The BBC website hosts a series of brilliant gems that are very useful to teachers. While many of us will be familiar with the news page which is accessable via the web or using apps on our phones, there is a whole lot more that’s worth exploring and using. Here are some of my favourites…

1. BBC Future - http://www.bbc.com/future this is a stimulating site that has some interesting and often challenging articles. The site matches well with ITGS and also TOK for the IB’s out there.
2. BBC Science and Nature - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/ and Nature home page – http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/ some great resources here including videos
3. BBC School - http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ this is cool, stretching across the curriculum there are over 7000 resources here.
4. BBC Learning – http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/ this is learning for all ages from the very young to the not so young.
5. BBC bitesize http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ and GCSE bitesize http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ this is learning resources grouped by year level and subject area. Awesome.

This is a very useful site with a great list of different iPad applications sorted by subject areas and then these are broken down in to different categories. The applications are both free and paid subscription/purchase.

For Example – Language Arts apps has sub categories for

• literacy
• reading practice
• hand writing
• spelling
• grammar
• graphical organisers

This is a useful reference site - http://www.tcea.org/ipad

It is also worthwhile reading the Educause – Seven things you should know about iPad apps for learning. This is another excellent synopsis that helps clarify the use of iPads in the classroom.

For the Scientist, here are some free iPad applications that I have recently added to my laptop:

• Owl pellets lite – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/owl-pellet-activities-lite/id413711518?mt=8
• Chemistry Formula practice lite – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chemistry-formula-practice/id422958981?mt=8
• Building atoms, ions and isotopes – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/building-atoms-ions-isotopes/id437001161?mt=8

I have been enjoying this summer break and having a little technology downtime. However the kids have been playing quite extensively on the iPads as the weather has not always been conducive to swimming and playing around outside.

We have a wide selection of games on the iPad for the “kids” enjoyment and a couple leap to mine as useful tools that could be applied to learning. Why would I want to use games for learning, well they are engaging, self motivating, rewarding and have instant feedback. So here are a couple that I think have potential:

Simple Physics. Here you are required to build structures for a specific task. In the image below its a bomb shelter. The task is to build a shelter that withstands three explosion and remain within budget. The lower the cost the more points. To build it you must consider angles and strength, direction and force. Its fun and engaging. But its more than a bomb shelter, you build dams cranes, tree houses, submarines and staircases.

URL: http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/simplephysics/id408233979?mt=8

Here is a screengrab

Tinkerbox – this is a similar physics game to Simple Physics. Here you use logic, force, motion and mechanics to solve a series of problems. The game is supported by a tutorials (see below) that assist you in developing your solution. They are not easy either, there is considerable challenge involved in this game.

URL: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tinkerbox-hd/id415722219?mt=8

Rush Hour – this is a change of style and genre, but is an excellent learning and thinking game. This is a computer simulation of the real game of the same name. The objective is to move the cars in a sequence to allows you to release the red car from the grid lock it is in. The number of cars and the complexity of the sequence varies from easy to hard. Its a great game for developing logic and process. .

URL: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rush-hour/id336542036?mt=8

W.E.L.D.E.R. This stands for Word Examination Laboratory for Dynamic Extraction and Reassessment. Yea its a triffle ostentatious, but behind this mouthful lies a great game for the english student. Simply rearrange the letters and add in a few to create words (they have over 15000 loaded in the dictionary) Spell the word correctly, score the points and the letters are removed. It is a very addictive game.

URL: http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/w.e.l.d.e.r./id471056941?mt=8

Its easy to overlook the potential of games for learning. Find a game that matches your learning objectives, that reinforces a concept, that provides a different mode of understanding and you can unlock a world of engagement and fun.

WHAT GAMES HAVE YOU FOUND THAT COULD BE USE IN CLASS? I would love to hear about them.

We currently have a lovely exchange student staying with us from Japan. She has a good but basic english vocabulary but often struggles composing sentences etc. This is not at all unexpected and she is doing a brilliant job. While communication can sometimes be difficult, some things she has completely mastered, the iPad for example.

It occurred to me that some of the tools on the iPad that we use for Mr 5 to work on his development of English as a subject would also be help for for her to reinforce her english. However, I can really say to her, this is good for a 5 year old so it will help you. Instead I got her to help Mr 5 using the tools. Outcome… beneficial for all.

source: http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/058/Purple/e3/d8/36/mzl.cqtmlowe.320x480-75.jpg

The first tool we used was Sentence builder – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sentence-builder/id344378741?mt=8 This tool allows the user to construct sentences about a picture and then encourages them with spoken comments and reading back the completed sentence – useful spoken and written english in one go The company that produces this tool produces a couple of others to including Language Builder - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/languagebuilder-for-iphone/id405802167?mt=8 and Question builder - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/question-builder/id360577727?mt=8 . I haven’t tried these but I will soon.

Next on the list is play2learn. This is a vocabulary tool which allows the user to learn vocabulary by clicking on the image and listening to the spoken words and seeing the written form and then text themselves by listening to the word spoken and clicking on the appropriate image. Interestingly this is available in a variety of languages including english (though this is represented by an american flag). http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/play2learn-english-hd/id378746394?mt=8

The last in my little bag of tricks is iTranslate http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itranslate-free-translator/id288113403?mt=8 The basic version is free, but I think the speech component does come at a cost. This is another useful tool.

Not a bad set really.

For the last year, Harry and I have been working on the ipad applications book for high schools. The Book is called Apps for learning, and is published as part of the 21st Century Fluency series with my Colleagues Harry Dickens, Lee Crockett and  Ian Jukes. This book has been a huge amount of fun to write. I had a great excuse to by numerous applications and try these out. The book details what we consider to be the best applications for high school at the moment.

Some people have criticised the ipad, and the same criticism could be leveled at any of the new genre of touch screen devices, that these are consumption devices. I disagree emphatically. I put my money where my mouth is and wrote ALL of my contributions to the book on the iPad using pages. I editted ALL of my pictures using Adobe Photoshop Express. I planned and brainstormed for the book using iThoughts HD.

You only need to look at the increasing list of schools adopting the ipad or its kin as their primary mobile learning device to see the huge potential for this tool when used properly. It is the use of the tool that is critical, deliberate and considered, meaningful and purposeful use to enhance teaching and learning.

Here is the link to the book - http://www.amazon.com/Apps-Learning-iPhone-School-Classrooms/dp/1463612850/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314830290&sr=1-1.

Also worth checking out is book number three - literacy is not enough which is available on line from Corwin Press.

I love seeing so many school starting to adopt technology and recognising that the use of technology can be motivating and engaging, especially in light of the “More ladders,fewer  snakes” report from the independent think tank the New Zealand institute - http://www.nzinstitute.org/

What is critical is that the presence of technology by itself is not a panacea  or the ills of engagement or more accurately student disengagement. Rather the technology is a tool or perhaps a medium for motivating and focusing our students learning. Our use of technology in the classroom must be DELIBERATE and PURPOSEFUL. Then and only then will the improvement make meaningful impact on teaching and learning.

If I was to recommend a list of products for use on ipads in Junior or middle school I would recommend the following:

• iWorks pages, numbers and keynote – while these are reduced versions of the core applications for the mac, they tools will suit the average needs of the average user for word processing and simple desktop publishing, data processing and as a presentation medium.
• iThoughts HD – this is a simple to use yet powerful mind mapping tool
• Garageband – a nice and flexible music creation tool
• imovie – video production tool – this is great as the back camera of the ipad 2 gives nice clean footage.
• Adobe Photoshop express – simple image editor and free. You already have Photo Booth as a standard tool on the ipad 2
• Mathboard and Spellboard – great easy to use learning tools for mathematics and spelling
• Comic Life – this is the ipad version of Plasq’s winning tool. An absolute must from my perspective
• PuppetPals HD – this is a great animation tool, its well worth purchasing the master pack of resources which makes the product come to life. The kids love this and it will produce great videos that can be exported.
• eClicker Host and eclicker client – this is a student response system that will cost you a tiny amount. Also accessible from the web interface, this is great and so cost efficient. (well once you have purchased your idevices to run the clickers on)
• Google earth – while not as powerful as the PC or mac based Google Earth Client, this is still a useful and powerful learning tool. the students enjoy using this and can easily and intuitively manipulate the tool.
• Puffin web browser – this browser supports FLASH (YAY!!!), so mathletics is easily accessible from the ipad (you need to use the menu to access the keyboard to type in numeral/text answers).
• BrainPOP  – my kids love this, its quirky slightly off beat, but it has great resources and they enjoy it. Video and interactive media resources.
• Dictionary.com – this is a great dictionary tool. Useful, I wished more of my students used a dictionary.
• Sentence Builder – this is a useful tool for english and language arts. recommended by an amazing classroom practitioner – thanks Harry.
• Play2Learn – this is a language vocabulary tool. Its fun, visual and covers a range of languages. Well worth considering for schools that have a foreign language program. I have to put in my personal bias here ALL primary schools should be teaching ATLEAST 2 languages to their students and the younger the better.

There are more but this is just a start.

What would you add to this list and why?

This on the wire post has a single theme and is examining the Language translation technologies. These resources will suit IT students and particularly ITGS students, but of course the Language students will also find this useful to.

Google Translate

This is a great place to start. As the video suggests this is a free online translation application. I would watch the video its useful as a starting point. Then explore the different google resources including:

• Start here  - http://translate.google.com/# This is the translate starting page
• Google translate toolkits basic – http://translate.google.com/support/toolkit/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=147809
• Google translate help – http://www.google.com/support/translate/?hl=en
• Google translate toolkit http://translate.google.com/toolkit
• Video introduction – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7W2NJFdoIg (embedded below)
• Video How to Google translate – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FijOWfO3Frk (embedded below)

A second more detailed video showing specific features including non roman letter languages and web pages – How to video.

Lingenio

A second approach is demonstrated by LINGENIO. This is a proprietary application that does language translation. The website provides interesting insights into how translation software operates. Have a  look at these resources:

• Technology link page  - http://www.lingenio.de/English/Language-Technology/language-technology.htm
• How machine translation works – http://www.lingenio.de/English/Language-Technology/machine-translation.htm
• The technology behind translate – http://www.lingenio.de/English/Language-Technology/translate-technology.htm

Facebook

Facebook also offers a translation tool, but this uses people instead of machines. This is a useful comparison tool, but also raises issues of accuracy, reliability, privacy, integrity etc. These issues are also raised by machine translation tools as well but from a slightly different aspect.

• Facebook translation tool - http://www.facebook.com/translations/

Iphone, IPad etc

Also worth looking at (if you have an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad 2) is Word lens. This is a purchase application that has considerable potential

• Word Lens Application on iTunes – http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/word-lens/id383463868?mt=8
• introductory video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs

In this update of on the wire we have resources available from MS Australia, the open library a cool school and much more.

1. Free Tools in the classroom – http://www.microsoft.com/australia/education/teachers/teachertools/free-tools.aspx- Applications and resources available through MS Australia. This is a good start and has links and resources for

• Autocollage
• Photosynth
• Moviemaker live

Worth investigating – look at this PDF to – http://view.atdmt.com/action/slcepg_AUSFreeToolsGuide_9

2. Open Library – http://openlibrary.org/ - this site hosts over 1,000,000 free ebooks. This is a hugely powerful resource,

source: http://openlibrary.org/images/logo_OL-lg.png

accessing these can effectively save school thousands of dollars. Great stuff

3. Zooburst – http://www.zooburst.com/zb_about.php – This is a digital storytelling site that allows you to develop digital storybooks in 3D. The basic account is free and allows you to develop upto 10 books of 10pages each , the premium account has a fuller feature set, is Ad free and obviously a cost. Pricing and sign up here – http://www.zooburst.com/zb_pricing.php

4. Think Global Schools – http://thinkglobalschool.org/ – this is an interesting concept. I met some of the students at the flatclassroom project in Beijing. The catch line for the school is 12 countries in 12 trimesters. This is an exciting system. The students luerally travel around the world spending a trimester in a different country and school. They are developing outstanding global citizens. A great concept and one I will watch with interest.

5. Digizens – http://www.digizen.org/ This is a useful resource for digital citizenship materials and resources. Well constructed and planned this should be on your reading list.

and finally from National Geographic this cool zoomable image made up of 7000 human figures – Zoom in and zoom out it is very cool – http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/age-of-man/face-zoom-interactive

1. Educause – 7 things you should know about QR codes – http://www.educause.edu/ELI/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutQRCod/163728 This is another excellent resource from the educause team. This looks at QR codes – what are QR codes, they are an information rich form of barcodes. The QR codes can be text, URLs, email etc. You use a genrator to create them  – try this one - http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator/ or http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/

2. Verbs-online – http://www.verbs-online.com/index.htm This is a language resource site for French, German, English, Spanish, Portugeuse and Italian. Also worth looking at is http://www.vocabulix.com/framer.html another Language learning site. For those with iPads try this iTranslate – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itranslate-plus-universal/id294929700?mt=8

3. ChemEd DL - http://www.chemeddl.org/ this is a collaborative project sharing science and chemistry resources. Very cool .

4. Open maths resources -  http://www.mathopenref.com/index.html – this is a neat site for Maths teachers and learners particularly if you are after geometry resources. Will suit the senior students.

5. UNESCO ICT in Education Portal – http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/online-resources/portal-for-teachers/ This is a useful resource page for teachers developed by UNESCO. It containsa  wide range of resources that will help in the understanding of how, when and where to integrate ICTs into teaching and learning.

• I. The Role of ICT in Education
• II. Guidelines and Policies
• III. Teachers’ Roles
• IV. Training Strategies, Standards & Online Courses
• V. Ideas, Lessons and Curriculum
• VI. Using Internet Resources
• VII. Electronic Collaboration
• VIII. Distance and Online Learning
• IX. Evaluation Tools & Indicators

and finally for the iPad – Bookster Storytelling application – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bookster/id395395617?mt=8# Bookster is a free read-along storytelling application that reads to students, records and plays their voices, and teaches vocabulary.

This update is focusing on online dictionaries.

1. Article  -The end of printed dictionaries – http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/30/is-this-the-end-of-printed-dictionaries/ This is an interesting article from the Times about the future of printed, paper based dictionaries. It raises some interesting questions and is worth reading, particularly when you see the plethora of dictionaries available on line.

2. Oxford Dictionary – http://oxforddictionaries.com This is the original dictionary and a classic. Most of us have at some stage owned an oxford dictionary, usually the pocket oxford. I wonder where it is now? Interesting the Oxford dictionary is available as an iPhone app with audio too

3. Webster’s online dictionary – http://www.webster-dictionary.org/ This is another well respected and used dictionary. This site is also a thesaurus, medical and legal dictionary too.

4. Cambridge Dictionary - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ this is yet another of the big dictionary compaies thats online. They too are offering apps for mobile devices like iphone and android

5. Dictionary.com – http://dictionary.reference.com/ This is a popular one with the students and is available as an ipad and iphone/touch application too.

6. Wordnik – http://www.wordnik.com/ this is one of the recent online dictionaries and thesaurus. Worth a look.

7. Ninjawords - http://ninjawords.com/ this dictionary, which claims to be fast, infact NINJA fast is also available as a iphone application.

8. Definr – http://www.definr.com/ another fast online dictionary

and finally, this is one of my favourite as its a different approach to dictionaries and one I like. Visuwords This dictionary particularly appeals to the visual learner – http://www.visuwords.com