwide in 2016 (people keep tablets for around 3 years). The iPad will dominate. Tablets will be the conductor for PCs, devices and personal cloud services at work and at home. Analyst Frank Gillett attributes the growth in tablets to a longer battery life, easy information consumption and their ease of use for sharing and working in groups – all great reasons for schools to implement and support iPads! More content-creation apps will arrive, using gestures and voice input. However, Gillett says there will always be a place for powerful PCs with large displays – and some people will always prefer them. http://blogs.forrester.com/frank_gillett
Apps and mobile devices
Australians love their apps and mobile devices and have downloaded one billion apps since they became available in 2008: 700 million for iPhones; 64 million for iPads; 230 million for Androids. In March 2012, Australians downloaded 66 million apps – making us 5th in the world (per person) – behind Korea, Sweden, UK and Denmark. More than half of all Austns have a smartphone. More proof that schools need to support mobile technologies and BYOT! http://www.news.com.au/technology/a-billion-apps-in-aussie-pockets/story-e6frfro0-1226357243036

Categories
books ed tech iPads websites

iPads; iTunes accounts; Configurator; iBooks Author; Gmail

Gmail accounts & iTunes

This year we bought 30 iPads to use with our introductory English classes. The ACT Dept of Ed requires each iPad to have its own iTunes account and each app must be bought individually for each iPad. Thus comes the challenge of creating 30 email addresses in order to set up 30 iTunes accounts.

Google only allows you to set up about 4 Gmail addresses at one time (I think you can set up more the next day). A solution is to set up one Gmail account. Then when you are using this Gmail address to set up an iTunes account (or other class account), just use use the + sign to create the other account names. You don’t actually create these + accounts in Gmail, they just link back to your original account. Gmail ignores any letters & numbers after the + sign and sends any email messages back to the main account.

eg. Create Gmail account capitalschool@gmail.com. Your first iTunes account becomes capitalschool+ipad1@gmail.com, your second iTunes account becomes capitalschool+ipad2@gmail.com etc

We soon found out that you couldn’t complete the iTunes setup unless you provided credit card details or an iTunes card…..that’s our next step. And our very secure wireless network isn’t kind to iPads – it keeps prompting for internet passwords etc But one day….soon…

http://help.edublogs.org/2009/02/27/creating-student-accounts-using-one-gmail-account/

Apple Configurator

Released 7 March, Apple Configurator makes it easy for anyone to mass configure and deploy large numbers of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches in a school, business or institution. Up to 30 at once can be set up & apps installed. Download the Configurator app from the Mac App Store. Very useful for schools where students do not have their own iPads, but use a class set. However, in Australia at present, you can only use Configurator to install free apps (we don’t have the Volume Purchase Program for paid apps yet). It is also good for updating the iOS on multiple iPads.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/apple-configurator/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-configurator/id434433123?mt=12

 The Apple Volume Purchase Program (VPP)

Released in the US in July 2011 – no news yet as to when it might come to Australia…..would be great though. VPP allows schools to purchase iOS apps & books in volume (for iPads, iPod Touches, iPhones) and distribute them to students & teachers.

http://www.apple.com/education/volume-purchase-program/

 iBooks Author

Free app from the Mac App Store; released Jan 2012. Make stunning multimedia interactive ebooks easily – only for the iPad. Write in it directly or import from Word or Pages. Add photos, movies, music, quizzes, diagrams etc. Add interactivity using widgets. Export your work in the .iBooks format, drag it into iTunes & sync it. Also, any PDF on the iPad can be sent and read in iBooks.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/software/graphics-and-media-software/desktop-publishing-dtp-software/apple-ibooks-author-1062792/review

http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/03/ibooks-author-review-free-textbook/

 iBooks textbooks for iPad

In January, interactive textbooks from McGraw-Hill & Pearson (mainly science; created with iBooks Author) were available in Books in iTunes US for $14.99. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are also creating textbooks. None of these interactive textbooks are yet available in iTunes Australia. The price is right – perhaps we will get them soon after publisher negotiations?

 iPad apps – useful sites

http://appsineducation.blogspot.com.au/p/tas-ipad-apps.html – A very comprehensive resource; many links re iPads; apps in subject areas.

http://learningwithipads.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/digital-textbooks-with-ibooks-author.html – Informative site by Catholic Office, Parramatta, NSW. App toolkits for primary, secondary, special ed, subject areas.

http://eskymaclj.blogspot.com.au/p/ipad-app-reviews.html – Many links to other sites with reviews & lists.

http://www.iear.org/ Ed. apps review: a community effort to grade ed. apps.