As you know from my previous post, I have an iPhone that I’m having a blast playing with.  I thought I’d share some of the apps I’ve been exploring.

Keeping Up:

Here is the first “page” of apps on my iPhone.  Most come standard: messages, contacts, notes (great for my to do and grocery lists), camera, calendar (keeps me organized by combining my iCal, Google, and Moodle calendars), photos, settings, voice memo, clock (customizable alarms ensures I don’t forget to set up the laptops three times a week for pullout class!), and calculator.

Ones I added:

Just Light (free) – as the name implies, a blank white screen used as a flash light – you never know when you’ll have a power outage and need a light.  And I have used it a time or two already.

Twitterific - Free Twitter app that I downloaded as soon as I got the iPhone. and for a free app it is pretty good.  Liked the dark screen with light text vs white screen with black text – less harsh on my eyes.

Tweetie2 – the Twitter app that I use now.  Cost $2.99 but was worth the price.  Just wish I could customize the screen & text colors.  Has more bells and whistles, but for the light Twitter user, Twitterific works just fine and is free.

Reader – Free Google Reader – mobile app takes a bit of getting used to, but love being able to quickly clean out the reader when I’m on the go.

Evernote (free) and Delicious Bookmarks (free) are new and I haven’t had a chance to explore them just yet.

Games:

FlowerzLite – free match game – just for time wasting!

reMovem – also just a free time waster game I like.

Wild Things – movie tie-in/ad for Where the Wild Things Are – totally cute.  You interact with Carol who throws things at the screen and when he gets angry he “smashes” your screen (both cause the iPhone to vibrate).  Scared the beegeebers out of me the first time my screen “cracked” and vibrated.  Again, a time waster, but cute and free.

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader – $4.99 app that I purchased for our Teen Read Week program.  We used a document camera and the questions from the game for the competition.  The two teams took turns choosing a category and answering the question.  Right answers earned them a point.  Team with the most points at the end of the period won.

Action bowling isn’t really my game, but it was free.

PAC-MAN – much harder than I thought – moving the guy around the screen takes some skill!  Sol Free – gotta have a solitaire game on your phone.

Ocarina - $0.99 novelty app, but don’t know what to do with it.  It basically turns your iPhone into a flute.  Kinda cool, but another time waster.  You’re supposed to be able to upload your “masterpieces” online to share with others.  I got it just to play around with it.

This is only the first page and a half of my four pages of apps.  I wont bore anyone with the rest, but I’ll share a few at a time that I find useful as I get finished exploring them myself.

Leading From the Heart: “Lessons from a baby giraffe” – Tracy shares a video showing the birth of a baby giraffe.  Its amazing and inspiring.  Take a moment to read through the comments, too!  How could you use this in your classroom?

Sue Waters – The Edubloger – shared a post on Crappy Graphs in regards to creating graphs for blogs.  You can create line graphs and Venn diagrams.  Would be good to create graphs for lessons/teachers; however, since the finished graph is saved to the Crappy Graphs site and anyone can create a graph (with some interesting titles and content), you may not want to use it live with students.

LibraryStuff.net: shares this little gem: “Is it going to rain?”

TwitTip: “10 Easy Steps for Twitter Beginners” – got this from one of my Twitter network folks (can’t remember who) and realize I’m not such a good twitterer.  I forget to open Twitter every day to post at least one tweet.  Just don’t feel people are interested in my day to day minutia.  It doesn’t help that some of my buddies are Plurkers and no longer use Twitter.  BTW: both my Twitter and Plurk IDs are HeatherLoy in case you want to follow me!  The only thing I can promise is that I wont bombard you with a bunch of tweet/plurks!

FORA.tv: “Guy Kawasaki on the Power of Twitter” – and the power of social networks.

My school recently moved to Moodle to have a place for teachers to post their lesson plans/assignment and a way of communicating between the different committees we have established this year. Since I am responsible for training the teachers, I thought it wise to take a course in Moodle!

One of our assignments was to Google the benefits of eLearning and share our findings with the class. Of course, I have to be different and I was curious to see what members of my PLN thought benefits of eLearning were in relation to their experiences. So, I used Twitter to pole my network and asked:

“I’m taking an online course & we’re to gather 3 benefits of eLearning. We’re to use Google, but I figure asking you guys is more practical. Benefits from your own classroom experiences or participation in global projects are what I’m really looking for…any words of wisdom?” These are the responses I received. I was hoping for more, but these were great.

Thank you to all who responded to my request. I appreciate your taking the time. If anyone has any additional benefits to share, please feel free. Your responses don’t have to pertain specifically to the K12 education. Just tell what you believe the benefits to eLearning have been for you!