7 ways to teach digital literacy skills

http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/7-ways-to-teach-digital-literacy-skills-1

Shared from Sam Gliksman on Flipboard. Download Flipboard for free here.

Mr.V

http://ipadacademy.com/2013/06/how-to-find-free-apps-app-price-drops-use-an-app-apps-gone-free

How to Find Free Apps & App Price Drops: Use An App – Apps Gone Free

A few days ago I recommended using a free app to help you find free apps or apps that that had recently gone free. You can also try the aptly named app called Apps Gone Free. Apps Gone Free from AppAdvice tries to find the top daily app deals. With Apps Gone Free you get information on only 5 to 10 apps per day, curated by the staff. AppAdvice reviewers work to choose a few apps worth getting from the hundreds of apps that go free every day, rather than simply compiling a list of apps. Each app has a brief summary of features. You can also look back for apps chosen on previous days.

Mr.V

http://ipadacademy.com/2013/06/how-to-find-free-apps-app-price-drops-use-an-app-apps-gone-free

How to Find Free Apps & App Price Drops: Use An App – Apps Gone Free

A few days ago I recommended using a free app to help you find free apps or apps that that had recently gone free. You can also try the aptly named app called Apps Gone Free. Apps Gone Free from AppAdvice tries to find the top daily app deals. With Apps Gone Free you get information on only 5 to 10 apps per day, curated by the staff. AppAdvice reviewers work to choose a few apps worth getting from the hundreds of apps that go free every day, rather than simply compiling a list of apps. Each app has a brief summary of features. You can also look back for apps chosen on previous days.

Mr.V

What happens to my online stuff when I die? Here is information that may make the transition to the hereafter less mortifying.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2036372/designing-your-digital-legacy.html#tk.nl_pwr

Designing your digital legacy

Security

We lead rich virtual lives on social networking sites like Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. So what happens when real life catches up, and our flesh-and-blood bodies succumb to mortality? For our virtual selves, at least, some concrete answers are available—ways to settle our digital affairs after death, while minimizing hassle and heartache for loved ones.

Google sets the standard by building a dead man’s switch (one with a gentler name) into your Google account features. Facebook and Twitter also have processes in place for handling accounts of the recently deceased, though they’re somewhat more cumbersome. A few good Web services can help for all other online cases, passing along login information based on triggers you can set yourself.

Google’s dead man switch

Google’s new Inactive Account Manager system is simple to understand and set up. Accessible from your Google account settings page, it helps you set up a time-out period for your account—the length of time you can go without logging in before Google assumes that you’re never coming back. The default is three months, but you can dial it up in increments of 90 days until it tops out at a year and a half. I recommend setting it to at least six months, though you could vary this period based on how often you log in.

Google makes preparing for your death quick and painless.

A fail-safe is built into the service: One month before the timeout period, Google will send you an e-mail reminder (and an optional SMS message, if you give them a phone number) to make sure you’re not coming back. Once your account is inactive long enough to trigger the Inactive Account Manager, Google will send a message to up to ten people notifying them that your account is now inactive.

You’ll need to provide a working phone number for every contact. Google will send each of them a unique verification code so they can download any data you’d like them to have.

The Inactive Account Manager lets you selectively share your Google data postmortem with up to ten people via email.

You can choose which pieces of your Google data to share with each person. For example, you can arrange for close friends to get links to download Picasa photo albums, while you entrust a family member to have access to your mail, Google Voice messages, and everything else. They’ll have a three-month window for doing so—after that, they’ll be locked out for good.

Finally, you can configure your Google account to eradicate every trace of itself from the Google servers. That includes all of your public data, from YouTube videos to blog posts and the like.

Twitter and Facebook involve more hassle

Both Twitter and Facebook have systems in place to help you close out your accounts after you die, but neither is as thorough, nor as intuitive, as Google’s new tool. You’ll have to do a little legwork and assign someone to settle matters on your behalf.

Twitter will allow a designated party to deactivate your account without needing your password, but it requires a heck of a lot of paperwork. The full article on contacting Twitter about deceased users is worth a read, but in brief: Twitter needs your username and a copy of your death certificate, along with a signed statement from your loved one explaining who they are, how they know you, proof that the Twitter account belonged to you (if your username doesn’t match your real name), and a copy of a government-issued ID (such as a driver’s license) that proves their identity. They then have to fax or mail all of that to Twitter—the appropriate address and fax number are both on the page for the Twitter Help Center.

One more form that needs to be filled out in the digital age.

Facebook requires a similar amount of information, but it at least provides an online form to help your friend or family member submit the information quickly. Facebook also goes one step above and beyond deactivating or deleting your account: Your loved ones can convert your Facebook page into a memorial page that has higher security and allows friends and family to post memories about you on your timeline.

Entrust a loved one with your digital estate

Facebook’s neat/creepy memorial account feature aside, in most cases, it’s much faster and easier to provide your login information to a trusted friend or family member, along with instructions to delete your accounts after you’ve passed away. Asking a loved one to delete your Facebook account after you die is way more efficient than having to verify your death with Facebook, which can often take several days. Deleting your Twitter account is even easier—just head to “Deactivate my Account” at the bottom of your account settings page, follow a few instructions, and you’re done.

Deleting your information isn’t the only reason you should keep a record of your passwords on hand for loved ones. Because most online stores like iTunes are actually selling you a license and not the media itself, you can’t count on retailers like Apple to help your loved ones get into your account. If you download or stream a lot of media, your passwords may be the only things that keep your music and movies in the family.

Build your own dead man switch

If you feel uncomfortable giving out your account passwords while you’re still alive and kicking, you could always set up a dead man switch of your own to send out that information. I recommend using free services like the appropriately named Dead Man’s Switch or Deadman. Both will securely provide the previously mentioned password and other personal information to your loved ones after your death.

Deadman is fast and easy to use, and it could save your friends and family a lot of hassle down the road.

Just like Google’s Inactive Account Manager, these services have variable time delays that you can configure to be days, months, or even years after your last login. Most will send you an e-mail a few days before the deadline. If they don’t hear back by the time your deadline rolls around, they’ll automatically send a prewritten message to your loved ones. Both of the services recommended here are free but also have premium options, such as the ability to add more recipients and encrypt your message until it’s sent.

Of course, if you’re not concerned with that extra security and you plan on setting up Google’s Inactive Account features anyway, you can use Google to disseminate your passwords and instructions for downloading all your media and shutting down your accounts. Since you can customize the message that Google sends on a user-by-user basis, you can include any relevant passwords and instructions for other services in your post-mortem email blast.

Exiting gracefully from virtual life

It’s a grim subject, but the process of preparing your digital estate can take as little as an hour once you’ve gathered your passwords and decided what to do with all your data. More important, it can save your loved ones weeks or even months of frustration and trouble.

http://m.cnet.com/news/lab-quality-microscope-now-mounts-onto-most-apple-ios-devices/57581990

Lab-quality microscope now mounts onto most Apple iOS devices

April 29, 2013 | Elizabeth Armstrong Moore

The ProScope Micro Mobile by handheld digital microscope manufacturer Bodelin starts shipping on May 1 for $149.

The microscope mounts to devices via a nylon/ABS sleeve.

Bodelin

To my fellow geeks who’ve long dreamed of having a lab-quality digital microscope that mounts to your phone, the time has come.

Oregon-based optics manufacturer Bodelin will begin shipping its brand-new ProScope Micro Mobile on May 1. One version fits the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, and iPod Touch; another the iPad; and another the iPad Mini. Whatever size, it will set you back $149.

The microscope mounts to the devices via a nylon/ABS sleeve, which positions the lens over the device’s camera lens. Surrounded by a dozen adjustable-brightness LEDs to illuminate the object of choice and reduce surface reflection, the lens provides 20-80x magnification. The scope’s lithium-ion battery charges via USB in two hours and powers for five.

The folks at Bodelin recognized the shift from laptops to phones and tablets, but they also remembered to include a desk stand so the devices can be propped up and used hands-free. Check it out in action in the video below.

And if it’s important to you, they say the ProScope Micro Mobile is made entirely in Oregon, without any additional parts sourced outside the U.S.

Elizabeth Armstrong Moore

Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is based in Portland, Ore., and has written for Wired, The Christian Science Monitor, and public radio. Her semi-obscure hobbies include climbing, billiards, board games that take up a lot of space, and piano.

Mr.V

Mr. Anthony Valentin

http://mgleeson.edublogs.org/2013/04/28/ipurpose-before-ipad/

iPurpose before iPad

The two above images are good examples of purposeful thinking about iPad usage in schools.

One, a screenshot of an oft-used tool known as iPad As.. by edtechteacher.org, focuses on what the iPad can be used for and provides links to various apps that can be utilised for those functions. It goes without saying that it is a very useful website for schools thinking about iPads. It provides nutshell explanations of a number of apps that relate to each iPad as… category as well as pricing. It’s a good introduction into the functionality of the iPad that counteracts the misconception of iPad as consumption NOt creation tool.

The other, The Padagogy Wheel, is one of many variations on applying Bloom’s Taxonomy of skills to iPad apps. It develops from the general learning action verbs/skills we want our students to acquire to technology based activities that relate to these skills and finally to a selection of apps that can support this development.

Both tools have supported my reflection on iPad use in school and are worth checking out in detail. Having said that, though, I feel they both fall short in what is needed as a resource for implementing iPads in education. iPad as… does a good job at presenting uses for iPads in school – what they can be used for – but doesn’t really provide depth about the skill development that can arise from their use. It’s still action/activity emphasis rather than pedagogical/learning emphasis. It’s great to know that you can create videos, and it describes what the app can do, but how will this improve learning and what learning will it improve is also a priority iPad schools need to address. I think it also pigeon-holes apps as one trick ponies – I’d like to emphasise the apps that can be used to develop many skills.

The Padagogy Wheel provides many links between skills and tech activities but doesn’t really address what iPad apps address which skills and activities specifically other than lumping them into a particular category. It too, tends to classify the apps as one trick pony options rather than seeing them as multiple category options.

Don’t get me wrong, I think both are great tools but there is room for improvement in creating a tool for support time poor iPads in Schools implementers in planning, selecting, justifying and integrating iPad apps in education.

Which leads me to attempt a herculean task… I’m going to try to blend the best of both of these resources and address the short falls I have mentioned by creating my own resource. But it’s going to be a work in progress for a while and I hope to get support from Mr G Online followers, subscribers, users and casual visitors.

I’ve started creating a table of important skills, some derived from the Padagogy Wheel, and actions, some derived from iPad As… What I am planning to highlight is that there are many apps that can be use for many purposes and for developing many skills. For example, I have already added “Explain Everything” to 9 categories as I see it as a multifunctional app and one worth its price because of the educational benefits it provides. Over the coming months I plan to add text descriptions to each category to explain how the apps listed address the skill or action they have been linked to and may also link them to other online sources that show them in action. I’ll also provide direct links to the App Store, as I always do on this blog when I mention apps so you can check them out yourself if you want.

Now this sounds like a big task and it is. So I do need some help. What do I want from you? Anything you can give. Just add them to the comments of this post.

Examples of apps that help to develop specific skills
Additional skills I haven’t listed here
Examples of apps that are multifunctional.
Explanations of good pedagogical practice with apps. Don’t worry, all credit will go to you when I include your suggestions.
Links to blog posts, websites, Youtube tutorials, open wikis, nings etc that promote good practice that I can link to from here.
Examples on add ons like bookmarklets for curation sites, websites that work well with iPads ( Flash-free) that can still be categorised under these headings for iPad use.
Spread the word regularly through Twitter, Facebook, Curation sites like Pinterest and Scoop-It to keep educators coming back.
This post will look messy for a while as new ideas get added. A blog may not be the best storage place for it in the long run. If I actually get the support – and it’s likely I won’t – and it grows I will probably move it to a separate website for better functionality. It may well be better as a wiki but I didn’t want to move away from Mr G Online unless I needed. For easy access in the meantime, I will add this post to my main menu at the top of the blog so you can come back to check revisions. I will be planning weekly updates at least, more if I get regular contributions I can just copy and paste in from the comments.

I really hope I can get this off the ground. From reading so many blog articles, I can see there is a huge need for clarity in using tech like iPads. If you have been a regular reader of Mr G Online, you would know I am a big proponent of Pedagogy before Techology. That’s why I want iPurpose before iPad. Hope to hear from some of you soon.

http://m.gizmodo.com/5995078/the-massive-digital-library-of-the-future-just-opened-its-doors

The Massive Digital Library of the Future Just Opened Its ‘Doors’

future

By Mario Aguilar, Apr 19, 2013 1:29 PM

After two and a half years of development, the Digital Public Library of America finally flipped the switch on and opened its website at DP.LA. Collecting items from institutions cross the country, the library has already collected more than two million items in its searchable database. And that’s just the beginning.

In addition to regular searches of the kinds you’re probably used to, you can view DPLA results as a timeline or a map. The DPLA also has an API so developers can dbuild their own tools for browsing the huge collection.

The DPLA is still very much a beta, and as it adds more partner institutions and builds out its technology the potential for the utopian project is huge. But beyond the impressive use of technology, we should note that this work is important. Information portals like the DP.LA will be an essential public service as people increasingly consume images and text digitally and online. Godspeed. [DP.LA via PetaPixel]

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Mr.V