Thumann Resources

21st Century ideas to help facilitate good teaching and learning.

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Foreign Languages

Posted by lthumann on November 2, 2008

This is the sixth post in a series I have been blogging about on using the iPod iTouch in the classroom. In response to Day 2 of Steve Dembo’s 30 Day’s to Being a Better Blogger I took a look at what brings most readers to Thumann Resources and it turns out it’s my posts on the iTouch and iPhone applications.

I was most interested in which of the posts brought the most visitors. At no surprise to me, iTouch the Future…I Teach - Music had the most hits of the first 5 posts in the series. Listed below are the remaining four posts listed in order from greatest number of hits to least.

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Myself

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Math

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Science

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Social Studies

Since August was the last time I posted anything about using iTouches in the classroom, I thought I might get back on track a bit with what brings many readers to my blog. I have been saving a few really fantastic sites to use in foreign language or ELL classes. Take a look.

The first app is The Talking Phrase Book. If you look at this application on the web, it will work, but it will not give you a link to any audio. If you look at it on your iTouch or iPhone, it will give you a link to play the audio once you select to convert the English to French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish. Just watch this video tutorial to see how easy it is to use this convenient application.

Next take a look at Ask A Word. This is an all-in-one Spellcheck - Thesaurus - Dictionary - Encyclopedia, that is simple to use. It’s worth giving it a try.

You may also want to take a look at the Mobile Translator. This site allows you to take any Spanish word or phrase and translate it into one of ten languages including Korean, Russian and German.

Lastly, please visit Tech Dictionary. I got a real kick out of this site. I think it should be used as a resource at Cyber Safety workshops for parents. Not only can you look up any technology term (I tried CSS, shell and XML) but you can dive deep into their databases of IM-Chat abbreviations and Emoticon symbol combinations. This is the most extensive list I have come across in a long time.

Some of my favorites as seen below:

SFLA = Stupid Four Letter Acronym

( <> .. <> ) = Alienated

As usual, you can see the notes I put together for this post in a published Google Doc.

Posted in CMSCE, iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Social Studies

Posted by lthumann on August 12, 2008

ThumannResources - Google Sites

ThumannResources - Google Sites

You don’t have 20 years of teaching experience if you’ve been teaching the same lesson the same way for 20 years. You have to revisit and revise every time you teach a lesson because there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

I’ve decided that one of the things that I can do to improve the professional development that I offer is to move some of my resources from my old eBoards to my new wiki. As I’m doing this I’m adding some of my presentations to SlideShare and of course editing and updating many of them as well.

On August 13, I’ll be teaching my iPods in Education workshop again. This is one of my favorite sessions. I always look forward to sharing all that you can do with the iPod and I have had a great time blogging about all the resource that are available to educators and students that have access to iPod Touches.

There are a few resources I’d like to share for Social Studies, including some for the upcoming Presidential Election. Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you’ve found any others.

iCandidate Poll

This is a set of 20 questions that you answer to determine which of our two Presidential Candidates is a better match for your political opnions based on your answers.

iPodia

This site is Wikipedia for the iPhone / iTouch. iPodia does promise a new version is coming out soon, but I did not have a problem with the current version. Everything that you see on Wikipedia on the regular-sized monitor looks very nice and is readable on their mobile site.

Speedymarks.com offers some interactive quizzes for the iTouch. Pictured to the right is the quiz for the location of the United States. The user can select whether they be given 2, 3 or 4 choices to respond to the red highlighted area.

This same website also provides a Country Quiz. The user has a half dozen or so regions to choose from before they have to respond to questions specific to that region.

Once again, I’ve published the Google Doc that I used to gather the Social Studies resources for this post. Don’t forget you can also view my wiki on iPods in Education at http://sites.google.com/site/thumannresources/ or click on the Google Sites button under my picture on the right side of your monitor.

Posted in iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

iTouch The Future…I Teach Myself

Posted by lthumann on July 10, 2008

It’s amazing how many applications are available for the iTouch / iPhone. So far, I’ve blogged about sites for music, math and science and I’ve only made a dent in what’s available to use with students. There are also many sites that we can use for ourselves for productivity and just for fun. Today’s post will be a little bit about all three.

Productivity

· iDetect http://spicyclam.com/idetect/
This is an internet detection connector. If you have an iTouch, iDetect will automatically connect you to wi-fi if there is one available.

· Google Notebook - Mobile Version http://google.com/notebook/m
If you have an iGoogle page set up for yourself, this is great to have access to on your iPhone or iTouch. You could use it in lieu of a Google Doc to access information on-the-go. I’ve used it to access sets of links similar to this Google Doc that I’m no interested in sharing or publishing as a webpage.

· Glide http://www.glidemobile.com/
Sync with your desktop to view Powerpoint and Word docs on your iTouch. It’s a complete mobile desktop. Here’s an article about it.

· Widgetop http://www.widgetop.com/mobile.html
This is the mobile version of Widgetop Check it out if you are a fan of widgets or if you are a developer and you’d like to submit one to them.

· Pogonotes http://www.pogonotes.com/iphone/pogonotes.php
These “notes” are accessible beyond the iTouch unlike the notes that comes pre-installed – take a look at their site.

· iPhone Typing Test http://www.iphonetypingtest.com/
Try it out - see how fast you type with one finger.

· iNetwork Test http://www.inetworktest.com/
Measures the speed of the network your device is attached to.

· iTouch RSS Converter http://rss.blogcast.jp/login.php
iPhone/touch RSS Converter enables you to bring your favorite audio and video podcasts without syncing with iTunes. This tool allows you more space for many music and video on your iPhone and iPod Touch. Try your favorite podcast and you can also discover many podcasts from other people’s choice.

Education

· Quizzler http://www.quizzlerpro.com/quiz/online/index.html
Preloaded quizzes for SAT prep vocabulary, Harry Potter Books, State Capitals, Animals and Nature and more. When you tap on the wrong answer it highlights in red. When you tap on the correct answer it highlights in green so you know to move on to the next question.

Purchase Quizzler Pro to create quizzes yourself.

WARNING: Quizzler was originally developed for Pocket PCs and Palm handhelds. You can adapt the quizzes for the iPhones and iTouches, but their website suggests contacting them directly with any additional questions. It makes me think they are working on developing software specifically for the iTouch.

· iBookmark http://ibookmark.myiphone.pl/en/
There is a function that allows you to import from Del.icio.us

Entertainment

· iDoodle http://www.idoodleapp.com/
I could have used this one in the iTouch Math sites for geometry. You can “replay” your strokes. New to this latest version of iDoodle - you can now add text

video tutorial found at: http://www.idoodleapp.com/iDoodleGuide/index.html
iDoodle.jpg

· Free eBooks http://iphoneplaza.net/books/
They currently have about 20 books- supported by ads for Amazon. (There’s a link right on the main page for a “Deluxe eBook Reader”. It’s a link to buy the Kindle on Amazon.com)

· iPhlickr http://www.chandlerkent.com/iphlickr/
This site is not affiliated directed with Flickr -but allows you to search and view your Flickr photos or the millions of other photos on Flickr from your iPhone or iTouch.

· Google Talk http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m
IM your Google contacts from your iPhone / iTouch

A few additional items I wanted to mention…

If you are looking to Jailbreak your iPhone – check out Mark Wagner’s blog. He is a fellow Google Certified Teacher that I had the pleasure of meeting in person at NECC in San Antonio last week. He has some great posts on the topic.

Wouldn’t it be great if Diigo had a mobile site?

Still to come iTouch Foreign Languages, iTouch Social Studies and you never know what else I’ll come across. Feel free to leave me a comment with some suggestions. And as always, there were a few sites I looked at that I didn’t list here. Feel free to view my Google Doc.

Posted in CMSCE, iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

iTouch The Future…I Teach-Science

Posted by lthumann on June 10, 2008

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get to my third post on the iTouch. June has been a crazy month of professional development, getting ready for NECC and playing with new toys.

On to the focus of the post - science. As I did with my post on iTouch music sites and iTouch math sites, I’ve published a Google Doc with the websites I tried on the iTouch. Not all of them were worth posting here either because of the layout, appropriateness in the educational setting, or because I just couldn’t access them, but you might want to see them, so you can through this Doc.

I tried to divide the sites into categories as I had with the math sites, but there would have been too many categories, so I’m going to list some converters and some miscellaneous.

There were several great science converter sites for the iTouch/iPhone.

- iConvert - has 26 categories including torque, density, and clothing sizes. (I’ve never been able to convert US shoe sizes to European shoe sizes and now I can!)

- Comoki Converter (only viewable on the iTouch/iPhone) - This one is AWESOME! It’s divided by categories (angle area, energy, temperature, time, length, speed, pressure, power, volume, weight ) You could spend hours here.  BTW - Thanks @Riptide_Furse for the suggestion.

- Temperature Conversions

- Culinary Calculator - weight converter

 

There were a couple of dictionaries for the iTouch.

There was a also a fantastic site that would be helpful for students working with the Periodic Table of Elements.

As I mentioned in my iTouch post on math sites, you’d probably start to see me repeat some of the websites. But that’s just because as educators, we are creative in how we use our resources. This time, I’ve used iFlipr to create a set of flipcards to review an insects unit my preschool-aged daughter is studying in school. You’ll see she doesn’t need much guidance from me on how to use the technology - or how to identify the insects.

 

Again, iFlipr comes with decks you can download, or you can make your own. Any suggestions for decks to create? Right now this site is free, but I’m thinking it won’t be for long. Already, one of my favorites, Mogopop, seems to have vanished from the internet. So you never know what’s going to happen.

Next time - iTouch the Future…I Teach - Social Studies

Posted in CMSCE, iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »