Fun On Friday #136: Emoji

I encouraging my students to blog but have fallen behind myself. Clearly I need to practice what I preach.

So, I know it's not Friday, but here's something fun I just discovered recently: Emoji - a character set of emoticons that originated in Japan and are beginning to settle down into an Internationally agreed standard.

How did I stumble across this? Well, I've known for some time that my iPad and iPhone can use different keyboard layouts but what I only just discovered is that one of those keyboard layouts is emoji.





This means I can type a range of emoticons directly into anything that can take text. Of course, I'm not sure how it will look outside the iPad. Apparently, it is built into most Japanese handsets, and as a result, many other handsets too including iPhones and Windows phones.

So have a look around in the settings of your devices and email programs to see if you can do emoji too.

Programming for the rest of us

I would write about Apple's new iPad but I suspect the Internet is already bursting at the seams with iPad prattle. It appears to have been greeted with awe, derision and confusion in roughly equal measure. Whether it turns out to be an iPod style success or a Newton style best-forgotten - its launch has certainly caused a stir!

However, I was intrigued by Mark Pentleton's pre-launch speculations. I would love to see an HyperCard style development environment for any Apple product! TileStack is good (see Fun on Friday #23: A blast from the past) but is just slightly too tricky in use for the "rest of us". It's been a while since I've played with TileStack though, and I notice that you can now use it to develop iPhone apps... I think I need to go back for another play!

As I commented to Mark, I think Scratch, while looking nothing like HyperCard, is the best example of programming for the rest of us out there currently. However, what's missing is some sort of Scratch player for the iPhone/iPad. I had a bit of a poke about but couldn't find anything, oeven any indication tht they were thnking about creating one.

So, in the meantime, if want to make an app, I guess I'll have to have another look at TileStack... uness you have a better sugestion.

iPhone Apps

I wrote about the potential of of the iPhone in education in The iPhone and the Scientist but at the time, I didn't have an one myself. I now have an iPhone (I tried to type that without being smug... I failed) so I thought it was time I returned to the subject of iPhone apps.

FaceGoo Lite
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

I'm not promising that all the apps I mention here will be educational but I wanted to mention a few that I have downloaded and that have, so far, stuck on my iPhone. I've only paid for one app - so much is available for free, I've not felt the need to splash the cash!

When I first got my iPhone, I asked my Twitter network, what Twitter app I should get. Various apps were suggested and I tried a few of them but the one that stuck was TweetDeck. It's TweetDeck I use on my desktop, so it seemed to make sense to use it on my iPhone too. It syncs with the desktop version, its columns work like the desktop version and works well in the limited screen real estate provided by the iPhone.

Next I asked for advice on essential apps. Mr W was one of the quickest off the mark and recommended Ragdoll Blaster (a free, Lite, version is available), Spotify (a brilliant desktop application which works as expected on the iPhone), Civilization Revolution Lite (a game I've not played but I cannot get daughter number three to stop playing!) and Ukulele (which I can't find... I always meant to ask him what he meant).

Ian was next, and he recommended seven apps but I'm ashamed to say that the only one I have tried so far is AudioBoo - but it is excellent. I've used it to post to EduTalk already and hope to use it a lot more in the near future.

A few others that I use regularly are:

• Evernote - This looks really promising as a way of collecting a range of stuff together, save, organise, share between different machines, ... brilliant.
• Pic2shop - Point the camera at a barcode (of say a book or a CD) and this app will identify the product and find it on the web for you. Brilliant!
• MetrO - This is amazing. A free app with a guide to the public transport systems in over 400 cities. I used a version of this on my previous phone and it guided us safely all round Paris.

There are a few more I wanted to mention but I've run out of time just now. I'll try to do a post on photography apps soon but before going, I must mention FaceGoo Lite which is responsible for the masterpiece above. Great fun.

Finally, a site that I've found to be a great source of apps to try is Free App Alert. It does what it says on the tin and gives a new list of free apps to try every day.

Do you have any apps you want to recommend?

Sharon

Sharon,
originally uploaded by DavidDMuir.

Just arrived at the Scottish Learning Festival and one of the first people I met was Sharon from Dundee University. She's doing interesting research stuff with iPhones (not that I'm jealous you understand).

She challenged me to Tap Tap Revenge, a Guitar Hero style game where two players compete on the same iPhone - simultaneously tapping at opposite sides of the screen. I'm competitive enough to have taken a picture to prove I won. :-)

The iPhone and the Scientist

I was talking to a colleague who noted that the iPhone has an incredible amount of tech stuffed into a small space. In particular, there are umpteen sensors - motion sensors, magnetic sensors, GPS, light sensors, sound sensors, tilt sensors, accelerometers, ... He wondered how much of the kit in a science classroom could be replaced by an iPhone (or in some cases an iTouch) with the right Apps.

Possible uses

iPhone
Originally uploaded by William Hook

Off the top of our heads we came up with a few possibilities. Simple tools such as using the iPhone as a stopwatch or using the iPhone's GPS to collect data for time/speed/distance investigations.

When you look at the available Apps, even more possibilities present themselves. For example iCarpenter provides a range of tools for exploring angles and the iProtractor tool allows you to measure angles on images stored on your device. (The iProtractor creator has also produced a Units Convertor which is designed for scientists and engineers which he says does, "does high-powered dimensional analysis".)

Other Apps to measure and/or record include SoundLevelPro (one of umpteen decibel sound level meters), TiltMeter Pro (which can log data from an inclinometer), iSiesmograph (which hopefully does what the name suggests... but the web page describing it is in German!), the Magnetic Flux and Metal Detector (which does what it says on the tin), iSteps (one of many pedometer/calorie counters that could be used as part of a healthy eating/Biology topic) and Sun Clock (which displays the time, information on sunrise and sunset as well as details on the phase of the moon).

The Nike/iPod link up suggests that interfacing other sensors and using the iPhone/iTouch as a data logging device should also be possible. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place but the best example of this I could find is the iNXT Remote App that connects with Lego NXT robotic systems.

Finally, the Creative Applications site gives Ten Creative Ways to Use the Accelerometer some of which would be useful in the Science classroom.

Ideas from Twitter

Having exhausted my own ideas, I turned to my Personal Learning Network and asked on Twitter if anyone had good ideas for how this technology could be used in the Science classroom. A wide range of suggestions were made.

First of the mark was Theo with news of a microscope App. I don't know if this is what he meant, but the only thing I could find was an announcement about a virtual microscope for pathologists. Next up was John with Crayon Physics Deluxe for the iPhone (or iPhysics perhaps?). Stuart suggested some games that have a science element, namely: Sheep Launcher (free version available), Geared Lite, Ragdoll Blaster Lite and Biker Blast-off.

Also through Twitter came a message from Leon saying that he was working with a class of children who were using the iTouch. He has now posted a video of what the children are doing and it looks brilliant.

Final Thoughts

I'm convinced that the iPhone/iTouch has potential in the Science classroom and in education more generally. It is expensive to get an iPhone but many of the potential uses work just as well on the much cheaper iTouch. Also, Science equipment is expensive, so if one device with the addition of cheap Apps can perform a variety of tasks, it may even work out to be quite cost effective.

Finally, be aware that many of these suggestions are a stab in the dark as I do not (yet!) own an iPhone/iTouch. I hope that some of you reading this, with direct experience, will be able to make better suggestions - perhaps especially where I have selected one representative App out of a range of possiblities.

Questions

So tell me - are you convinced? Is there a place for the iPhone/iTouch in classrooms? Also, what Apps would you recommend and why?

TeachMeet Borders: Here at last

This may not be fun for you... but attending TeachMeet Borders is fun for me. :-)

Arrived late to TeachMeet Borders to discover that my name was first out the hat... and then as we arrived, it was my name came out again as I walked in the door. I grabbed a sandwich instead and let Ian King show Scratch instead. Some really good stuff from his pupils. He noted that girls, who normally don't react well to programming, seem to take Scratch. He also demoed the Scratch Board - costs about a tenner and allows basic interfacing projects to be programmed. Ian also noted that a sixth year pupil came back from an university open day and said that the two languages used in the Computer Games course were C++ and Scratch.

David Noble was up next and talked about some of the things the pupils in his school were doing with iPhones. Missed most of it while failing to get connected to my blog. Finished by talking about the importance of being trusted with wi-fi access.

Jim Black talked about open source software he uses. Free - so usable by pupils, powerful - so pupils are not disadvantaged, many available as portable apps - so pupils can take what they need to any machine and many multi-platform - so machines at home and school and wherever. He was asked what the IT Services people made of them using Open Source. He replied that he hadn't told them. The point was also made that organisations that restrict themselves to only a few standard applications were losing out.

We then went into a sandwich break where I should have been catching up with some folk... but fiddled to much with technology.

Dougal Hawkshaw talked about his use of Wikis in school. For example, better readers post summaries of the chapters of books the class ws reading. Allowed other children to catch up who were struggling. He has never had any problem with vandalism or bullying. One of the things he added was Voki... but it was blocked by the school!

Lorna and Nicki talked about a project called Girls of Ambition. For example, they set up CC4G - Computet Club For Girls. By focusing on the girs they raised attainment and confidence. One of the highlights is school trips, for example to the Shetlands. The program has had a huge impact on the school and the girls in the programme.