This post is a continuation of my search for an iPad stylus that would be a good fit for elementary age students. My school is conducting an iPad pilot and we are researching different apps, accessories, and configurations that help us use and deploy the iPads effectively and efficiently. Over the next few posts I will be discussing the styluses I have looked at and tried. Most of the products I am reviewing are new to me and have not been tested over the long haul of the school year. Therefore I am just giving my initial thoughts and feelings on these products. In most cases these products were bought from Amazon and I have tried to provide links to each item.
The POGO stylus is a nice compact stylus meant for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The over all length is very short for extended use and was too small for my hands. The width is small as well, about a quarter of an inch. The POGO does come with a clip for the iPhone 3/3GS. One of the unique things about the POGO is the nib. The nib is textured rubber material that almost looks like styrofoam but is squishy and flattens down the harder you press on the screen. The POGO is a good stylus for those who are looking for a small stylus for infrequent use. I can imagine students losing the stylus within the first day of use though due to its small size.
This post is a continuation of my search for an iPad stylus that would be a good fit for elementary age students. My school is conducting an iPad pilot and we are researching different apps, accessories, and configurations that help us use and deploy the iPads effectively and efficiently. Over the next few posts I will be discussing the styluses I have looked at and tried. Most of the products I am reviewing are new to me and have not been tested over the long haul of the school year. Therefore I am just giving my initial thoughts and feelings on these products. In most cases these products were bought from Amazon and I have tried to provide links to each item.
The stylus has a heavy, solid feel, of sturdy construction. The chunky styling is reminiscent of the thicker pencils young students use. It has a good length and grip for precise control. The stylus nib is thicker than most which makes it more difficult to write/draw thin lines. It feels very comfortable in your hands.
This post is a continuation of my search for an iPad stylus that would be a good fit for elementary age students. My school is conducting an iPad pilot and we are researching different apps, accessories, and configurations that help us use and deploy the iPads effectively and efficiently. Over the next few posts I will be discussing the styluses I have looked at and tried. Most of the products I am reviewing are new to me and have not been tested over the long haul of the school year. Therefore I am just giving my initial thoughts and feelings on these products. In most cases these products were bought from Amazon and I have tried to provide links to each item.
The Bluecell stylus has the feeling of a cheaper mass produced stylus. It has a shiny, slick, high polished texture that was just too smooth for my liking. The pen nib was similar to the rooCase and Griffin, a hollow rubber nib that flattened the harder you pressed on the screen. Though, the bluecell stylus didn’t hvae the refinement of the other styluses. The metal tip that held the stylus nib on had a rough fit and I would find my fingers getting caught on it as I wrote. The over all length of the body of the pen was also about a quarter of an inch shorter than the Griffin pen which made the Bluecell somewhat short in my adult hands. I don’t think it would make a difference in a child’s hands.
This post is a continuation of my search for an iPad stylus that would be a good fit for elementary age students. My school is conducting an iPad pilot and we are researching different apps, accessories, and configurations that help us use and deploy the iPads effectively and efficiently. Over the next few posts I will be discussing the styluses I have looked at and tried. Most of the products I am reviewing are new to me and have not been tested over the long haul of the school year. Therefore I am just giving my initial thoughts and feelings on these products. In most cases these products were bought from Amazon and I have tried to provide links to each item.
The rooCase stylus is very similar in weight and size to the Griffin stylus. The nib style of the rooCase is also the same as the Griffin and I have similar concerns about the durability of the nib over the long haul of student use. THe rooCase stylus does not have the same textured grip as the Griffin, it is slightly slicker. One difference that the rooCase has is the addition of a lanyard that plugs the pen into the headphone jack of the device to hold onto the stylus when not in use.
This post is a continuation of my search for an iPad stylus that would be a good fit for elementary age students. My school is conducting an iPad pilot and we are researching different apps, accessories, and configurations that help us use and deploy the iPads effectively and efficiently. Over the next few posts I will be discussing the styluses I have looked at and tried. Most of the products I am reviewing are new to me and have not been tested over the long haul of the school year. Therefore I am just giving my initial thoughts and feelings on these products. In most cases these products were bought from Amazon and I have tried to provide links to each item.
The Griffin stylus has a nice weight and texture to it. The length is slightly short for my adult hands but would be good for primary age students. The texture is nice because you don't feel it sliding in your hands as you use it. The stylus nib is a hollow rubber which flattens the harder you press on the screen. I do wonder how durable the nib is over the long haul and abuse of student use.
My next few posts are going to be about my search for an iPad stylus that would be a good fit for elementary age students. My school is conducting an iPad pilot and we are researching different apps, accessories, and configurations that help us use and deploy the iPads effectively and efficiently. Over the next few posts I will be discussing the styluses I have looked at and tried. Most of the products I am reviewing are new to me and have not been tested over the long haul of the school year. Therefore I am just giving my initial thoughts and feelings on these products. In most cases these products were bought from Amazon and I have tried to provide links to each item.
The retractable stylus has a tiny width and length for primary age students to use. It is good for adults who need a small stylus for small screen devices. Overall length was too small for my hands. Stylus tip has a flat edge that needs to stay flat on screen for it to work, which made it cumbersome to use.
I was recently a part of a podcast on MacReach part of the EDReach.us website talking about Kids and Macs. I was a great discussion on teaching video skills to elementary students, an app of the week and more. I was joined by a local high school teacher who teaches in the media department and the host who is middle school SPED teacher, both of whom are recently inducted Apple Distinguished Educators. It was a great time and you can listen to our conversation here at EDReach.us
Recently I have been doing some cleaning out of computers for family and friends. Sometimes its a good trade off, against having to help out doing manual labor or such. I'd much rather click a start button and watch as the computer does all the heavy lifting than rake a yard full of leaves.
The tasks that have been keeping me busy recently have been removing the data from four older PCs and then wiping the hard drives so the computers could be safely disposed. Now as many of you know, I am a Mac guy but know my way around a PC enough to get the job done. The intended goal of this project was to remove all vital documents and move them to a USB flash drive.
The fun all started with the owner of the computers saying all of the computers most likely had viruses and at least two computers wouldn't boot-up past a blue screen. So I took one of the towers that was supposed to be in the best shape and started there. I removed the hard drives from the others and left them for disposal.
Easily enough I was able to get that one booted up and copied the files to a flash drive quickly. After that I scanned the flash drive, removed infected files, and transferred them to a new computer. Once I had removed the necessary files I began the fun process of wiping the drive. To accomplish this task I used a Live CD called the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) and program called Darik's Boot and Nuke. UBCD offers as many free diagnostic and utility programs that it can on a single CD which is great. This gives the options and flexibility you need to diagnose and address issues of the computer that isn't working. Check out there website for a full list of programs and applications contained on the CD.
The live UBCD allowed me to boot directly from the CD drive of the computer and load the Darik's Boot and Nuke program to provide a nice and easy way to clean the hard drive to which ever degree of security I chose, which if you really needed it there is a 35 pass option and more. Now the full UBCD wasn't needed for computer one and I could have gotten away with just copying the files and using a Live CD of Darik's Boot and Nuke, which you could find here, but it is a nice all in one package.
The other drives posed more of a problem. First there were the older style PATA drives so there wasn't an easy connector to hook them up to my MacBook Pro, so I just used the first tower and swapped the drives in as I worked with them. This seemed the easiest solution but I would rather use something like this in the future a universal drive adapter. The drives powered up fine, but as the owner warned me I couldn't get past the start up screen. This is where the UBCD came in handy. Since I had no way to just browse the PATA drive I still need to get it onto a external hard drive or USB stick. Fortunately, UBCD has a few options to clone drives that worked great. I used the HDclone option that worked very well for me with most of the drives copying to the external drive in about 45 minutes. With the information on the external drive I was able to transfer the uninfected files off and make a nice and tidy flash drive full of the documents requested by the owner. With all the information off the drives I then wiped them and the computer is now able to be disposed. Though for maximum security the old hard drives should be destroyed because it is really hard to put all the pieces back together then.
Some other pieces of software that I came across during this process, some of which might come in handy one day are listed below. Who know when I might have to recover an accidentally deleted file or a lost partition?
This title is extremely similar to the Match the Flowers! by the same author.
Grade Level: 3-6 years old
Purpose: Memory matching game
Program Functionality: The program works well in a simplistic form of matching pictures like
the old style memory card game. Users can select either pictures of fruits, letters or you can use
your own photos that are on the iPad. Users can also choose three different difficulty levels as
well as use “cheats” to solve the puzzles.
Overall Educational Value: Good memory matching game especially because of the ability to
use custom photos.
Cost: Free
Recommendation: Great to use because of ability to use custom photos for matching.
Classroom Use Examples / Ideas: Matching symbols / people in the school
Program Functionality: The program works well in a simplistic form of matching pictures like the old style memory card game. Users can select either pictures of flowers, letters or you can use your own photos that are on the iPad. Users can also choose three different difficulty levels as well as use “cheats” to solve the puzzles.
Overall Educational Value: Good memory matching game especially because of the ability to
use custom photos.
Cost: Free
Recommendation: Great to use because of ability to use custom photos for matching.
Classroom Use Examples / Ideas: Matching symbols / people in the school
**This post is a departure from my usual Mac centric computer using but I thought it was something worth sharing**
The other day my girlfriends dropped her Dell laptop running Windows Vista. Now I know a good deal about computers but Windows and Vista always seem to perplex me because of their complexity. I tried to find some of the Mac OS X applications I was use to using to diagnose what damage had been done and how I could repair it.
The issue, apart from being dropped, seemed odd at first. The computer would boot up in Safe Mode with things seeming normal but from there things got weird. I couldn’t boot the computer in normal windows mode and occasionally in Safe Mode the system would hang. I was eventually able to dig out the original OEM disks and ran diagnostic software on the computer but all I kept getting were undecipherable error codes that told me to contact and speak with a Dell technician. That wasn’t going to happen so I went to the technician called Google instead. After searching for the meaning behind the codes, most posts refer to the same topic, hard-drive failure. This was not shocking to me, but almost to be assumed.
Now comes the fun part. While I backed up her computer once, I didn’t do it as thoroughly as I should, I just manually grabbed files and pictures that she said she wanted. Therefore I didn’t grab preferences or bookmarks or other items that would have been helpful when restoring her system. Now I needed a way back into her system especially because I vaguely remember a partitioned backup on her drive but had no way to access it.
On a Mac drive I would have booted the computer as a target disk and connected via firewire to look at the drive and recover what I could but to my knowledge there is no way to do that on a PC, especially a PC to Mac connection. In browsing different articles about data recovery on a PC, I came across a possible solution. Booting the computer using a Linux Live CD. I haven’t played much with the linux OS but it has always intrigued me. The idea of an entire OS living so neatly on a CD also was a fascinating idea. I downloaded a copy of Ubuntu 10.10 especially meant for a Live CD. The site also provided clear and easy directions of how to create your Live CD depending on your OS.
Well after downloading the Ubuntu CD, it became increasing apparent the hard drive in the laptop was dying and if it could have signed a DNR, it would have. The end result was a purchase of a new drive and reinstall of Windows. I was able to resuscitate the drive enough in an external enclosure to copy off some information but in the end there was nothing more that could be done.
Thankfully my girlfriend didn't have any important documents that we hadn't already backed up previously on the drive. As a side note, she used my iPad during the time he computer was on the operating table and came away with the idea she might want one of those as well.
One of the more popular posts has been my thoughts on using a Mac Mini as a home theater center. Due to that response I created a list of resources and articles that I found helpful in creating my Mac Mini HTPC.
Program Functionality: The game is a basic pattern recognition game with audio and visual feedback. As the user correctly answers the pattern a train moves along the track, an incorrect answer moves the train backwards one space. Each answer is given auditory response. After five correct answers the train moves on to a puzzle setting.
Overall Educational Value: The game tests basic puzzle patterns starting with AB patterns and continues to ABC patterns. Patterns are only shaped based though each shape is colored. Easy to use with very little instruction needed.
Cost: Free Recommendation: As a free app I think it is very good for basic pattern skills. It would be nice to see additional levels or changing of pattern types (number, color, frequency, etc). I would recommend this app for younger children learning patterns. I think older children will become bored in a short time with it.
A few weeks ago I wrote about a company giving away free Pet ID tags with QR codes on them, Pet Hub ID. The ID tag has the pet's name and a website on one side and on the other side has a QR bar code on the other. The QR barcode can be scanned using software that is available on many smart phones, based on other recommendations I use Neoreader there are others as well. The URL and QR barcode point to a website that can be easily updated once a pet is lost and more contact information can be provided.
The ID tag is a generic black and is a good size, bigger than a quarter smaller than a half-dollar, and is laser etched on both sides. Here is what Daisy looks like with her Pet Hub ID tag, it is small and you can't make it out but it was the best one handed shot I could get her to sit for! There is also a picture of the site the QR code sends you too.
Daisy's PetHub Site
Daisy and her PetHub ID Tag
This is a quick video of my iPhone using Neoreader to read the QR code. The noise in the back of course is Daisy with her squeaky toy!
Every now and again there comes a time that showing someone how to do something on the computer is just easier than telling them. Recently for both work and home I have had to create tutorials on a variety of topics. Because of this I have found a few great screen capture tools and tricks that I thought I would share with everyone.
Video Screen Capture
One of the new products we recently bought at work was Screen Flow. Screen Flow is a great all in one video screen capture application with editing software. The directions are intuitive and I was able to create my first video in no time. I especially like the built-in editing features that allow you to blur out backgrounds and highlight your mouse. The keyboard tracking is also a nice feature. The product demo from the Screenflow website gives a good taste of what it can do. You would also be surprised the number of tutorials already on Youtube using Screenflow.
I have also used SnapzPro X for a while as well. SnapzPro X does both video and still image capture and exports video in a variety of formats. SnapzPro X is great when you only want a portion of your screen recorded. Here is a demo of SnapzPro X
Another option that I came across is using Quicktime X now allows you to record screen captures with no cost at all. This is very helpful if you are doing basic tutorials and will edit them later.
Recently I have been partial to Screen flow because I can do all my work in one application and don’t have to be switching between applications to complete a project.
Still Image Screen Capture
By now most people know that you can capture still images in OS X by pressing cmd-shift-3 for full screen and cmd-shift-4 for select areas but did you know the rest of these tricks?
Shift-Control-Command-3 Capture the entire screen to the Clipboard
Shift-Control-Command-4 Capture a selection of the screen to the Clipboard
Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop (A tiny camera appears)
Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard (A tiny camera appears)
If you are a glutton for keyboard shortcuts, Apple has your fix right here
While you’re at it you can also use the Grab application located in your Utilities folder in Applications.
Now there are many options out there and these are a few, you should also check out Jing which has some free options as well.
Last tip, if all else fails go to Teach Parents Tech and have a personalized google message sent to help them.
So in playing around with my new AppleTV, I found the feature of teaching it to learn a new third party remote. I figured I would give it a try and surprisingly it didn't work the first time around. I kept getting an error saying the button was already used. In searching around the net I found and compiled these instructions for my DirecTV remote. While they may not work with your particular remote you should get the general idea.
How to program the DirecTV remote to your TV
The control code for your Apple TV is 20533.
Make sure your TV and Apple TV is turned on.
Slide the mode switch at top of remote to "AV1".
Press and hold the MUTE button. This is located above the number 1 button.
While still holding down MUTE, press and hold the SELECT button until the green light at the top of the remote flashes twice.
Enter the code for Apple TV - 20533. The green light on remote should flash twice.
Aim remote at TV and press PWR button once. The TV should power off.
Now using the Apple Remote go to Settings>General>Remote>Learn Remotes
Follow the step by step directions
Select Start (using the Apple Remote included with Apple TV).
Apple TV will display icons that represent the six buttons on the Apple Remote with the "Up" button highlighted first.
Using your DirecTV remote, press and hold the button you would like to use to control the "up" function until the blue progress bar is full as shown below.
Apple TV will then select the next button function.
After you have programmed all six button functions, you can now use your DirecTV remote to control Apple TV. You can optionally setup specific playback buttons for Fast-forward, Rewind, Next chapter, and more.
Nothing bothered me more than seeing the space wasted by 100’s of DVDs on a shelf, at least that was my excuse I told everyone, there had to be a better way. Almost a year ago now I began the process of digitizing my DVD library to have a simpler setup to watch and enjoy my movies. I additionally wanted to take advantage of streaming digital content that had become available online via Netflix and other sources. The idea of cutting the cable cord also flashed across my mind but for various reasons hasn't come to fruition.
I toyed with the idea of converting a windows box into a linux media server, but that seemed too complicated and the end user interface wasn’t that clean. The goal was to find a end user interface that was intuitive enough that none tech friends could use it without much instruction. The first decision was to stay with a Apple product at the time I could chose between a Apple TV (1st Gen.) or a Mac Mini. I decided to go with the Mac Mini because I didn’t feel like have to either succumb to the limitations of the machine or modify it to fit my needs. Then I went on Craigslist and found a good deal on a intel Mac Mini, I ended up with a 1.5ghz Core Solo with 2GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. Not a powerhouse of a machine by any means but it gets the job done. A newer one would be nice but this one gets the job done.
The next step was to find a application in lieu of iTunes that would handle my media content. This is where the process becomes personal and where I will live you with resources to make your own decisions.
Here are some of the resources I checked out that should be of help to you in determining the system that you want to set up. This is by no means an exhaustive list but should help you get on your way.
I ended up using Plex and truly enjoy and its recently updated features. It also helps that I can now stream Plex to my iDevices (iPhone and iPad) wirelessly with ease. Plex also has plugins that allow for integration of my netflix account as well as Hulu.
One additional note is that media, as you probably already know, takes up a ton of space. Fortunately external hard drive prices are coming down with time but my 1TB external drive which once seemed large is already full with pictures, music and video. With the ability to record digital video on almost every device, I find space is becoming more and more precious.
