Archive for July, 2010
Farewell to some old friends
Last night, I said farewell to some old friends. Aiden is growing older and we’re getting ready to switch him into what was formally the office/library. As I stood there staring at my bookshelves, I realized that it was time to let most of them go to that great library in the sky (the book recycling box in the Target parking lot).
This was not an easy decision for me as Jess will attest to. Many of those books I’ve had for a couple decades. I re-read books often, and a few of those books had been read by me dozens of times (no exaggeration). But in the end, I kept thinking about how nice it is to read books on the iPad and iPhone, and how much I hate carrying around a hard bound book or heavy paperback nowadays. In fact, the only time I turn to print anymore… is during the first and last ten minutes of a flight. Other than that, I tend to grab the iPad and read there. Yes, I still miss the sensation of turning the pages, and I look forward to the day when they add logic for pages to yellow and get frazzled the more you read an eBook (someone will do it, trust me). But other than the sake of nostalgia, it just didn’t make sense to devote a significant portion of a room to books that oh so rarely left the shelf.
And so I let them go. I kept a few of them of course. Any book that was signed by the author got an instant reprieve (yes, Will, that includes my copy of Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts). As did the yearbooks, photo albums and some comic books I’m not quite ready to let go (Is Paul dead? Batman investigates!). And then there were just a few that I couldn’t bear to toss into the pile.
Hickman and Weiss’s first DragonLance book was one of the first large chapter books I ever read. I bought it WAY before I was ready to read it and it sat on a shelf for about 4 years before I finally made my way through it. But that kicked off a love of Sci-Fi and Fantasy that continues to this day.
I couldn’t let go the Westing Game either. I know it’s a kids book, but something about that mystery continues to thrill me. Such a fun book, and one I look forward to passing on to Aiden some day.
I’ve always been a big fan of conspiracy theories, so the Illuminatus trilogy got amnesty. And in a related note, my tattered copy of the Principia Discordia is safe fnord now.
Other much loved books had to be let go. One of my favorite books was my copy of Mario Puzo’s Godfather. A simple paperback, but a fairly early edition. Old enough that the cover, back when it HAD a cover, said “Soon to be a major motion picture!” on it. The spin had long since surrendered and been reinforced with electrical tape, but pages insisted on trying to take flight. Rest in pieces.
In the end, this isn’t me saying goodbye to reading… Far from it. But at this point, were I going to buy a book, I am now confident that I can buy it digitally and always have access to it digitally on any device I own. The kindle alone wasn’t enough to make me that confident. It was seeing the kindle being made available on the iPhone and iPad. When something comes along that replaces those, I’m guessing it will be available there too. Yes, it’s a leap of faith, but I think the time is right to make that leap. While I’m sure there will still be books that I buy in print, that will be the last resort.
Viva la revolution.
Accessorizing the iPad
- Image by BlackberryUS via Flickr
I’ve been resisting buying every case, stand and accessory that has come out for the iPad, although the temptation has been great. However, I thought I’d share a quick post about the things that I have picked up so far and my thoughts about them. For the most part, they fall under two categories: Displaying the iPad and displaying what’s ON the iPad. Oh yeah, and one other miscellaneous accessory thrown in at the end.
Displaying the iPad
When you first unwrap your iPad, it’s so beautiful that you know you must protect it. A single scratch is enough to bring tears to the eyes of devoted Fanboys/Fangirls everywhere…. Ok, ok, I exaggerate a bit. But that said, you will definitely want to invest in some sort of protection. I personally don’t go for screen protectors. While it does attract fingertips BIG TIME, that glass feels so smooth I hate to put something that’s going to detract from the experience. That’s my opinion, but I know many will argue vehemently that it needs some sort of screen protection. That’s up to you.
However, you will definitely want some sort of case or sleeve. At first, I really had no idea what I wanted. But I knew I needed something. I decided to go simple and picked up the Waterfield Designs Suede Jacket. It’s $21 shipped, which is about as cheap as you can get. Basic suede sleeve that feels great, has small loops making it easy to get the iPad in and out of it and can even be used to wipe the screen clean! No padding, nothing fancy. Protects the screen and back and not much more. But it worked quite well as a temporary solution for a few months until I decided what case I wanted to actually invest in.
The other short term solution I invested in was a basic wire book stand from Fellows. I think it was about 5 bucks shipped. Once again, nothing fancy, but it let me prop up my iPad when not in use to serve as a digital picture frame. Also came in handy when using it in the kitchen for recipes. Not exactly elegant, but highly functional.
Both of those have been retired and replaced by the case that I’m currently using. After months of deliberation (literally), I wound up settling on the I-Nique Tuff-Luv Multiview Case in Saddleback leather. What I really like about this case is that it has a flip cover that snaps closed, a decent amount of padding and it leaves all ports and buttons wide open. However, the best part about it is the stand feature. Through a series of snaps and flaps, it can be propped open in 5 different positions and it actually locks in. Unlike many cases which just prop up the iPad, this one is sturdy enough to withstand turbulence, bumps by a small child and minor earthquakes. That was a must for me. While you can stand it up in portrait position, it really isn’t meant to. So far, I haven’t missed that. However, if you DO need that, there’s a newer model of the same case that is called the Tuff-Luv Bi-Axes that has some sort of a split in the case that allows you to prop it up in portrait mode at an angle. The case comes in a decent number of leather variations, including faux leather if you like. Consequently, prices vary. Personally, I knew that I was going to be carrying this around quite a bit. I wanted it to feel good and I wanted it to look good. So I sprung for the Saddleback leather, which unfortunately seems to be unavailable right now. I can’t tell you how many people told me at ISTE that it was the nicest case they’ve seen yet. Personally, I agree and recommend it wholeheartedly.
One last thing before I wrap this section up. Decals 
Before I put my iPad in it’s current case, I wanted some way to customize my iPad just a touch, to distinguish it from the others that were out there. For that, I recommend browsing the decals available on Etsy.com. There are some really amazing ones there and they’re pretty darn reasonable. I liked the look of the Ace of Apples, so I picked that one up. Here’s a few of my other favorites. And don’t worry, they’re easy to remove when you get tired of them.
Displaying What’s on the iPad:
The two accessories that I’ve purchased for displaying what’s on the iPad screen are the official VGA Dock Connector from Apple and the Point 2 View document camera.
Regarding the VGA connector, it does exactly what you’d expect it to…. sorta. It will project what’s on your iPad screen through a projector. Unfortunately, it doesn’t send just anything through the connector. In fact, there’s only a few apps provided by Apple that work with it. The Videos, Photos and YouTube apps will display media through the VGA connector, as well as the Keynote App (when in Slideshow mode). Safari will only output video content through the VGA connector, which is a major disappointment. However, where Apple dropped the ball, other developers are picking up the pieces. If you do a search in iTunes for “VGA” you’ll find a decent number of them. In particular, my favorite two so far are Expedition and GoodReader, both of which I wrote about previously. Kathy Schrock has created a Google Doc where people can see other apps she has found that work with the VGA connector, and contribute to it if you see that something is missing.
If you actually have to host a session on the iPad itself, you’ll probably want to project more than the VGA connector will allow you to. If that’s the case, you have two options: 1) Jailbreak it or 2) Get a document camera. I’m going to cover jailbreaking in an upcoming post, so we’ll come back to that. As for a document camera, I picked up the Point 2 View based on the recommendation of several sites including handheld guru Tony Vincent. So far, it seems to do a pretty decent job. While it supports high resolution, I’ve had problems getting it to output consistently on anything higher than 640×480. I’m not sure if that’s the fault of the camera or my computer though. That said, it’s really intended to be used to take still photos of objects, but does a very nice job with the iPad. It comes with a clip as well as a weighted stand and can bend into a variety of positions. You can lock the focus on the iPad itself, so when your hand gets in the way it won’t try to refocus in on it. It’s really small and perfect to travel with. And of course, it works with both Mac and PC. Price isn’t bad at all either, setting you back just $70. There’s no light or fancy features, but it picks the screen up pretty darn well without it. While I haven’t had it long, so far it has met my expectations. Just be careful about that resolution. Set it too high and it will freeze up. And since it is just a document camera, you can always use it for other classroom purposes as well! Oh, by the way… it says that it’s sold out on their website, but it’s still shipping through Amazon.
Misc.
Didn’t know what to categorize this, so it gets it’s own category. Since I got the iPad, I thought it would be great for hand written note taking. However, I just haven’t been such a fan of writing with my finger. Just didn’t feel right. I figured I’ll pick up a stylus somewhere and make use of that. Trouble is, due to the nature of the iPad screen you can’t just use a regular stylus. You need one that is conductive, that mimics the human finger in some way that I don’t understand. Pogo sells one for $15 that will work for all iDevices including the iPad. I stopped by a video game store and found one for about half that price. And it does work… but poorly. The trouble is, it needs to be semi-spongy like the human finger. It’s also rubbery. So when you try to write with it, you have to drag it along and there’s a ton of resistance. The only thing I can compare it to is like trying to write in wet sand. You can do it, it just isn’t pleasant. If you’re just tapping through the menus and such, the stylus works great. Perfect for people that have muscle control issues and would prefer to grip something than use their finger. But for writing or drawing? I’d pass on it.
Wrapping up
So that’s it so far! I haven’t tried out the Camera kit yet so I can’t vouch for that. If you’ve used that, or have your own thoughts on iPad accessories, share them below. What case are you using on your iPad and how you liking it?
iPad Presenting: Powerpoint, Videos, Web Demos and more
- Image by Jesus Belzunce via Flickr
One of the first things I thought to use my iPad for was presenting and live demos. After all, it’s such a sleek, elegant device, why on Earth would I want to lug my laptop around at all? So I started researching ways to present from it.
First choice seemed to be obvious: Use Keynote. There are a few problems though. I’m not going to get into it, as it has been well documented in other places, but suffice to say there were enough issues that I decided it wasn’t the right solution to me. Amongst other things, I didn’t want to have to convert 5 years worth of presentations over.
So I looked into ways to do Powerpoint directly from the iPad. There’s been several articles on this as well, and so far I haven’t been thrilled with any of them. Converting them all to images seemed a hassle, and wouldn’t support any of the ‘mouse click’ animations I use when navigating through slides (having things appear and disappear within a single slide with each mouse click, most often to highlight things). Converting the presentation to video wasn’t even an option as my timing varies greatly based on the audience. Most of the PPT viewers I tried only did an adequate job of displaying them. Often there were formatting errors, and none of them would support animations or videos.
Which leads me to the method that finally worked well enough that I decided to give it a whirl… in front of a live audience… in an overflowing room… full of administrators and tech coordinators… at ISTE.
Here were my requirements: I needed a way to…
1) Display my Powerpoint accurately, with breaks for each of the animations I’d included.
2) Display videos quickly and easily.
3) Create text to put on screen as needed.
4) Have the option of navigating the web in real time for live demos.
5) Because not everybody is going to Jailbreak, I wanted to be able to do it without bending any of Apple‘s rules.
And here’s how I did made it happen.
The animations piece was one of the hardest to overcome. Every PPT converter and/or viewer butchered animations, most often just by flattening them. A major breakthrough occurred when I discovered a little plugin called PPspliT. Install that and it will display a two button toolbar that has saved me hours of work. One is an actual button, the other is a modifying trigger. The button goes through your slides, looks for animations and everytime it finds one it creates a new slide from the new state. The trigger allows you to ONLY split slides when the animation is triggered by a mouse click. That’s the version I used. So I selected the trigger, clicked on the button and voila! Every time I would click the mouse, I now had a new slide.
NOTE: Don’t bother saving this version! There’s no need! Just do this conversion when you want to save and load up a new version.
The next part of the process was getting the resulting file onto the iPad. While I may have been able to keep it in PPT format, I found that a PDF worked even better. It was more compact, loaded more cleanly and always looked EXACTLY the way it did on my PC. So I saved the file as a PDF. On the PC, I used a a free PDF converter called PrimoPDF. Like many others, it just sets up a virtual printer. You click print, select PrimoPDF and it saves your document as a PDF file. Really easy to do.
Now I have the PDF of my presentation with all animations broken out, ready to be transferred. I could use iTunes and load it up into iBooks or something similar, but iBooks won’t project via the VGA connector. The best app I could find for loading and projecting PDF’s was GoodReader. I’m still stunned that this fantastic app is so cheap. I could transfer my PDF via WiFi, via Google Docs, via Drop Box, via iDisk… or just use their helper app you can do a drag and drop via USB. Incredibly fast.
While I’m talking about GoodReader, I also wanted a way to show movies. Well it just so happens that GoodReader will handle .mov, .m4v and .mp4 videos as well! I save most of my videos as .m4v anyway, so that wasn’t a problem. But if I didn’t, I could easily use Zamzar, Quicktime Pro or Format Factory to handle that part. Using that same USB helper, I dragged over two videos that I wanted to share.
Now I have my PDF and videos in GoodReader. Plug in my VGA connector, load up the PDF and I’m good to go! Then all of a sudden I realized that I had forgotten to list the URL where people could get my resources. Thankfully, GoodReader allows you to create AND project text files on the fly. Just created a new file, bumped up the font and threw it up on screen. Two clicks and I’m back into my presentation and ready to go.
It loads quick, it changes pages quick, and you even have two choices for how to do so. You can swipe from slide to slide much like you would images in the photo album, or just tap the screen to do a direct switch to the next page/slide. That’s the method that works best when you’re building a few bullets on a single slide. Looks just like it would clicking through PPT. Plus, you can pinch in and zoom on anything in there that you like. Perfect for calling out a small URL.
When it came time to show videos, I just hit ‘back’ and loading up the video within GoodReader. There’s a moment when nothing is projecting, but other than that there’s no problem. Works great, loads instantly. And when you go back to your presentation, you’ll be right back on the page you left from!
The only thing I couldn’t do within GoodReader was surf the web live. For that, I had to use a different app called Expedition. It was 4.99 when I bought it, but only .99 as of right now. It’s basically Safari, but VGA out capable and has a built in ‘laser pointer’ to call things out on the screen. Simple and works great. I bounced back and forth between that and GoodReader a few times.
That’s about it! GoodReader was my home base, with Expedition serving as a supporting cast member. PPspliT allowed me to get my PPT’s into a format that was PDF compliant with minimal effort and then GoodReader took care of the rest. All in all, it sounds complicated, but in actual practice it’s really simple at this point. I have all my videos saved within GoodReader, and whenever I’m going to present, I just have to save and transfer a new copy of the PDF over. Someday I hope to do all my PPT editing and creating on the iPad, but that day just isn’t there yet.
Before wrapping this up, I should add one more note. There’s one other way to do presentations on the iPad that completely saved my hide a few weeks ago. I was presenting in an auditorium, up on the stage. Unfortunately, the projector and accompanying VGA cable was all the way in the back of the room. They wanted me to load up powerpoint and then just use a clicker to navigate through it. I wanted to do a live demonstration of a Discovery Education site. So what did I do? I plugged my computer into the projector, put my iPad on the podium… and used LogMeIn Ignition to remotely control my entire laptop. It worked FLAWLESSLY. Unlike ‘mouse’ applications, LogMeIn displays everything that’s happening on your monitor on the iPad screen. You move the mouse around and navigate just like you would on the computer. It’s one of the greatest apps I’ve ever used, and while it is expensive (30 dollars), I believe it to be worth every penny. Yes, there are free ways to do similar things. However, none of them are nearly as smooth, reliable, or simple to set up. I have it set up so I can remotely control my work PC, my work Mac, or my home desktop at any time via my iPad. It’s been a lifesaver many times over, and was a great way to do a live demonstration in this rather unusual setup. Certainly got me out of a sticky situation and the audience had no idea that they were an audience of guinea pigs. So while I wouldn’t say it’s the best setup for presentations in general, it is a great option to have available if needed. Oh, and it’s also a great way to be able to use all the programs that haven’t been created for the iPad yet!
That’s it! I hope this has been helpful to you. And if you have any experiences of your own presenting with the iPad, please share a comment below! It’s a new frontier and I know we’re all still working the kinks out of it.
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An iPad for Everyone: Is the iPad ready for 1:1?
- Image via Wikipedia
It’s been several months since I first geeked out and was the third person in line at the Apple Store the day the iPad was released. Yes, I have embraced my inner (and outer) Nerd-dom. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep it. It didn’t take me long to change my mind on that. Then I wasn’t sure if I could recommend it to others. Once again, it quickly became something I could endorse wholeheartedly. But the big question still remains, what is its place in education? Is it the next big killer device? Another in a long string of fads? The perfect 1:1 device or a waste of budget?
I often include in my presentations John Candy’s line from Canadian Bacon, “There’s a time to think and a time to act. And this, gentlemen, is no time to think.” That certainly seems to encapsulate many institutions attitude when moving to iPad adoption. In the few months since it has been released, there’s been just a FEW schools who are willing to commit to taking the plunge.
- Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania was one of the first to fire up the bandwagon, committing to giving each of it’s 2100 full time students an iPad.
- George Fox University in Oregon announced that it would give its students a choice between a MacBook or an iPad.
- Monte Vista Christian School already gave 60 of its AP students iPads with eBooks preloaded on to it.
- Gibbon Fairfax Winthrop High School was the first high school to provide an iPad to each of their 320 students.
- Northwest Kansas Technical College is going to provide an iPad to every student that registers for the Fall 2010 term and use it take advantage of the content they’re already publishing via iTunes U.
- The University of Maryland is providing iPads to 75 incoming Honors students this fall, continuing a program that has provided iPhones/iTouches to 280 incoming freshman over the past two years.
- Sacramento Country Day School in California is giving iPads to every sixth grader at no extra cost to their parents.
- Oklahoma State University will be piloting an iPad initiative with 125 students in five different courses during the fall term.
And that’s just within the first few months, the early adopters, the trailblazers. The big question is… are they moving in the right direction or making a colossal mistake?
Based on my experiences so far, I’d say they’re making a good choice… but might be doing it prematurely. As a hardware platform, I can honestly say that the iPad is the greatest device I have ever used. The battery life alone is a major reason for saying this. I took my iPad on a nine hour flight and used it nearly the entire time. Real world usage, not a battery test. I watched a few movies, played some games, did some reading and typed out a few things. After nine hours of usage, my battery still had 51% remaining. That’s stunning. Unbelievable. Amazing. And undeniably useful in an educational setting.
Anybody that has been through a laptop initiative knows that battery life can be the kryptonite of the program. The idea of Anytime Anywhere is wonderful, but in reality once the computers have been used a few months it becomes more like LimitedTime, AnywhereThere’sAPowerStrip. The very thought of being able to have students go the entire day without charging is crazy. Just think about it. They arrive to school with their iPads. Use them in every class the entire day. And then take them home to charge them. No carts, no power strips spread out throughout the classroom, and it’s small enough that they can just slide them in their desks when they aren’t being used.
It sounds simple, but it’s one of those basic needs that can derail a program. Beyond that, because the OS is so simplified, there’s no 10 minute waiting period while students power up and log in. There’s no time to kill while students load up programs. Because it’s so easy to jump on and off of it, it doesn’t need to be relegated to a specific time during the class. It can easily slip in and out of a lesson without dominating it. Plus, while keyboards are certainly handy, there’s no need for peripherals. Onscreen keyboard, no mouse, built in microphone, absent power cable… It’s just the student and device. Simplicity is a very good thing.
Now that speaks to the hardware, the platform itself. Then there’s the software. And that’s where the “not yet” part comes in. There’s A LOT to be excited about. Video editing, drawing programs, music applications for real time performance and recording. There’s office applications (both iWork and Microsoft compatible) as well as more than ample photo editing applications. There’s e-readers, simulations, virtual frog dissections and interactive periodic tables. There’s math applications galore, from flashcards to practice problems to interactive games. You can view satellite images via Google Earth, or download maps going back to the Crusades. There’s a ton of great stuff out there. But the reality is, we’re just barely scratching the surface and the really good stuff is yet to come.
People forget, when the iPhone was released in the summer of 2007, there was no App Store, only web based apps. It wasn’t until a full year later that people could download actual Apps onto their iPhones. Developers had a full 4 months to create Apps for the iPhone before the App store was released, and during that time they were able to test their wares on the iPhone itself. They knew the product, they could try it out, see what worked, what didn’t and explore the best ways to leverage the platform.
The iPad was a completely different situation. Developers were forced to run the software on simulations leading up to the release of the iPad. They couldn’t hold it, they didn’t know what capabilities it really had, or what the user experience would FEEL like along the way. Consequently, nearly every launch app was really more of a beta release in some respects. Now that we’re a few months into the iPad era, we’re just starting to see Apps being released that leverage the full potential of the iPad and the big players are finally identifying where they’re going to be making their pushes.
The point being, as good as the software is on the iPad right now, by the end of the year I have no doubt that the Apps will be reinventing the way we think of computing experiences. The best is yet to come.
So with that in mind, would I recommend a 1:1 iPad initiative for schools right now? Sure, so long as you have modest expectations. Right now, there WILL be things that will frustrate you or that you are unable to do. And if you need something that will be 100% effective on the first day of school, this is not the device for you. If you’re looking long term and have the luxury of letting the App world catch up, a mid-year initiative would likely be the best time to launch. Or if you can really think long term, I might consider waiting one more year for all those little details to be resolved by developers.
Regardless, I can say with complete confidence that the iPad is going to change the way we think of computing in schools. As Chris Lehman often stresses, technology should be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary and invisible. I think the iPad affords us the best opportunity of making idea a reality.
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ISTE 2010 Wrapup
- Image by katerha via Flickr
This was a busy ISTE to say the least! While normally I make a point to hit at least a few sessions, this year it was all work. 3 presentations, 1 workshop, combined with booth time and a Wilkes grad course wrapping up made for a crazy hectic week. The one thing I refused to sacrifice though was face time with my network. It was an absolute pleasure seeing so many of you. Even 30 seconds face to face makes all those 140 character communications so much richer. As always, I wish I could have spent more time in the Blogger’s Cafe hanging out, but such is life. On the whole, it was a fantastic conference, and major Kudos to ISTE for organizing yet another incredibly well run event. Unlike many tech-conferences, bandwidth was never even a topic of conversation. The wireless was stellar, and the wired connections for presenters was the fastest I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t have been happier as an attendee and as a presenter.
Overall, the sessions went incredibly well. The big surprise to me was that the Policies presentation packed the room. Typically it’s a small, dedicated, hardcore group of people attending that one. This year, it filled the room up. Does this mean that we’re finally starting to turn the corner when it comes to making our policies fit the practice we know in our hearts is right? I’m starting to get cautiously optimistic!
For some reason, I seem to have Presenter Upload Deficiency Syndrome. Even when I have everything done in time, I always seem to screw up URL’s, preventing people from getting to my resources quickly. So here’s the links to the sessions I did at ISTE. Hope they help in a small part. I believe the Perpetual Learning Machine and Extreme Makeover presentations were recorded too. If I find them, I’ll link them up later.
Enjoy!
The Perpetual Learning Machine - ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp
Policies Safety and Social Networking
Extreme Makeover – Education Edition (Note, this is a simplistic ‘deck’. Mostly live demo’s done during presentation)
