Cell Phones as a Personal Learning Device

So the iPhone release is approaching. Dean Shareski is beginning to share some interesting thoughts on cell phones as educational tools. Many districts are drafting policies defining their use or outright banning them.

Watch THIS and tell me that we can realistically ban cell phones. I just see too many possibilities...

1. Can the cell phone be used as a classroom response system? You know, the clickers? A cell phone would simply text the answer to the teacher's WEB-BASED app.
   (I know I just gave up my million dollar idea!)
   
2. Once a cell phone contains a wireless Internet connection, how can we possibly filter them? The wireless Internet connection is the most significant piece to me.
   
3. The time/place shifting ability of a phone/mp3 player/wireless Internet device could even make ATTENDANCE at school ... optional or at least flexible.

I have an idea! Let's just prohibit... no I don't think that's going to work.
We just have to educate, educate, educate... I forget where I read that.

Do You REALLY Know Web 2.0?

Now I've seen lists of web 2.0 sites in my travels. I've even read the web 2.o awards site from a while back.

I often read about new read/write web tools and I frequently try them out.
Here's an interesting site that is the web 2.0 mothership. Do yourself a favor and check this one out. Did you have any idea of the scope?? I had only heard about 20% of these sites.

The navigation of "GoToWeb2.0" is interesting too. Find the tiny purple tabs to scroll up and down. I kept finding myself looking for the scroll bars. Also be sure to try the search feature in the top bar. Yep, search by tag cloud. Interesting! It will take me some time to get used to that feature.

I'm sure there are some real treasures in there! Let me know what you find and don't forget the for:kpaccio tag!!

Web-based Presentation Application

How has this web 2.0 application flown under our radar for so long?? Two of the web-based presentation tools (Zoho Show, Slideshare.net) have shared the spotlight. The primary element that is missing from those two applications (at least they were missing when I last tried them) was slide animations.

Anyone who has incorporated presentation projects into their classroom knows how students use slide animations. (OK, so OVERUSE is probably a better term.) They are disappointed when the animations don't work in the online versions mentioned above.

Spresent.com is a web-based flash application that allows users to build presentations online. The presentations can incorporate pictures from Flickr or Bubbleshare, movies from YouTube, Vimeo, and much more.

I don't see a way to import an existing PowerPoint but I'm sure that's on the radar.

Check out some sample presentations created with Spresent.
Car show example
Features example

Open email Attachments in Google Docs

Within the last month or two I have seen a new feature in Gmail that I've not seen much fanfare about. I thought it would draw more interest.

When receiving a ".doc" attachment in a Gmail account you will now see the option to "Open as a Google document." Wow, what a nice feature.

If you often use a shared computer, your email attachments can now be opened, viewed, and saved to your Gmail account without a locally installed word processor! One more reason that you can "give me a browser and I'll see you in June."