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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
There were several requests for follow-up meetings discussing specific applications we could use in the LRC.
My final component is one I just recently read about in 