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.

My 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

When 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.

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.

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:

• Skip the Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World
• 200 Free Online Classes to Learn Anything
• 101 Web 2.0 Teaching Tools
• 25 Awesome Beta Research Tools from Libraries Around the World
  (from Collegedegree.com)
  

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/

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:

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

• Beebe Elementary LRC
• iPodject: a NEF Grant for Beebe Elementary – (under construction)
• iPodject blog