Each year the K12OnlineConference provides tremendous professional development for free, and entirely online. This year, they have selected me as one of their keynote speakers. I am thrilled to have been chosen and look forward to participating in the conversation.

Read the full post announcing all the keynote speakers here.

I’ve become disillusioned with Moodle lately and this summer I made the decision to abandon it in favor of a new solution. Here is the process that I went through to make the decision.

1. Ever since I upgrade from Moodle 1.9.x to Moodle 2.0, I’ve been displeased. I was hoping for the new release to bring me new features and new ways of extending the learning into cyberspace. All it brought me was pain. The upgrade itself took hours, and required lengthy trips into the user support forum. I don’t mind that kind of work, but I have to wonder if my time isn’t better spent elsewhere.

2. Version 2.0 is a design nightmare. The collabsible menus are awful, and the site still feels like Web 1.0. The more I used it, the more I realized it was time for a new solution.

3. I had issues with the number of concurrent users. I moved from my shared hosting account to a virtual private server and still could not get any more than about 10 concurrent users. That is too few and was very frustrating. I was facing the need to upgrade further, which was not economically feasible.

So I went looking for something new. I looked at Instructure’s Canvas, but quickly figured out that it is not designed for students as young as mine (by their own admission). I also spoke to the kind folks at Schooltown, but by that time I had already settled into my new solution, which I am thus far quite pleased with.

But first, it’s worth noting that I wanted something not free. I want to pay for it. I want the right to call and fuss and get help from the folks who work there.

So let’s talk about my new solution

I’ve been using Haiku Learning for a month or now and have been pleased. It has some limitations that frustrate me but the folks there have been very open about their DNA.

And I’m paying for it. I’m paying a bit less than five US dollars per month and I get what I need. I like the features that it has, including

• automatically graded quizzes
• discussion forums (the Latin teacher in me wanted to put fora)
• snazzy polls
• easy embedding of outside content (they have something called embed the web which allows me to easily embed most anything)
• good support

We shall see what the future holds, especially as I begin to use it with kids. After all, they’re the ones who will help me really decide whether to continue to use Haiku or not.

Here is that conversation, which involved many others. Please feel free to listen along and respond, we welcome your thoughts!

Update: Here is our conversation on YouTube if you prefer.

Here are two quick links that may be useful. First is an article talking about the practical implications of CLT on the design of learning.

The second are some “recent” (as of 2003) developments regarding CLT.

Happy reading!

Update: I clarified the second article, it’s not all that recent.

Here are some pointers that I offered to the first person that emailed me, perhaps they are of some use to you. Please note that your mileage may vary.

1. It’s ok to not be the smartest person in the room. These kids now know more than I do about app inventor and the process. That’s ok.
2. I used a throwaway Gmail account to feel at ease giving them the password so they can develop.
3. Typically with 3 in a group, you end up with a creative, design-oriented person, one person is programming and using the blocks editor, and the other is the Google jockey, searching for answers to questions that arise. That typically meant they didn’t ask me. And when they did, I let them see how I search for answers, modeling proper searching.
4. I used Google’s Chrome browser almost exclusively, since it’s made by the same folks that put out the App Inventor software I figured it’s an easy bet.

Is this useful? What other questions do you have?

First, once we finished the coding process, we packaged the app for to download to the computer. This is an option in App Inventor. This downloaded an .apk file. It is possible to install that .apk file directly to the phone, but it is not possible to publish that file directly to the market. Here’s how to put the finishing touches on your app and get it ready for publishing.

First, save yourself LOADS of time and go download the amazing conversion program located here. Then follow these steps.

1. Start up the app 2 market app by running the batch file in the folder.
2. Create your security certificate. This is a super important step because all future iterations of the app have to be signed by the very same certificate. In other words, you have to enter the very same information. Once you get it entered, click Save Config. This is a critical step.
3. Go to the next tab and browse for the file.
4. Decompile it.
5. Make any changes you want. If this is the second time you are uploading (in other words, you’re upgrading the app) you need to change the version code and version number.
6. Make the new apk.
7. Sign it.
8. Verify it.
9. Zipalign it.

Publish it! Just go to http://market.android.com/publish and create a developer account (costs $25) and publish away!

Here is the app2market process in pictures.

My students and I recently completed and published an Android app, and here’s how we did it.

First, the genesis for this goes back to a question I asked some time ago, regarding what I should teach kids. I then asked for help designing the course.

I developed some thoughts in response and wondered how the course would go. Since I’m such a Google fanatic, I was aware of the App Inventor software Google provides for free. I set it up on three computers and left it prepared if the chance arose to try it out.

When the first class of “media tech” came to me we began chatting about what they wanted to learn. A few kids said the magic words, “we want to learn about developing apps for phones”. Music to my ears. I set them down on the three computers, showed them how to find the tutorials and they went to work.

The first app kids developed was called Meatball Destruction. The goal was for a meatball to destroy different objects, with the difficulty increasing. Truth be told, the game didn’t get too far. It was barely playable by the end of our nine weeks (block schedule, so I see these kids roughly 22 times) course.

So when the new block of kids came in, I decided that the kids needed to have a useful purpose behind the app in order to help sustain interest when the difficulties arose. So the kids decided to make an app about our school for parents and students.

Most of the time, they worked on their own, and sometimes they came to ask questions. Truth be told, they knew more than I did, and it was ok. We spent time Googling answers together and sometimes I had to ask questions in a forum. Thankfully the community was supportive and helpful.

If you have an Android phone, we’d love it if you would download it and rate it!

If you want the free month of a pro account, fill in this form. Enjoy!

1. Easy phone conferencing. One feature I adore about DimDim is the included voice conferencing. Lots of the folks I deal with don’t care for VOIP, and neither do I.
2. Screen sharing.
3. Cost effective

Aside from those two options, everything else is icing on the cake. The vast majority of webinars, technical support calls, and conference calls I do need only those two options. However, that proved quite difficult to find.

I explored several of the major conferencing providers, and discovered that most, if not all, charge lots of money for phone conferencing. For example:

• Cisco’s WebEx – charges by the minute for phone conferencing.
• Elluminate – charges by the minute for phone conferencing.
• Fuze Meeting – costs a bundle monthly.

And so on and so forth.

Note that I do not mind paying for a service that works. I pay for DimDim. But I could not see paying by the minute for phone conferencing.

Enter join.me.

I initially discovered join.me as I needed a quick and easy solution to helping my parents with their ailing computer. join.me allowed me to control their computers with ease.

Did you know every join.me session comes with a free phone conferencing session? I didn’t. I learned it did. And I was hooked.

In fact, every join.me session allows up to 250 people to participate on the phone conference. For free. Outstanding.

So now I am using join.me as my conferencing provider. I fire up my presentation in Keynote or Google Presentations and present that way. I get a chat room, phone conference, and can even let others participate.

And, there are Android and iOS apps for viewing presentations.

So I’m a join.me convert. Try it and let me know what you think.

Full disclosure: Since I heart join.me so much and have been using it so much over the last few months, we decided to work together. So I am helping them perfect an already outstanding product a few hours each month. My opinion of the product is not shaped by our agreement, I work with them because I believe they’ve got a good thing going.

Public replies to crafty184's post:

I've got a kid really interested in creating animations. Any help for him? Software?


• George_Haines: Simple and free: doink.com not very robust unless the student has a robust imagination though.
  2011.03.30, 11:56am
• Kdmiller4: Let me know if you have any questions about DoInk. Amazing to see what the kids can do with free software http://bit.ly/fBHGMT
  2011.03.30, 1:18pm
• aforgrave: Mac or PC ? Stop motion?
  2011.03.30, 11:56am
• atruger: Frames from T4L is VERY easy to use program its a fave of my spec needs students also look at http://t.co/EhOKajJ
  2011.03.30, 12:21pm
• Tech4Learning: definitely check out Frames. free trial http://www.tech4learning/frames we'd love to see what he creates!
  2011.03.30, 12:13pm
• pmcash: This site http://synfig.org/cms/ was in a set of links from @dougpete today. Coincidence?
  2011.03.30, 12:13pm
• theartguy: Otherwise, make stills in PowerPoint, export as .jpg files, import into iMovie, lower image duration as far as it will go.
  2011.03.30, 11:55am
• theartguy: Frames from Tech4Learning is very cool - I've had kids as young as 3rd grade make animations with it.
  2011.03.30, 11:54am