During my trip, I have been thinking about how much I rely on technology for my travel plans, and how much of a challenge it would be for me to go somewhere without it.

Here is a list of the technology I used to get from my door to the hotel in Shepparton.

1. My trusty iPhone – this is fast becoming my most crucial piece of technology. I seldom go anywhere without it. It is so much more than just a phone, with apps like these:

I used the fabulous (and free) Tripit to input all my travel arrangements – from flights, to rental cars and hotel confirmations. I didn’t print the majority of these documents. Generally speaking, I just held up the phone to show the relevant information. Easy as pie.

Dropbox stored my passport details, entrance tickets to the conference, and other information that is essential to have close at hand, no matter where you are.

Pocket First Aid & CPR has my medical insurance details, should any tragic circumstances ensue (I have my fingers crossed they won’t!), as well as first aid information that might help in an emergency.

Angry Birds & Sudoku – my current diversions, are entertainment in my pocket.

Hipstamatic helps me create moody, artistic photographs that I can share with friends and family (reaching a level of sophistication well beyond the realms of my normal creativity!) – the photo to the right was taken using Hipstamatic, and is the view from the Olivehouse Restaurant, where I had a delicious lunch today.

Just Light Flashlight – my torch in the night

XE Currency - calculating exchange rates at the touch of a button is always a useful tool when overseas.

Facebook & Tweetdeck for keeping in touch with friends and family, near and far.

2. GPS – Without which, I would have quite literally, been lost. Traveling in an unfamiliar location is tricky at the best of times, and using the sat-nav to get to my destination took all of the worry out of my drive from Melbourne to Shepparton.

3. My iPod Touch – by no means a superfluous piece of technology when one already has an iPhone! I consider myself pretty handy with technology these days, yet for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to make the radio in my rental car go. I needed to make sure I didn’t run out of battery on my phone, and a 2 hour trip goes by ever-so-slowly without a little music to sing to… cue the iPod Touch! It sat happily on the dash, belting out my Glee favourites as we moseyed along the Victorian countryside.

4. My (aging) Macbook Pro – Although I realise this is beginning to sound like an advertisement for all things Apple, it was not my intention! The fact of the matter is they make good products! What the Macbook Pro lacks in portability, it makes up for in ease of use – particularly for blogging on the go. It is always quick and easy to connect to wireless networks too.

5. Skype – It would be remiss of me not to mention Skype as a travel tool, as I use it so frequently. I said goodnight to my kids tonight, saw the artwork my daughter had made, chatted to my husband, and made my son laugh. All for free (internet connection notwithstanding).

Technology I made use of at Changi Airport included a DIY immigration, where your thumb is scanned and matched against records in your Green Card. At the Melbourne end, NZ and Australian passport holders could use a fast track service in which you scan your passport (provided it has a microchip in it) and beat the queues at immigration. Thumbs up to these 2 leading airports!

Of course Bump is going to be useful tomorrow – especially at a conference about mobile learning!

I am sure I have forgotten some crucial tools here. What are your tech travel must-haves? I am keen to expand my repertoire…!

Flower Garden
$1.99
Neat little app where you plant, water and grow flowers and send bouquets via email.
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Sonic Pics
$2.99
Fantastically versatile app for narrating over your own images. Either upload images to your photo gallery, or take screenshots to use. This app creates a video of your slideshow which you can email, send to your computer or upload to YouTube.


Number Line
Free
Excellent little app for ordering decimals, percentages and fractions. Would suit middle to upper primary.

iChoose
Free
App which allows you to select from coin toss, yes/no, dice roll, card choice, rock/paper/scissors and many other options. Great for probability and statistics.

Math Quizzer
Free
Choose from addition, subtraction, multiplication & division (or a combination of these) and then complete the questions. Multi-choice answers are provided below.

Step Trak Lite
Free
Neat app which acts as a pedometer. Simple to use, really effective. You can upload your results to MapMyWalk.
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abc Pocket Phonics
$0.99
I think this is a great little app for the early years. You learn to form letters, hear the sounds of each letter, then blend sounds to make words at the end. The Lite version has the first sounds only, but the full version has sound blends as well. Give it a go! See here for more details on how we used with with K2.

Early Reader
$0.99
Another app for beginning readers. It covers the basic sight words, phonics, etc and is easy to use. You can turn the voice on or off.

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KT-Dict CE
Free
Chinese-English dictionary. See here for more details on how we use it at school.

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Word Magic
$0.99
This app has missing letters which the kids need to select from a list to complete the word. There are a range of settings you can customize, including lowercase or uppercase letters, the missing letters at the beginning, middle or end of the word, and the length of the word (to name but a few).

I will also be looking at the Voice Memo app, which comes preloaded on all iPod Touch and iPhones.


Art
$0.99
Great list of historical artists, their lives, their art, and so much more. If $0.99 seems a little much, why not try the lite version, which is free.

The Muscle System Pro
$19.99
High quality images of the Muscular system, perfect for kids to take screencaptures to use in presentations.
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The Skeletal System Pro
$19.99

High quality images of the Skeletal system, which students can screencapture, making this app money well spent for inquiries relating to the human body.

Google Earth
Free
Excellent iPod Touch version of the desktop programme created by Google. Absolutely awesome.

Teaching about non-standard measurement is one of the K2 Maths expectations, and Louise & Andrea had the inspired idea of using the pedometer app StepTrakLite on the iPod Touch to make it more interesting for their students.

Andrea created a recording sheet for them, and had them estimate the distance (in steps) from one place to another, then check it using StepTrakLite. Louise got her kids to make their own recording sheet. Both approaches worked brilliantly, and the kids had a great time. Here is Andrea’s recording sheet:

Measuring With StepTrakLite Using iPod Touches

Here’s a video of the kids excitedly measuring their steps using StepTrakLite

I knew I had to keep everyone (including my four-year-old daughter) calm, and knew Griffin would need to go to A & E, but even so, I found myself dazed and forgetful. I went to the kitchen to get some ice, but once I got there, I forgot what it was I needed and had to retrace my steps. I couldn’t remember where I put the phone I was using only minutes earlier.

I guess I was in a bit of shock, which is probably understandable. My husband and Raquel had both done first aid training in the last 6 months, but they were equally dazed by the event. Luckily for us, we were able to get to a hospital quickly, and everything turned out fine, but it made me wonder – what if it were something more serious?

Then, thanks to a tip off by @teachernz, I read this article, about a man trapped in the rubble of Haiti’s earthquake, who used information in an app called Pocket First Aid & CPR to help save his life. It seems to me, that $3.99 is a small price to pay for peace of mind, so I have downloaded the app (though if you want a free version, iFirst Aid Lite is another alternative).

Now I know that while my husband and I are at work, Raquel has access to our iPod Touch, which will have up-to-date information that will help ensure that even if she isn’t sure what to do in the event of an accident, she has a mobile device to get specific information and videos from, straight away. Pocket First Aid & CPR even has a space for medical profiles that you can fill in for each member of the family, with information such as blood type, allergies, birth date, insurance details and weight. How great is that?

Even in my dazed state, my iPhone was one item I did remember to bring with me to the emergency room, and it proved extremely handy. Griffin watched his favourite movie, Cars, which helped calm him down. When he was being stitched up, I was able to text message and/or email friends and family, to let them know what was going on.

So take my advice: keep your phones charged, and think about downloading a first aid app yourself!

We had a great turn out, and there was a real buzz in the lab as people talked over each other to share their favourite apps. I found it amusing that although we had a bunch of more than 10 educators, the apps that received the most attention were the games! Here are the apps that made the rounds…

Singapore

SG Buses – Free - All the info you need on the Singapore Bus System

Carpark @ SG – Free - Find parking rates & parking locations in Singapore

Laylio - Free - an app which allows you to listen to Singapore radio stations (I love that the name of the app is how some people pronounce radio here!)

Travel

Trip it - Free - Organize your flights and travel plans with this handy app.

Kids

Tozzle - $1.99 – An easy app which helps develop touchpad skills. My 2 year-old loves it. There’s also a free version – Tozzle Lite.

Facegoo – $0.99 – Photo app that lets you manipulate photos in funny ways. There is also a free version available.

Toddler Teaser Shapes – Free - Simple app which helps kids recognise shapes.

Build-a-Word – $1.99 – For those fans of Word World, an app which gets children to grab letters to build words. There is also a lite version available.

Preschool Adventure – $0.99 – This is a good-value app for preschoolers. There are puzzles about numbers, colours, shapes, body, matching and sounds. A little something for everyone.

Games

Topple - Free - My 4-year-old’s favourite app of the moment. Stack the blocks and try not to let them topple over. See also Topple 2 Plus+ (free) and Topple 2 ($0.99).

Need For Speed Undercover – $4.99 – A car racing game that is apparently deserving of its price tag!

Eggs away – Free - Keep your egg balanced by tilting your device.

Trace - Free - app where you have to get your little stick-figure person to the other side using gravity and any lines you make.

Bubblewrap – Free - Enjoy popping bubblewrap as a kid? Relive your childhood with this app!

Waterslide Extreme – Free - Slide down a giant waterslide in this addictive app.

Unblock Me Free – Free - Slide the blocks of wood around to free the red block.

Cooking Dash – $2.99 – Manage your restaurant by making sure people are at tables, have what they ordered etc. A Cooking Dash Lite version is available, and there also appear to be other in a similar theme: check out Dinner Dash and Wedding Dash, if you feel so inclined.

Cooking Mama Lite – Free - This app had us all in stitches. You cook different food, and literally do things like melt the butter in the frying pan or chop onions by moving your device around (as you would if you were cooking), to complete a meal.

Monkey Swing – Free - Swing from tree to tree to get your monkey through the jungle.

Miss Spell
Free
Check to see whether the word lists are spelled correctly or not.

Super Hangman LE & Global High Scores
Free
Fairly standard Hangman app, with good graphics

Story Kit
Free
Create an electronic story book by writing text, and either drawing on the screen or using your own photos. Record sound effects too!

Spell It Lite
Free
Basic spelling app where you can select different levels. You can hear audio, get hints etc

Stanza
Free
This app gives you the ability to read e-books, including over 50,000 free titles.

iSign Lite
Free
A Sign Language app that teaches basic signs using animations. We will be using this when our Grade 1 students investigate communication.

KT-Dict CE
Free
Chinese-English dictionary. See here for more details on how we use it at school.

Finger Lite
Free
Turn your iPod Touch into a wireless Chinese writing tablet.

Spanish Tutor
Free
Puzzles, writing, flashcards – this free Spanish app has it all.

Number Line
Free
Excellent little app for ordering decimals, percentages and fractions. Would suit middle to upper primary.

Basic Math
Free
Choose from the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication & division) and complete multiple choice questions on them.

iChoose
Free
App which allows you to select from coin toss, yes/no, dice roll, card choice, rock/paper/scissors and many other options. Great for probability and statistics.

Match Lite
Free
Match the tiles on the screen, e.g. 9 and 7 + 2. Great for reinforcing basic skills. It also times you completing each board.

Math Quizzer
Free
Choose from addition, subtraction, multiplication & division (or a combination of these) and then complete the questions. Multi-choice answers are provided below.

Brain Blaze Divide
Free
This is ok… You go through the sets of division problems, unlocking a new set each time you correctly answer each set. Only thing is, it allows you to work with one set at a time (e.g. division by 1, division by 2 etc), rather than mix them up. Still, it’s a good starting place.

Tanzen Lite
Free
A neat little app that allows you to complete tangram puzzles (set to very zen-like music). A well thought through application.

Tape Measure
Free
Basic ruler in inches or centimetres.

Units
Free
Excellent little app which will quickly show you any unit (area, temperature, length and weight, to name a few) in most other units, e.g. for Length it shows you Miles, Nautical Miles, Yard, Foot, Inch, Kilometre & Metre. The perfect app to illustrate why we should think about whether we need to spend time teaching our kids this stuff when it does it for us so quickly…

Geared
$0.99
App which our Grade 5’s will be using to reinforce understanding of simple machines. This game gets progressively harder as you solve more challenging problems.

World Wiki
Free
As it implies, gives you access to demographic info on most countries in the world.

Google Earth
Free
Excellent iPod Touch version of the desktop programme created by Google. Absolutely awesome.

History: Maps of the world
Free
View historical maps of the world.

iEphemeris Lite
Free
Astronomical app showing moon phases, the surface of the moon, the distance between the earth and the moon… You get the idea!

Weather Bug
Free
Live local weather forecasts, 7 day forecasts, maps and (in certain areas) video footage of weather conditions.

Flower Garden Lite
Free
Neat little app where you plant, water and grow flowers and send bouquets via email.

Epicurious
Free
Great app for recipes, complete with photos, clear instructions and the ability to create shopping lists.

iFirst Aid
Free
Great basic first aid information for all. Once you have registered, you can access info on CPR, bleeding, burns, choking & poisons. I was pleased to see for the CPR section, you can choose between Adult, Child 1-8 years and Baby. There are visuals which aid instructions.

Step Trak Lite
Free
Neat app which acts as a pedometer. Simple to use, really effective. You can upload your results to MapMyWalk.

Mini Piano
Free
A one octave piano keyboard. Works beautifully.

Pocket Shaker
Free
Select a percussion instrument from an extensive list, then play it!

Kalimba Free
Free
A realistic looking kalimba, in the key of C or G.

Drum Kit Lite
Free
Decent drum kit with some good audio output! Our music teacher plans to use it with the class to play rhythms en masse!

Touch Chords
Free
Takes you through some easy, medium and advanced chords, and also ‘Little Hands’ chords (where you don’t play all the strings). Nice introduction.

Art
$0.99
Great list of historical artists, their lives, their art, and so much more. If $0.99 seems a little much, why not try the lite version, which is free.

Doodle Kids
Free
Neat little app created by a 9 year old Singaporean boy. We’ve used it for fine motor skills, creativity etc. You can take screen shots of your creations and email them later.

Make a Face
Free
This app lets you make crazy faces using various noses, mouths, face shapes etc.

Comic Touch Lite
Free
Add captions and speech bubbles to photos. A bit like Comic Life on a Mac.

Whiteboard Collaborative Drawing
Free
Neat little app that allows you to connect more two iPod Touches together. Great for communication!

abc Pocket Phonics
$0.99
I think this is a great little app for the early years. You learn to form letters, hear the sounds of each letter, then blend sounds to make words at the end. The Lite version has the first sounds only, but the full version has sound blends as well. Give it a go! See here for more details on how we used with with K2.

Early Reader
$0.99
Another great little app for beginning readers. It covers the basic sight words, phonics, etc and is easy to use. You can turn the voice on or off.

Word Magic
$0.99
This app has missing letters which the kids need to select from a list to complete the word. There are a range of settings you can customize, including lowercase or uppercase letters, the missing letters at the beginning, middle or end of the word, and the length of the word (to name but a few).

Ladybug Tree
$0.99
This is a good app for developing touch-pad skills. You catch ladybugs (the Kiwi in me wants to say ‘Ladybirds’, but I’ll let it go!) and put them in a jar, and see how many you can catch in the time given.

iWrite Words
Free
Trace the letters on screen. It’s ok, but not the writing format we usually teach. Good for fun though.

Tozzle Lite
Free
Great little puzzle for developing touch-pad skills. Tap and drag the pictures into the correct places. My 2 year old loves this one.

Classic Nursery Rhymes Lite
Free
This version only has Humpty Dumpty on it, however it is nice the way you can listen to the nursery rhyme and then put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Skype
Free
Fabulous communication tool you will all know and love, I’m sure.

TED
Free
Link straight to the amazing TED website where you can access all of the fabulous videos for Technology, Entertainment & Design.

Myst
$4.99
This computer game has been reconfigured for the iPod Touch. I hope to use it later in the year as a stimulus for creative writing. The visuals are really great, and it is a critical thinking sort of game (which I like).  There is also Myst Free for you to check out first, if you’re put off by the price tag.

Chess Free
Free
App that allows you to play chess. Simple and to the point.

Learn Chess
Free
Nice and simple way to learn to play chess. Good mix of visuals and instructional text.

Phew! That’s it for now! I am always on the look out for new apps, so if you have some great ones to share, why not leave a comment?

Photo Credit: Peteris B

Cross posted at uTech Tips

Of course in this busy life we all lead, finding time to write thank you letters is a tricky business. Cue technology!

First up we hopped onto Facebook and created video messages of thanks. If you have a webcam it should be remarkably straightforward. Just go to ‘compose message’, click on the video button and record!

The quality isn’t brilliant, but the ease of use definitely makes up for that (image below)

For those not on Facebook, we used the Voice Memos app on the iPhone to record a very simple message of thanks.

Clicking on the red circle starts and stops recording, and then you can email the mp4 file wherever you want.

Check out a sample thank you below!

I promise you, this took hardly any time at all, and I know the people who received their digital thank yous absolutely loved them!

Wendy works with multiple grade levels, but for these lessons she wanted the Grade 3-5’s to learn some new vocabulary – what she describes as ’simple Chinese characters’, that will help them understand more difficult characters later on. Wendy explained to me about the importance of learning the root of the character – also known as the radical. As this website explains, “The radical usually, but not invariably, gives a name or clue as to the meaning of the character.”

Wendy gave me the following example:

In the same way that we have bi = 2 and tri= 3 in English, Chinese has root words (or radicals) as well, e.g. 木 = tree,　林 = wood, and　森  =  forest. They all have the root word of ‘tree‘.

Learning the order in which the characters are written helps students understand the meaning of characters they are not familiar with – they will know what the character is about, as this example shows:

妈　姐　奶　姨 = Mum, Sister, Grandma, and Aunt, all have the same radical of female 女.

One way Wendy might have previously taught this sort of lesson is to give each child the Chinese characters together with their meanings. She would then show them how to write the character, and try to emphasize the importance of writing each character in a particular order. The trouble was, she tells me, the kids would never remember about writing the character in the right order, meaning they were missing the opportunity to understand more complex characters as the radicals weren’t clear to them.

This is where the iPod Touches came in. She used this free Chinese/English Dictionary app: It is a basic dictionary app which allows you to write the characters, and then provides the pinyin, together with the definition in English.

Wendy gave the list of characters, this time without the definitions. She gave a check sheet showing the stroke order for half of the words, but the rest, students would have to figure out themselves.

Students had to try and use what they knew about the order of the characters (the basic principal when writing Chinese characters is left to right, top to bottom), to try and find the definitions of the characters. Check out the video below to see the students in action:

Using the iPod Touches was particularly motivating for the students – they were absolutely determined to find out the meanings, they were eager to write the characters correctly so the dictionary would be able to find the definitions, and they were great at helping each other and making suggestions for ways of writing the characters.

So where was the learning? I asked Mary van der Heijden, our Vice Principal of Curriculum (who observed one of the lessons), and this is her response:

Every child had hands on experience of drawing the root of the characters. Not just once, but repeatedly. This was because if the characters weren’t  written  fairly well the dictionary couldn’t read it. Therefore the children had plenty of practice in trying to form the  characters correctly.

What empowered children more was that they could keep trying and different characters kept coming up in the dictionary and even at the lower level they look  for patterns and shapes to try and match the correct character with their own attempt.

The language between the children was constantly reinforcing the correct way of writing. For instance they would say, ‘no not like that, top to bottom’, or ‘that’s not straight’.

This application was also very good for hand eye co-ordination and this skill can be transferred to other areas of learning.

In addition, the problem solving skills developed  were very clear. Use of trial and error, looking for patterns to make links with, using prior knowledge were all important strategies.

Collaborating with a partner to assess where each child might be going wrong was very beneficial to improving their attempts and then sharing their findings.

Persisting even when the tool they were using didn’t seem to be able to understand their writing was also a good development.

Knowing how a dictionary works, whether for Chinese or any language was key in the activity and children progressed in their understanding of using it.

Finally the most important aspect was that the children were engaged and motivated. What might have been a tedious dictionary lesson, turned into a very powerful learning situation which would aid children’s memory of characters and vocabulary suitable for various levels of ability.

I hope this approach proves useful to people, and that it sparks some other great ideas. We would be very interested in hearing other ways iPod Touches are being used in Language lessons, so please let us know what is going on in your classroom/school.

Full disclosure: I have never taught K2 before. In fact, I’ve never taught kids younger than Grade 2, so thankfully I had an expert to work alongside: Ms Louise is an experienced early years teacher (and fellow PYP workshop leader), so I was in very capable hands.

We worked with groups of 7 or 8 students at a time. The rest of the class was working with the teacher assistant on some shapes work, and another group had play.

We decided on 2 free apps to start with. First up, we introduced ABC PocketPhonics Lite

This app reinforced phonics skills and writing skills. Once various sounds were explored, students played the game, where the programme says a sound, and the kids have to select the letter that matches the sound. They end up making words (e.g. an, it, sit, cap).

What we liked about this app was that we could select lowercase letters (from a menu of uppercase, lowercase and cursive), US or UK English sounds, and even the style of print. Very customizable.

After about 10 minutes on this app, concentration levels were beginning to wane (especially as a menu of other apps was only a click away!). I had planned on doing some more structured letter practice using our next app, Doodle Kids, but Ms Louise wisely suggested we let them draw and play.

What’s neat about this app is that you can change the background with a 2-finger tap, draw with various shapes, and basically be creative. When we were with the second group, Ms Louise said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could save some of the pictures?”

I remembered that with the Whiteboard Collaborative Drawing app, that simultaneously holding down the menu button and the sleep/wake button took a photo which got saved in the photos folder on the iPod Touch. I had a go, and sure enough, it worked!

From there, we were able to email it to Ms Louise (or anyone!).

** We had previously set up the iPod Touches with a generic gmail account I created for the school, and this function would need to be set up prior to use with the kids **

The kids were really excited about the prospect of emailing their pictures to their parents. One wee girl said to me, “This one’s for my Mum, because she’s going to Germany tomorrow.” How sweet!

Remember, this is day 4 of school for these little guys. Wouldn’t you be impressed with an email from your child’s teacher with a drawing they’d done for you? This one’s by Daniel.

I have been asked countless times since purchasing the iPod Touches for the school, “But what are the kids going to be learning on them?” Don’t get me wrong, I totally support this mode of thinking. If we can’t justify to teachers/parents/anyone what kids are learning on the iPod Touches, then they’re just another toy.

So I have been reflecting on what the kids learned during that mini-lesson, and here are some of the skills I saw (using the PYP Transdisciplinary Skills):

Clearly there is a lot of learning taking place.

I know this is just the beginning, but I hope to document the different ways we are using the iPod Touches at UWCSEA East so we can build a bank of knowledge and ideas to share. We are always looking at unique ways we can use them, so please feel free to share ideas with us.

New Job:
Flexible Timetable, k-5 tech integration & support at UWCSEA East.

New Toys:
14 Creative Vado HD Video cameras
12 iPod Touches
11 Digital Blue Microscopes
22 Acer Aspire One Netbooks
1 Visualizer

Getting Started:
I introduced some of our new toys during a whole staff meeting. I demonstrated (briefly) how to use the iTouch using the visualizer, and whipped through a couple of free Apps to show some possible uses in the classroom. These were the three I showed:

Art Lite

This great little app has 5 major artists, info on their lives, and a photo gallery of their work.

Notes

Wendy, our very creative teacher of Chinese, discovered an awesome way to use Notes. She added simplified Chinese as one of the keyboard languages, then wrote characters, which can then be emailed to parents

Whiteboard

The Whiteboard app is one of my most exciting finds. It allows two iPod Touches to connect and work together; two people can draw on the same whiteboard. It has great potential for peer-to-peer work (one person could write above a line drawn in the middle, the other below) e.g maths quizzes where students could compare answers, play games like naughts and crosses, and collaborative drawing to name but a few. Can you think of any more?

Next up were the Video Cameras. I showed the basics of how to record, replay etc, then showed a video our technician (Bernie) had taken earlier in the day of me using the iPod Touch. The teachers were blown away with the quality of the video.

Finally, we put teachers into groups of 4 (each having a leader who I knew either had an iPhone/iPod Touch themselves, or was familiar with them), and encouraged them to have a play. Each group was given an iPod Touch, a video camera and two netbooks.

The teachers had a great time investigating the new hardware, and the end result was a huge number of questions about where they can purchase some for themselves! That was encouraging! It was great to hear the discussion between people as they discovered and shared new things.

Today is the first day of school, and already the iTouches and Video Cameras are booked to be used with kids. Can you imagine what these kids will be telling their parents about their first day at UWCSEA East?! How engaging will their classes be?!

I will blog more about how they are being used in the classroom, and hope to have some examples to share with you soon.

Let the learning begin!