T10- Exploring Mobile Technology and Apps

Personally, I'm not too into the whole iMobiles thing. However, as time moves on, they are slowly growing on me. Not that I feel my tastes have changed, but rather that newer features for roughly the same price is increasing their value. Originally, the iPod was just an overpriced music player, but with all the new features they've developed as its become the iTouch and the iPad make it quite a bit more marketable. For travel, the iPad looks like a good potential replacement for more cumbersome laptops.

With the constantly expanding world of apps, there are bound to be a few good ones for education. The link with the Top 50 Free Educational Apps has some neat apps, but most of the neat ones I see are science related. Which is cool and something I'm totally into, just not the area of my instruction. On the SBISD Apps resource page there were a couple apps worth mentioning.

Useful Apps:
- Learn Chess During IIW, chess is on of the activities our group will discuss.

- Photoshop Mobile Not really photoshop, but a few little things here or there for editing photos on your iMobile of choice.
- Musee de Louvre Too cool, a little art museum for your iMobile.
- Art Lite More art history and pictures for your iMobile.
- SketchBook MobileX sketch on the go.

Despite enjoying these apps, I'm still looking at them from a more personal direction. I would rather them use these apps on a laptop or a pc. I really am rather uneasy about the use of iTouches in the classroom. The concern of theft and potential off-task behavior are too high. While monitoring is always a good things, I'd feel inclined to monitor over providing support due to these concerns. To use iTouches in the room, and feel comfortable would require checking them out, complete with signed documents and waivers, deposit fees, and tethered to the desks with a chain (dont-take-our-pens-please retail style).