Audiobooks Made Easy

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Last school year, I told our Student Council we’d be working on getting iPod Shuffles for the LRC to checkout with our minimal audiobook collection.  However, the lack of LCD screen to guide a reader is as irritating as the file format issues (an audiobook in iTunes needs to be an .m4b file).

Other schools in my district are using the Creative Zen and other MP3 players which have a bookmarking feature.  While I am interested in this, I have already invested lots of time and money getting audiobooks onto iTunes and synced up with our iPod Classics.  Unfortunately, the remaining host of audiobooks on CD have sat in a bag waiting for “time” (I don’t have) to change them over.

An early December post from CNet, however, gave me new hope!  Taking an audiobook from CD to iPod is now quite easy with iTunes 8.  Using their photo guidance I practiced with personal copies of Shel Silverstein audio CDs that came with books and I was up and running in minutes!  As a result, my wife transferred all of my daughter’s audiobook CDs onto her old iPod Mini this morning.

This is the crucial, simplified step when making files an audiobook!

iTunes/iPod can Bookmark…sort of

While the bookmarking feature is useful and one Apple should integrate, there are many benefits to using audiobooks with iTunes:

  • Audiobooks are automatically bookmarked: if you stop an audiobook in the middle and play something else, then go back to the audiobook, it will start playing where you left off – even after resynchronizing your iPod.
  • The main menu has a direct Audiobooks entry.
  • You can play audiobooks faster or slower than normal speed.
  • Audiobooks can have chapter stops within them.
  • Audiobooks are automatically skipped during all music shuffle.

(These ideas and direct quotes taken from Ed’s Tech Tips)

Recommendations

Regardless of what route you take, I think the following are useful ideas:

  1. IF you’re using an MP3 player with a simple LCD screen, it can be helpful to label your tracks with information about the book: title acronym, series number (if applicable), chapter number, and chapter title/description (e.g. Ranger’s Apprentice, Book One: The Ruins of Gorland by John Flanagan = RA_bk1-ch00-Prologue).
  2. If you’re using a video capable MP3 player, I’d add “artwork” for the cover of the book.
  3. If a chapter is several tracks long, you might want to combine the tracks into one file.  This requires another program to manage, but in iTunes, you can highlight the tracks then choose Advanced menu → Join Tracks

Enjoy! :-)

Share Music

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I completely miss making mix tapes for people, so I have been ecstatic to find that there are sites which allow you to draw from existing music and mix it like I used to back in the 80s & 90s. The multimedia capabilities of today make me wonder what mixed media I would give a friend or girlfriend if I were in high school today?

Unfortunately, sites that allow such online compilations try to keep Kosher with copyright laws, but at the same time…can’t. An exciting site called Muxtape halted service (lengthy explanation on the front page of the site) due to pressure from the recording industry. I’m hopeful MixWit won’t fall to the same, but after looking for popular artists and creating my own mix (below), you’ll see that copyrighted music is very easy to find and add.


MixwitMixwit make a mixtapeMixwit mixtapes

I’m not proud of this effort in it’s ease to find and compile major label artists, rather, I see it as yet another message to the music industry. Times have been a changin’ and we need to work together to create a way that this can exist and artists can be paid for their work. Muxtape failed in that, but maybe MixWit can succeed?

Can a one year-old use an iPhone?

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Yes.

I knew I couldn’t be the first one to capture this, but the following video might be one of the first to capture a one year-old (dark hair) teaching a two year-old (blond) how to use the iPhone/iPod Touch photography feature.  You’ll notice the blond watching the younger, dark haired child scroll, double tap, and drag pictures around the simple touch screen.  By the end of the video the blond tries applying the skills she’s learned, only to conflict with the other user.

I suppose what intrigues me so was witnessing a one year-old, who just learned to walk and has limited verbal skills, use an expensive piece of technology.  If nothing else, this and other videos available on You Tube (this video is private, sorry) demonstrate how intuitive Apple’s touch screen is.  However, the other videos I’ve viewed only demonstrate a child interacting with the iPhone/iPod Touch alone or with their parents.  In this video we witness a child learning from another child.

I’m not well read on how children learn from each other, but after witnessing this teachable moment, I’m intrigued.  Children often mimic what others say or do. As an experience educator, I have witnessed students teaching other students how to use technology quite often.  Inevitably this same situation would occur when I would take our class to the computer lab to create PowerPoint, PhotoStories, or MovieMaker products.  One student might ask another how they were able to create an effect or they would simply watch and mirror what a neighbor has done.

Confident teachers who are cognizant of this, welcome the student leader and use them to help the class.  Not only does this recognize their strengths, but it increases their self-esteem and confidence at the same time helping the class progress.

It also reminds me of a TED Talk I watched recently.  During Sugata Mitra’s 2007 presentation, “Can kids teach themselves?“, he places automated, internet kiosks in various towns around India where students haven’t surfed the internet before.  He found that without English language skills, inexperience with technology, and only using trial and error or peer teaching techniques, students learned to surf the web effectively.  Through his “hole in the wall” experiments, his hidden videos found that students picked up basic English (typically web browsing words) and began teaching each other in groups.

The other day my principal called me down explaining how she wanted to do something on our district portal, but didn’t know how.  After she finished explaining the ideal, she asked if I knew how to make that happen.  I simply replied, “Not yet, but if I can borrow your computer, I can try.”  My curiosity, the challenge of the task, and my background of experience using a variety of user interfaces helped me to reason through the process.  A few minutes later I explained to her how I had accomplished the idea she voiced. “I don’t understand how, Josh.  You just get it!” she exclaimed.

Honestly, I’m just like the blond.  I’ve had experience with technology since my extreme youth.  I watch and learn, try…fail…try…fail…try…succeed, and consider how other pieces of technology I’ve used might help me reason through the current problem.  Maybe that’s all you need?

iPods in Education Video Launches

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When I began working with iPods at my school, I had little knowledge and many people helped me along the way.  After the presentation this May, I wanted to give back.  It’s taken three months and hours of work to fine tune my production.  Most of my time was working diligently to follow copyright guidelines and be a model for other educators.  Unfortunately, my interactions with Apple were less than productive (see timeline below).

Regardless of this rough patch, I feel confident that this video will inspire others to the possibilities of using an iPod Classic in education.  Please feel free to comment and stop by the iPodject Wiki (currently under construction currently) to expand the collective knowledge on how iPods are bridging the gap between school and home.


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by jmika

Creative Commons License

The iPods in Education video by Josh Mika is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Copyright Timeline:

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May 2008 – My NEF Breakfast presentation was composed of student video, student presentations, and inspirational PowerPoint put to last 1:40 of Vanessa Carlton’s Home (permission from Universal Studios granted for one time use only).

Early June 2008 – Reworking and expansion of the inspirational portion begins.  Two weeks of searching for copyright friendly music yields nothing viable.  Eventually a piece is found off of the open source page of the Internet Archive.  I wrote the artist and was granted permission for this educational video.

Late June 2008 – Classes start up again and progress on the video slows.  I refer to Apple’s Legal page and follow their guidelines on copyright and trademarks.  I then asked the musician and my district public relations department to look over and critique my production using a private wiki.

After trying just about every email available at the Apple Legal page and only getting automated responses, I call Apple Corporate and describe my frustrations.  The switchboard operator put me in contact with Sue Carroll (Marketing & IP Legal).  Our initial interaction on June 26th (phone tag ->voicemail ->emails) are positive.  She promises me that direct my “…request to the appropriate teams at Apple for their review” (Carroll, 26 June 2008).

Early July 2008 – Classes continue and I near my comprehensive exams (don’t pass ‘em, don’t continue with the doctorate).  My lead with Sue Carroll has led nowhere.  I email her once(7/5) and call her twice more (7/1 & 7/9).  We finally connect late on July 1st.  During this conversation she again promises to pass me onto the proper departments and also says she will email me with Apple’s response.  While she cannot give me a “blanket approval”, she says she will put this noncommittal response in writing.

Mid-July 2008 – I never hear from Sue Carroll after our July 1st phone call and I don’t receive the email statement she promises.  On July 12th, I attempt one more email, complaining about the misplaced hope from her initial June 26th promise.  Without any help from Apple, a mutual decision is made to distance this production from my District and release it independently.

Late July 2008 – I finish my last required class and pick up my comprehensive exams.  Two-thirds of the way through my son is born.  I work nights in our hospital room to finish my comprehensive exams and finally get to spend time with my new family member.

July 28, 2008 – I’ve already reserved myself to the fact that I won’t be celebrating my birthday this year.  I’m thankful for my wife’s healing, my daughter’s adjustment, and my healthy, six day old son.  While this is enough of a present, after all this work, I thought I might give myself a present.  Thankfully after a few minor adjustments, the video is ready for release this evening.

References
Carroll, Sue. “Re: RP3463.” E-mail to the author. 26 June 2008.

iPodject Successes & Future Video

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Second School Presentation – March 28, 2008
I haven’t had much time to blog since March because the end of the year was quite the whirlwind! After a few successes with a handful of teachers, I asked my principal for time to present the iPods to my staff again. This time I had more experience, practical examples, and a host of other ideas on how to use them. I also had the additional twenty 30GB iPod Classics a local Beebe family donated to the cause, bringing our total to 25. This completely changed the game now that each student could have their own iPod. I also presented for the second time without PowerPoint, using my private wiki Beyond4Walls. Several teachers were more interested and more receptive afterwards and I was happy to hear their ideas and support them in the classroom.

Web 2.0 – May 2, 2008
The following week I presented Web 2.0 to our district Library Resource Center (LRC) Directors and some of the technology department heads. As David Jakes said when he visited last summer’s doctorate technology class I took, Web 2.0 is not something he felt he could give us a grasp of in two to three hours. Unfortunately, I only had twenty minutes with the LRC Directors, and they walked away humbled. It probably didn’t help that i had decided to drink one of those Monster energy drinks for the first time, although it did help me to cover ground quickly! ;-) There were several requests for follow-up meetings discussing specific applications we could use in the LRC.

NEF Breakfast – May 8, 2008
The largest of the three presentations was my presentation on iPodject before the entire district at the annual Naperville Education Foundation (NEF) Breakfast! Two students and I worked through a three tier presentation: 1) video montage of interviews with staff and students using the iPods in their classrooms, 2) two students shared their personal projects and learning using iPods, and 3) an automated PowerPoint I made sharing other possibilities on how to use iPods in education. I’m happy to say that all three of these went well, but the last one inspired me to think that maybe I could use it to share our successes?

iPodject Video – Currently Testing
With that in mind, I spoke with the students who helped write the grant about releasing the last portion of my presentation (the automated PowerPoint) to TeacherTube or YouTube. I worked on this the last two weeks of school and the past three weeks of summer break. The most difficult part was not expanding upon the idea (I already know a variety of ways to use the iPod for educational purposes), it was following copyright rules! Originally the music I used was the last segment from Vanessa Carlton’s Home, which I wrote Universal Studios and asked permission for this one time use. I spent the first two weeks looking for copyright free and/or noncommercial music. Thankfully I found the works of John Holowach on the open source audio page from the Internet Archive. He was very receptive to my inquiry about using his music for an educational video about using iPods in education.

My second problem was taking an automated PowerPoint presentation and changing it into a video with high quality music. I tried several methods, including Window’s Media Encoder to make this transition, but none of the free or trial programs I used worked…well. Strangely enough, I found that the free site, authorStream, and it’s free companion software, authorPoint Lite, did the best job and could distribute my video through their site, send it to YouTube, and allow you to download it in iPod format all from the same place. Perfect!

At the moment, the video is privately uploaded and being reviewed by the musician, my district PR department, and Apple for copyright compliance. This has been the largest step thus far and slightly irksome, if you consider all the red tape it takes to reach that moment of self-publishing gratification. I was thinking of creating an additional wiki to publish some of the schools I found who do use iPods and encourage others to share/edit the list if they do too. Seems kinda like what Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod did with their video Did You Know? The link to their shifthappens wiki generated a lot of discussion in the educational community and is still impacting us today.

Who knows where this will go, but it’s a worthy discussion and one I would like to continue. If the video goes over well I’ve already asked John if I could use another one of his songs for a follow-up video. Here’s to hoping!

Visual Learning Company

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This is a big week for iPodject. On Friday, March 28th, I’ll be presenting the iPods to my school for the second time. This time I’ll be backed by an additional twenty at our disposal, a bit more practical experience, and a plethora of educational examples. Using ideas collected from Learning in Hand, Apple, and my own collection of ideas, I hope to persuade more teachers to use the iPods in their classrooms.

From this perspective I welcomed Tony Vincent’s recent blog and podcast on iPod photo ideas. This collection of freebees (phenomenal choice to spur invention by demonstrating it) encapsulates the educational heart of what I’m trying to accomplish by using iPods in education. I commend you on this work and I will be happy to share my uses/creations as well. Sometimes I wish I had Tony’s job…learning about a subject you’re passionate about, helping other teachers and students, and creating content! Now that’s a good gig, people.

VLC's Digital Science Video LibraryMy final component is one I just recently read about in Multimedia & Internet @ Schools. The Visual Learning Company recently launched the Digital Science Video Library. This collection of elementary and middle school science videos is one of the first formatted specifically for iPods. According to the representative Stephanie, customers can either purchase a VHS/DVD for $89 only usable in one player/classroom at a time, or for the same price you could have the video streaming from your school server and download content onto as many iPods as you want (via iTunes).

Whether I have one or twenty-five iPods, this is the choice to go with! Multimedia & Internet @ Schools (2008) reports that, “Teachers have the option to play the clips and full videos at individual computer workstations, project them to a larger screen, or sync them to an iPod”. The Visual Learning Company (2008) also notes that “each title includes a full show, 7-10 content clips, metadata for enhanced search capability, and a teacher’s guide”. With research I’ve noted in the drafts of my dissertation, Mayer (2001) suggests guidelines on students receiving multimedia instruction. In the area of video, he suggests “a shorter presentation primes the learner to select relevant information and organize it productively”. With this study in mind, it appears that shorter clips (like the ones offered through United Streaming and VLC’s Digital Science Video Library) are the way to go.

While the collection boasts H.264 format, the blogs and news updates I’ve read haven’t persuaded me that THIS format is all that it claims to be. I’m currently awaiting a sample which is being sent to my school, and I will update this entry as I find out more. The representatives were extremely helpful and had loads of information about their products and the new iPod features. As an additional educational selling point, I give the Visual Learning Company props for noting a top five reasons “why teach with iPods” at the bottom of their page. You had me at iPod…

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Multimedia & Internet @ Schools. (2008, March 6). News & xtra features. Retrieved March 19, 2008,

from http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=13575

Visual Learning Company. (2008). Digital Science Video Library. In Visual Learning Company.

Retrieved March 19, 2008, from http://www.visuallearningco.com/ipod_video.htm

Flow, Learning, & Video Games

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During a recent class my professor brought up the works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the book Flow. While I only had the chance to read chapter three, I quickly agreed with the simplistic nature of flow, “joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. xi as cited in Smith and Wilhelm, 2002, p. 28). Many of his later works detail this “state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter” (p. 4).

Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiWhen we began to look at the concept of flow and how people learn, I realized the true engagement that was inherent with this state. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that more than anything else, men and women seek happiness (p. 1). They do not seek happiness through pleasure alone, rather through enjoyment. For “after an enjoyable event we know that we have changed, that our self has grown: in some respect, we have become more complex as a result of it” (p. 46). Whether through sports, reading, cooking, or a myriad of other activities, people can and do experience flow.

Could this enjoyment in learning be created in today’s classroom? Smith and Wilhelm investigate young men, literacy, and what gives them the flow experience in Reading Don’t Fix no Chevys. Near the end of chapter two, they discuss video games, sequencing of experiences, and flow. Think of the steps that go into creating a video game: conceptualization, developing, playing, sharing, and revising. Creating a video game has the same higher order thinking skills that many of our school seek today. Couldn’t creating a video game become a final project to apply or transfer learning? In some high schools and technical colleges it already has.Sample of Scratch Character and Programing Blocks

After presenting at ICE this year, Mother Mika told me that the conference was a buzz about Scratch. This simplified video game creation tool makes “programming like playing with Lego bricks“. To understand more, I suggest a short article from the Chronicle of Higher Learning or simply watch the video report. After a few minutes to download and go through a brief tutorial, I was creating a moving object. I stopped my progress and looked at the completed games others had done with the simple programming language. Amazing!

What does this have to do with iPods? I don’t want “creating a video game” to be one of the many things David Warlick, David Jakes, and Alan November say kids do outside of school. Mihaly says, “to improve life one must improve the quality of experience” (p. 44). Scratch has the possibility of making learning an enjoyable and truly a flow experience for many of our students. Playing Scratch reaffirmed the reality that our clientèle and world has changed and we need to adapt our instruction as well (see Did You Know and A Vision of Students Today).

At the end of our discussion my professor summarized the experience of flow as just the right balance of ability and challenge tempered with appropriate feedback (Thomas, 2008). Can educational use of video games create flow for our learners? Thanks to the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, I think so.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Enjoyment and the Quality of Life. Flow the psychology of optimal experience (pp. 43-70). New York: Harper & Row.

Smith, M. W., & Wilhelm, J. D. (2002). Reading don’t fix no Chevys literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Thomas, J., Dr. (2008, February 2). What is flow? Class discussion presented at Aurora University, Institute for Collaboration.

Online Educational Database

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Image Borrowed from Mike's Corner Blog

I was excited about a posting I read on my Educational Technology Listserv (EdTech) last night describing 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Study & Learn Better, but I quickly found it was a reposting of a comprehensive list written from the Online Educational Database (OEDb). The article in question was simply cut and paste with no mention of the original author. This is not kosher with me and I refuse to post the thief’s blog.

This unfortunate event, however, brought me to find a rather useful library of articles and ideas from the OEDb. According to their web site, “…the Online Education Database offers comprehensive reviews of online colleges and degree programs. Unlike other online education directories, our database only lists accredited online colleges so you can be sure that these degrees will be respected by potential employers. OEDb allows you to browse by colleges, degrees, or programs. We also have a library of articles that covers the basic topics of attending an online university” (OEDb, 2008).

A press release from PR Leap (2006), describes the site as a continuation of the online educational community using open source documents. “OEDb.org features reviews of dozens of online universities and colleges and hundreds of distance learning degree programs which can be completed online. Degree subjects covered include business, medical, legal, arts, and more. OEDb also features a library of articles regarding online education and financial aid.”

While I have only done minor cross checking of this site and it’s resources, I will continue the investigation as I delve into the 100 Ways article.  At this time I do not plan my study to be focused on higher education, but no doubt some of these ideas will come in handy for K-12 as well.  Some other recent articles/posts collected at the library might be useful as well:

References

Online Educational Database. (2008). Recent articles. In Library of online educational articles and advice. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://oedb.org/library

PR Leap. (2006, September 16). OEDb: Online education database launched. PR Leap Press Release. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.prleap.com/pr/48450/

Calling for Schools

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iPods for Eductaion!I finally sent off my inquiry to various listservs calling for educators who use iPods. I’m extremely hopeful that I will get a solid return. Within hours of distribution I gathered fifteen leads and seven schools using iPods currently! I will have to compile this information not only to post a “hit”, but also to present to my committee chair in relation with my design for the study.

I thought it couldn’t hurt to post my email on the blog as well, hoping that I might find additional input from my readers. Below is the informal call for iPods and educators:

Colleagues,

I’m a school librarian and teacher of ten years seeking a doctorate of education at Aurora University. Our grant to use iPods at Beebe Elementary has led me to a formal study investigating iPods in education. Before I actually propose my study, I need to gather an idea of the schools that actually USE iPods in the educational setting. Despite my insistence and literary proof, my professors doubt I will find many schools in the nation (let alone IL) that use iPods. I know you’re out there, but I need to prove it!

In order to do this, I have distributed this email to LM Net (School Librarian/Media Specialist listserv), Ed Tech (Educational Technology listserv), SIG-HC (ISTE’s Handheld Special Interest Group listserv), and a few other online technology colleagues to begin gathering this information. I hope that once I compile this list, I will connect with educators interested in participating in the study, but that’s a step ahead of what I’m working on.

Please consider responding to me off-list:

I DO work with iPods…

…let me tell you a bit about myself, my school, and how we’re using them.

I DON’T work with iPods, but…

…I know someone who is! Let me tell you about him/her.

…I read something about iPods in education and I would love to share the
article.

Thank you for any support or leads,

Josh Mika
Doctoral Candidate
Education: Curriculum & Instruction
Aurora University – Aurora, IL

Donation Reality

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Didn’t I say the donator was offering twenty first/second generation iPods?

Tuesday I was out of school participating in a discussion on multicultural literature with Junko Yokota from the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books when my principal met with the local parent who was donating the iPods. When I returned she said she had a present for me and brought a bag of 20 fifth generation video iPods each with USB cords, clear plastic cases, and outlet adaptors! It took several minutes for the reality of the situation to sink in…

We're Not Worthy!But when it did…oh, but when it did! The past week my mind went over and over again how I could use these iPods to fill the audiobook gap in our school library, but now the curtains parted and I had a working classroom set of 25 video iPods. This changes the game completely, as I told my co-grant writer, and there’s so much more we can do…

Regardless of these new possibilities, I talked with my Project Idea and co-grant writer about creating a video presentation on how we’re using the iPods and sharing this with the donating family. I also talked with them about the way he had restructured the basic menus for his pharmaceutical company. IF we could do the same thing it would rectify several of the problems I’ve had with the iPods in opening trials with the students.

The most important revelation from this opportunity: giving back and moving forward. The NEF grant we received was a seed that has now taken root at Beebe. As the project leader I want to push forward with the many ideas and make them reality for our school and our students. I set up a small meeting with the donator for tomorrow’s Open House to discuss his use and manipulation of the menu structure for the iPods. I’ve also ordered Tony Vincent’s revised Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators (2nd Edition) as well as ISTE’s Educator’s Podcasting Guide in hopes that they will complement our growing need for reference and ideas in these fields.

Book to Buy?iPodject has shed its first leaves and has begun feeding itself. IF we can spare some of our remaining funds to order a few more iPods, we’ll reach a “true” classroom set of 30, opening a one-to-one experience with the handheld devices. These goals, and many others, are truly taking root and nurturing themselves. Pride doesn’t express my sentiment tonight.