Back in my generation, we would use a real to real tape recorder and record music built up using tracks. Now you can do it on an iPad, with touch instruments. The iPad becomes “magical,” as Apple likes to put it. It’s not so much what the device can do, but what people can do with the device.
Current iPhone Apps
I was given a new iPhone from my company and though I would share what apps I have been playing around with. The iPhone is like having a second MAC with you. You have your desktop or laptop MAC and now this new handy 2nd MAC called an iPhone. It can do so much for you while you are out and about, not having to lug a laptop around.
One of the most liberating things was when a friend gave me a $15 Apple Gift card, I bought a few apps that I would not of spent the money on. I have been reviewing the free apps but ended up purchasing a few apps with the gift card money. How liberating! I have now started to buy apps on my MAC too. The App store is changing how we purchase and update software. So nice to have one central place – especially when the software updates.
I hope to take some time and share apps with this user’s group in the future, to do a more in depth review of the better ones.
It looks like we have an upgrade coming – from Snow Leopard to Lion – and I am excited to see it come. This upgrade will have a few things in it that make it special.
1) Full OS – Including the Server components. No need to spend extra $ to get the server version.
2) The ability to have more than one user logged in. You may have one user logged in to the console and at least one other user logging in remotely. Both with full and different Graphic sessions. Maybe more than one user can log in remotely, Apple has not told us.
3) iPad2 may be gaining Spaces – the ability to have multiple screens run on it’s display. Allowing a person with an iPad to log into a session on a Lion Mac. This would be awesome in my mind as you could carry around your iPad and log into your powerful Lion Mac, giving you the best of both worlds. Kent Unruh mention in a meeting last year, how he could see Apple bringing touch feature to the Mac, he was very prophetic. I’m starting to save my $ for the upgrade. I will do a fresh install on a usb external hard drive and run that way until I find out that Lion is good enough to install permanently on my hard drive.
I’ve used a Novatel Wireless MiFi 3G Hotspot for Wi-Fi connectivity for some time now. The fact that the iPhone can provide this is a major step forward for the industry. Look at this article to see the potential! http://ow.ly/48oyp
The next chapter in digital books.
Introducing Push Pop Press. Our team is bringing together great content and beautiful software to create a new breed of digital books. Books that let you explore photos, videos, music, maps, and interactive graphics, all through a new physics-based multi-touch user interface. Our first title will be available for iPad and iPhone later this year. We can’t wait to share it with you.
2010 Apple Review by Nick Barber, IDG News Service
Kansas State University’s department of curriculum and instruction is using a $70,000 grant enhancement to purchase iPads for mathematics teachers in local school districts.
The iPads will be used as a technological resource to enhance math lessons and instruction in the classroom.
The grant enhancement is additional financial support for a three-year, $300,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Education for a project focusing on teacher retention and increasing effective math teaching.
“The original grant is designed to deepen and broaden the content knowledge of math teachers in Kansas — in particular, the ones in K-State’s professional development schools and partnership districts,” said David Allen, associate professor of curriculum and instruction and one of the grant’s project directors.
The grant focuses primarily on teachers of grades 5-8 in the Junction City, Manhattan and Wamego school districts. The funding supports a two-week training program for the teachers every summer, with a different math area focus each year. The program has 33 participants and is helping to train them to become teacher-leaders in their districts, Allen said.
“We’re taking our knowledge and disseminating it to these 33 teachers who have been working with us,” he said. “They’ll go back to their schools and do the same thing so that we reach more teachers.”
Allen said the grant enhancement funding for iPad technology could benefit teachers and their students in several ways.
When teaching geometry, he said, it’s important for students to understand that there are certain properties that are consistent, such as the sum of a triangle’s angles always equaling 180 degrees.
“Using certain software programs you can draw a triangle on an iPad, and you can manipulate the vertices,” Allen said. “What that does is change the angles on the triangle. So as kids touch the iPad, they can move the triangle into different configurations. They can then see the angles changing, but the sum of the angles always stays at 180 degrees.”
Technical issues for using the iPads in the classroom are still being developed.
Allen said the project is just one of the many ways K-State is helping teachers in the community.
“That’s what a university should do,” he said. “Rather than recognize we’re an ivory tower where professors dictate what true knowledge is, we believe that we need to leave our offices, get into the schools and work with teachers where the rubber meets the road, and just say, ‘what can we do to help?’”
In addition to Allen, directors of the project at K-State include Andrew Bennett, professor of mathematics; Melisa Hancock, instructor of curriculum and instruction; and Xuan Hien Nguyen, visiting assistant professor in mathematics.
Sources: David Allen, 785-532-6999, dallen@k-state.edu;
and Melisa Hancock, 785-532-7947, melisa@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Rosie Hoefling, 785-532-2535, media@k-state.edu
APPLE:
Xserve will no longer be available after January 31, but we’ll continue to fully support it.
www.apple.com/xserve/resources.html
Visiting a Kansas State University campus but unfamiliar with the layout? There’s an app for that.
Launching today is PowerCat Enhanced. The downloadable technology turns a user’s iPhone 3GS and above or Android-based smart phones into an interactive map and GPS, showing both information about and directions to locations on the K-State Manhattan, Salina and Olathe campuses.
While some national and Big 12 schools have phone applications with campus maps, K-State is one of only a handful of universities to use Layar — an open-source, cross-platform, augmented reality application. Of schools using Layar, even fewer have expanded the core program’s functionality to the extent of K-State’s.
The K-State Student Union announces the relocation and expansion of the Union Computer Store to inside the Union Bookstore. The computer store, an Authorized Apple Campus Reseller, will have increased visibility with the new location effective Thursday, Aug. 19.
“We are extending our operating hours to match those of the Union Bookstore and will be able to service the campus more efficiently,” said Chris Loehr, computer store manager.
A full inventory featuring MacBooks, iPads, iPods, accessories, as well as a select line of Dell laptops, will still be available to those with valid K-State IDs. The store will continue to offer education discounts on Student Select Microsoft and Adobe products. Back-to-school offers will end Sept. 7.
A grand re-opening is planned for the near future. For more information about the Union Computer Store, visit the new location on the ground floor of the Union, the website at www.k-state.edu/computerstore, or call 785-532-7319.
|
krmug
Kent Unruh
Bob Claar
kathy
clscott
Jim Bradley
Recent Comments