English Language is an increasing part of the curriculum in the new Australian Curriculum and a separate VCE study in its own right. This Australian Voices site from Macquarie University has some pretty good resources for looking closely at Australian voices, including some audio.
Probably designed for university students, this Ipad App at $12.99 is probably pretty much the start of what will be a long line of products vying for inclusion in future ipads in schools. Coursenotes is designed to keep your notes all organised and (of course!) offers premium content like the Periodic Table, which you can buy for $2.99.
Video demonstration below is interesting; I note that they don’t really show how students will be entering these notes in much detail. I haven’t got an ipad yet (I’m waiting for version 2) but inputting lots of text (like writing an essay) on it without a real keyboard is pretty much undoable I think.
I keep banging on about organisational tools like Evernote and OneNote and OneNote increased its possible usability a bit this week with the release of an Iphone app. It’s not available in Australia yet I notice, but having mobile access to your OneNote notebooks (will it be all I wonder or just some?) is undeniably a good thing. With students more and more holding a powerful computer in their hand (or pocket) in the form of a smart phone, future tools are going to be mobile tools.
Above: screenshot of the OneNote app, and news aboutit from Mashable HERE
Yup. I’m a Kindler.
I really began the whole e-book thing as a bit of a Luddite. You know, “Why bother? How hard is it to turn a page? What, an e-reader is SOOOOOOO much lighter than a book?”
Well, the truth is that 1. It’s no bother; 2. It’s easier to turn the page; 3. My Kindle DX holds something like 25 full-length books (and growing!) … But wait, there’s more! I can add a book to my Kindle whether there’s a bookshop handy or not, just by going to the Kindle shop and finding it (Amazon’s extraordinary range means I’m seldom disappointed); I don’t have to use a hand to hold a book that’s a reluctant opener in position, nor do I need to find a bookmark, or worry about defacing a book when I want to underline or highlight a memorable quote … But I’m getting ahead of myself!
To begin at the beginning: I borrowed a Kindle when I traveled overseas, last July. I thought it’d be handy when traveling – hold a few books, take up less space. I was concerned about the potential for theft, but given that every man, woman and child on every train, plane, tram and bus had a mobile or computer or iPod going, I needn’t have worried. And I read 6 books. It was an absolute boon in the cramped quarters of planes and trains. I had the smaller version, and all I thought was, “When I get one, I’ll go for the bigger screen.” Which I have. And I love it!
Another initial perception was that the Kindle would be perfect for my mother, whose eyes are no longer so good (even with spectacles she gets very tired eyes) and whose hands are almost crippled by arthritis. The Kindle would make reading easier, because she could adjust the font size, and turning pages would be easier – no fumbling with sticky pages, and no need to hold up a heavy tome with aching hands and wrists. Mum hasn’t really taken to it, but that’s because she is simply reading much less full stop – eyes just about manage a quick flip through the paper, most days.
My Kindle gets a pretty constant workout. I have my own novels on it, and will put the text of my textbook (in fact all my schoolwork) writing there too. It works not against print books, but in a very useful tandem. I read Nick Hornby’s “The Polysyllabic Spree”, and found out about a book by Charlotte Moore, on autism. Not available in Australia … but purchased and readable in moments via the Kindle.
I am a great reader in bed … With a book, you’re either upright, or on a preferred side … The KindleDX is upside-downable – meaning that you can turn the screen any way and the text orientates itself up. So the fact that the operating buttons are on the right-hand side, in the standard position is irrelevant … If you roll over, or want to give that “turning” hand a rest, just invert the book!
I’m also a great one – as a teacher – for underlining or marking useful passages and quotes … which the Kindle lets me do, and then stores them all, in order, with the text reference … Fantastic for a teacher teaching a novel, or for a researcher wanting to ‘grab’ bits and pieces for later on.
And it’s light. And slim. And quite tough. I haven’t bounced it, or spilled coffee on it (not planning to, either), but I have dragged it in bags and on the back/front seat of the car, or jammed up with a pile of other texts or students’ folders … and no worries. It just soaks it up.
I didn’t want the iPad. I thought about it, but what I like is that the Kindle’s just a books. A versatile books, but i ‘open’ it to read. Not to browse the Net, or phone someone, or send a message, or to listen to music. It’s my books. Lots of books! And the screen doesn’t glow. Like a book, I need light to read it, and like a book, that doesn’t make my eyes sore and ‘glarey’. Even after I read the whole of C.J.Sansom’s “Heartstone” in a day. Just like when I was a kid!
And I can see this expanding into my teaching (and kids’ learning) too – the day’s not too far away when ALL their text books will be on one of these, instead of being lugged around in bags the size of Santa’s sack, breaking their shoulders and backs!
So, yes. I’m a Kindler. And happy to be! (And happy, too, to curl up with a real book too! – The best of both worlds!)
I’ve started thinking about how I’m going to organise my teaching this year, and more importantly, how I’m going to ask the students to organise their learning, considering the swag of options available in the 1-1 classroom.
I’ve talked about OneNote before. It’s part of the Microsoft suite, and has been my mainstay teaching and organising tool for the last couple of years, replacing the bazilliions of separate Word documents as well as replacing PowerPoint for me, all at the same time. I set up a Notebook for my Literature teaching and have sections for each section of the course, and a page for each lesson in the year. All organised!
And I still like it, but Evernote is a pretty powerful FREE substitute that’s improving all the time and available in all platforms, including apple mac. I
Below is what it looks like on my Mac at home. You can have as many separate notebooks as you like each notebook contains notes that may be text, images or both. Stacks are new and they are like folders with notebooks inside them. The new stacks make it much more flexible for a learning tool. Consider a STACK for Literature, with a separate notebook for each core text or section of the course? You got it. All completely searchable (including images) as well as available from any computer anywhere and on your iphone as well.
I’ve heard reservations about putting all your stuf in the ‘cloud’ but Evernote has a desktop app that works offline and keeps your data on your own machine, which it syncs with the web.
Below is how it looks when you open up the Iphone app.(from UK blog ZATH, who give it a pretty good review too.)
So, you have your notes on your laptop, your ipad, your desktop and your iphone. Pretty powerful possibilities!
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