Tim Owens dives into a core subject that is increasingly becoming as popular and vital a tool as e-mail and IM, Twitter! Learn the ins and outs of the interface and how you can leverage it in your school system.

Links:

• VSTE
• Live Mesh
• Twitter
• Follow Tim Owens on Twitter
• Twadget Vista Sidebar Gadget
• Twitterrific

Tons of tools and tips for the 21st Century educator. Check out demonstrations of 280 Slides, Picnik, Take Lessons, Grade Tracker, and more! Also find out just how dedicated Tim Owens is to this series!

Linkage:

• 280 Slides
• Picnik
• Take Lessons
• Babbel
• Grade Tracker
• Audible Kids

Trigger

Trigger is your trigonometry cheat sheet! Interpreting the six standard trig values as lengths of segments, Trigger encapsulates almost everything you need to remember those values, in an intuitive form. Segments shrink to nothingness or stretch out to infinity, making the nature of individual values clear; segments also combine to form numerous similar right triangles, revealing many relationships among the values as simple geometric properties. For complete information, Trigger links to a highly detailed document discussing of the the wealth of information to be found in the figure.

Trigger is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and will sell for $4.99

iEnvision

iEnvision organizes images from the Web into a concise set of groups, with indexed lists in each group. One click and you’ve got access to hundreds of comic strips. Another click and selections from your favorite are playing full screen. Or masterpieces from the great artists. Or a book for your kid. Or the latest photo from Mars. The possibilities are as vast as the Internet itself.

iEnvision includes a large set of sites built-in, and you can add more from the growing Web-based list. You can also add your own. Astronomy photos, News highlights, Children’s books, all on your device. Full screen. Indexed. Pinch, flick, rotate. Automated slide shows. Everything you expect and more.

iEnvision is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and will sell for $9.99

Flash My Brain Flashcards

Flash My Brain offers a slick, fast, and natural interface for creating, studying, and sharing text and photo flash cards. From Chinese characters to chemical formulae, studying flashcards with Flash My Brain is a breeze. Leitner memorization and customizable shuffling lets you study with your own learning method.

Use either the portrait or landscape keyboard to type up your flashcards quickly. Japanese, Chinese, and other non-European languages are supported and welcome. Take photos and add them to your cards. You can even add speech add speech and sound!

Flash My Brain is compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch and will sell for $14.99

Karajan

Karajan is an easy to use music and ear training application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It provides lessons for learning to recognize intervals, chords, scales, pitch and tempo (bpm) with detailed statistics. Karajan is a great tool for music theory students, whether they are in junior high, high school, or college. It is also very useful for every hobby musician. With Karajan you have the choice to complete lessons either in landscape view with the built in Multi-Touch keyboard or you can just select the right answer from a table in portrait view.

Karajan is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and will sell for $14.99

Orfeo

Orfeo is a chromatic tuner and metronome for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The tuner plays four octaves of pitches from C2 to C6 and gives you a choice of sounds. To change the sounding pitch, simply drag the note up or down the staff. The pitch standard for A4 is adjustable and includes pitch standards for early music performance as well as a range around A440.

Orfeos’s metronome gives the standard range of metronome marks plus an exteded slow range down to 10 bps. It includes a visual display, the ability to set the rate by tapping and a choice of emphasis.

Orfeo is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and will sell for $9.99

Starmap

Starmap is the ideal stargazing companion. Easily find constellations, planets or shooting stars zones. A complete hand planetarium for beginners and advanced astronomers. Features include 120,000 visible stars, 200 main stars with names, kind and spectrum, 150 Galaxies and nebulae, Automatic viewpoint using the built-in accelerometer, Pinch and zoom as if you were looking in a telescope, Full coordinates, ecliptic, celestial equator, and more.

Starmap is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch and will sell for $11.99

So as you can see there is a huge variety of apps available for this revolutionary device and this just skims the surface of what is possible. We would love to see interactive companies like Smart, Promethean, Mimeo, and others get in on the action as well as Blackboard and some type of Sharepoint Services app. Regardless this is an excellent first offering and we’re excited at what is made possible by these devices and what we can expect to see in the coming months!

With a heavy focus on the lack of funding in the No Child Left Behind Act and the need for teacher retention programs, Barack Obama outlines multiple ways to fuel growth and prosperity in the education system. Obama supports increasing funding in Head Start programs as well as the No Child Left Behind Act and improving the assessment process so that schools that fall behind are supported and not penalized. Obama also supports multiple outreach programs to address the problem of high-school dropouts, summer learning opportunities, and quality after-school activities to engage students. In a recent speech on education, Obama stated that “Education is now the currency of the Information Age. It’s no longer just a pathway to opportunity and success - it’s a pre-requisite.”

Education reform also happens to be a heavy topic on the republican side. John McCain, who will speak to the NAACP on July 16th on multiple issues to include education reform, supports a variety of incentives to make sure that school systems are addressing the needs of students today. Unlike Obama, McCain does not support increasing funding for the NCLBA, but would rather address where the money is currently being spent. Education advisor Lisa Keegan recently told the Associated Press that “McCain would reallocate how the money is spent. For example, more would go toward merit-pay programs for teachers. School districts are increasingly experimenting with programs like that, in part because of a Bush administration program that helps pay for the initiatives.” McCain also supports a voucher program for poor students in failing schools.

With just a few short months to go as the general election begins to really heat up it will be interesting to watch as the candidates begin debating and campaigning. With the United States facing increased global competition and an eye on the current recession it has become more and more important to look towards the next wave of students entering and exiting our education system for a better economy. Whichever candidate takes the position next year will need to support a diverse range or programs to promote education reform and training for today’s educators.

Tim Owens tackles the big questions for anyone who has ever been charged with forming a buying decision for their school system by jumping in on the Mac v/s PC debate. Watch and find out the benefits of both platform and which one comes out on top.

Links

• Parallels
• VMware Fusion
• Email Tim

Tim Owens breaks the champagne on the inaugural voyage of this beast of a show. Find out what his vision for Changing Ed TV is and how viewers like you can help steer the content.

I was reading my new favorite website: Mental Floss… where I found a video that correlated perfectly with one of my summer classes (reference services). This video was of an editor and lexicographer speaking to the Google crowd about 10 things she wished people knew about the dictionary. I took notes! (She was really an entertaining speaker considering the topic.) Don’t buy into the myths associated with dictionaries… be informed! One of my favorite nuggets: a dictionary is a tool- there is no such book as “THE DICTIONARY,” there are different dictionaries for different jobs. How many types of screwdrivers are there? LOTS!