All posts by James Clay

app of the week

Dragon Search – iPhone App of the Week

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Dragon Search – iPhone App of the Week

Dragon Search is the Fast, Accurate and Smart way to search online content on your iPhone using your voice.

Simply speak your search queries and get simultaneous results from a variety of top websites and content sources including:

  • Google or Yahoo! depending on your default settings
  • YouTube
  • Twitter Search
  • iTunes
  • Wikipedia

The innovative Dragon Search Carousel allows you to quickly access results from multiple sources, and is a one-stop shop for all of your search needs, even when your hands are busy.

Dragon Search currently supports U.K. English, U.S. English and German. French, Italian and Spanish support will be added later this year.

This week’s App is Dragon Search

Free

I have written before about Dragon Dictation an App that allows you to dictate and have your speech converted into text.

This search app is from the same stable and at a simple level allows you to speak your search terms and search multiple sites with a single term.

As well as searching Google…

…it also searches Wikipedia…

…and YouTube.

I’ve had this App for a while now, but it has only been recently made available in the UK iTunes Store. The version I was using only (really) responded to US English, this recently released version now supports UK English, so I no longer need to use a “fake” American accent!

Where I think this app is useful is if you don’t need to know how to spell something, but do want to search for it.

The downside of this app is that it is an app. On my Google Nexus One has speech search built into the operating system and available from the front page.

Get Dragon Search in the iTunes Store.

fote10

Where’s your presentation?

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I still yet to upload my presentation from FOTE10 to the web.

Why?

Well at 250Mb it’s a tiny bit large for the average user.

It’s also in Keynote format, so not very accessible for anyone other than a Mac user.

Then again I think what’s the point?

Anyone at FOTE10 will know (and the photo above testifies) that my presentation had very few words in it, it was a presentation of images and video. There were more words on the final slide with my contact details than there was in the rest of the entire presentation.

If I uploaded the presentation, without the context and without the “speech” itself then it would be like a nice screensaver.

I do see the value in online presentations, but do feel that a presentation designed for the web is a different animal to one that is used in person.

I have recorded my presentation (as an mp3) and will release that, but that probably stands on it’s own feet better than the slides would on their own.

So you will be able to hear what I say, not necessarily see the slides. I know at some point ULCC will release a video of me presenting, then you can see me, hear me and watch my slides. Though without the Twitter backchannel…

Then again even that is possible nowdays…

So why do we attend events then?

Well…

Eventedness, but I leave that to a certain Mr White to explain.

altc2010, fote10

Back to the Future

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I really enjoyed ALT-C, it’s a great conference, so much to hear and learn. However it has one “flaw” and it’s not really a flaw, more a design feature.

ALT-C is in September and the submission process occurs nine months earlier. So the content of the conference is mainly about work undertaken in the one or two years before that! As a result the majority of the presentations and papers at ALT-C is on work and activity that is eighteen months old! However this is not a problem, this is an academic conference and the point of the conference is to look back, learn from the past and build for the future. However this is not a conference to go to if you are interested in what the future will bring… in other words the stuff you would hear about at ALT-C 2012 or 2013. Many learning technology conferences I attend have a similar model, MoLeNET this week for example was about MoLeNET projects that were designed in November 2009, this was before the iPad and the iPhone 4G were even announced.

So what of the future?

It is true many of these conferences do have sessions on the future, but today in London I am presenting at FOTE10. The Future of Technology in Education 2010 Conference is about the future. Though one person did think it was more the “here and now” conference. Cycnicism aside, ULCC says…

…the FOTE conference is back for 2010 and, as with previous events, is dedicated to showcasing the hottest technology related trends and challenges impacting the academic sector over the next 1-3 years.

This is why this conference is different. This is now about where we have been, or even where we are, this is about where we are going.

It is very TED like in format and structure and I think the conference benefits from that. Short intense presentations (and a few panel sessions) to get people thinking. Even though many may think the lecture is dead, in this case I see FOTE having a term I will steal from Dave White, eventedness. In other words the event is not just about the presentation, it is also about the community that attends and engages with the conference.

There will be (I am assuming) quite a lively back-channel and the coffee breaks are a hub of conversation and discussion.

Many of the key players, personalities (and even celebrities) from the world of learning technologies in the UK will be there.

It is all these features that make this conference such an exciting event. The free tickets this year “sold out” as fast as the previous two.

Of course there is one question.

Who decides whom should present and on what subjects?

That is a question that I can’t answer, but obviously it can’t be easy. There are many new technologies, themes and trends. How would you choose what should be at the conference?

Fote 09 AudienceI was humbled last year to talk at FOTE09, I talked about the future of learning. I was even more humbled when I was asked to come back and talk at FOTE10. My presentation this year is entitled, “The iPad is the future of reading”. I have already written a couple of blog articles on the FOTE blog, one on how books are wonderful things and how the Kindle is a wonderful thing, but despite this, the iPad is still the future of reading.

stuff

Is this the end or just the beginning?

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Camera Roll-26Today was the third MoLeNET conference, a celebration of mobile learning and the MoLeNET programme.

There were a few presentations, but lots of demonstrations, discussions and workshops.

I was quite reserved this year and let others do a lot of work.

There were lots of lessons from the conference that I and others could take home and use with our institutions. The key here was that even someone like me, who is well versed in the potential of mobile learning, can learn something from a mobile learning conference.

I hope to over the next couple of weeks bring some of the highlights and thoughts from the conference. There are some really interesting thoughts and lessons about cultural change, sustainability, technical issues as well as people and training and development.

With the changes in funding recently it is looking like that we will not see anymore MoLeNET funding for projects. This doesn’t mean that this needs to be the end of MoLeNET as a community.

It’s obvious from the work of MoLeNET projects that mobile learning is here and is here to stay. Learners are using mobile devices for learning and institutions need to be ensuring that they have the infrastructure to support this.

Camera Roll-24Where MoLeNET comes into this, is by providing a community of expertise, knowledge and guidance. As I said above, we can learn from each other and there is always something new to learn.

Today should not be the end of MoLeNET, merely the beginning…

stuff

Well I think differently!

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I use to think that the “message” of e-learning could be sold to practitioners.

I use to think that once the “message” was sold that these practitioners would then embrace e-learning and use it to enhance and enrich their teaching and their students’ learning.

I use to think, once sold, that these practitioners would continue to use e-learning as e-learning evolved and changed over the years.

I use to think, that these practitioners would sell the “message” to others in their curriculum area and the cycle would continue.

I know others think this way.

I no longer think this way.

Why?

I no longer think this way because I have seen it tried and used in many different institutions, over many educational sectors, across varied curriculum areas and have never seen a holistic success made of this process, it does not work across a whole institution. For example, in FE we had ILT Champions who would “champion” the use of ILT in their curriculum areas.

So what do I think now?

Well I think differently.

We need to think differently if we are to make the best use of e-learning to meet the challenges (and opportunities) over the next few years.

We can’t continue to do what we have always done, just because we have always done it that way.

My methodology now, is more about changing the culture of an organisation so that when new technologies come along, we see it as an opportunity for enrichment, and not a threat to an existing practice. Learning technologies are there to provide solutions to practical, administrative and pedagogical problems, not to be a problem in their own right waiting to be solved.

Practitioners need to be wanting and able to take advantage of the opportunities and solutions that learning technologies can provide, and not see it as something that is annoying, unsuitable, inappropriate or dangerous.

We need to move away from excuses and obstacles, and move towards opportunities and solutions.

It’s not just about “not enough” staff development and training, it’s about practitioner taking responsibility for their own staff development, to seek out a community of practice, to build on their skills, share, collaborate and move forward. It isn’t enough now to rely on a single staff development day, week or event. Staff development is an activity that happens every day.

Community is important, local, regional, national and even international. Sharing practice, ideas and problems is a way of changing culture. Building communities of practice and personal learning networks should be the responsibility of every practitioner, and no they don’t all need to be based around Twitter!

We need to start thinking differently about how we do things, and not do things just because we have always done them that way. Sometimes we will continue to do it that way, but for the right reasons.

Well I think differently!

Do you?

app of the week, ipad

Molecules – iPad App of the Week

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Molecules – iPad App of the Week

Molecules is an application for viewing three-dimensional renderings of molecules and manipulating them using your fingers. You can rotate the molecules by moving your finger across the display, zoom in or out by using two-finger pinch gestures, or pan the molecule by moving two fingers across the screen at once. Double-tapping on the display lets you switch visualization modes.

New molecules can be downloaded from the RCSB Protein Data Bank (http://www.rcsb.org/pdb), an international repository of biological molecules and their 3-D structures. Molecules can be downloaded directly to your iPhone or iPod touch and stored there for later viewing.

Custom molecular structures can also be downloaded to the device from any publicly available web server. The location of these structures can either be manually specified in the application or custom URLs can be clicked on within Safari or Mail on the device. For more details, please visit our website.

Molecules is a BSD-licensed open source project.

This week’s App is Molecules.

Free

I downloaded this app originally for the iPhone and it obviously still works on that, however since they made it an universal app and it now is native to the iPad, I think it is now more useful and interesting.

Now I am no bio-chemist so I have no real idea if it is useful and interesting from a learning perspective. However it is clever use of the iPad interface and I suspect it could be useful and interesting.