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May 28, 2009

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What’s on Your iPod Touch? Mobile Apps for Learning


We’ve been having a little exchange on our list about mobile gadgets and apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, so I decided to blog about what I have on my iPod Touch. Not so surprisingly, I have very little music. I have an iPod Video and Nano for that. The Touch is for mobile learning. I’m trying to see how this gadget can be used in education. The obvious is podcasts, both audio and video. It’s easy to find good podcasts to share and recommend with students, as well as create your own. So I have over 3 GB of video on my Touch, mostly video podcasts. One of my favorite apps on the Touch is iTalk. I can hook up an external microphone and record lectures right on the Touch. Then I can sync and have the podcast uploaded to where ever in a matter of minutes. Sound quality is really good.

Most of my apps are free, unless indicated by (paid). Here is a list of my first page of apps on my Touch.

  • Google
  • YouTube
  • Remember the Milk (RTM)
  • Twitterific & TwitterFon
  • iTalk
  • Facebook
  • Bb Learn

These are all obvious choices. We haven’t had a chance to try out the Bb Learn app yet. District says we will be able to do so after the upgrade, which just happened, so I’ll check into that next week.

My second page of apps is a mixed bag. I have a few ereaders I’m trying out and some blogging tools.

  • Kindle & eReader & GReader (Readers)
  • Google Voice & GV Mobile (Paid)
  • Google Talk & Skype (chat)
  • Gyminee
  • WordPress
  • Animoto
  • WootWatch
  • Tumblr
  • Where
  • Brightkite
  • TripIt
  • Nike +iPod

These are some of the more important mobile tools for blogging, reading documents, books and RSS feeds, and communicating via chat, voicemail and text messaging.

As I move through my app pages, the apps get less and less relevant to mobile learning. So far we’ve seen lots of social networking apps and reading and writing apps. That trend continues, but I start to add more home automation and fun stuff. I mean, you never know when you will need to Tivo a show for class, right.

  • myhomework (Keep track of classes and homework)
  • Evernote (This could be a big elearning app)
  • Shakespeare (Complete works on my iPod)
  • Yelp
  • Yahoo!
  • LinkedIn
  • i.TV & DirecTV & PhoneFlix (Schedule DVRs & Netflix)
  • fring (IM & Skype in one/VOIP)
  • Assistant (PageOnce – Acct Management)
  • WSJ (Wall Street Journal)
  • Flickr
  • Ustream (watching only)

I found lots of apps that have created collections of works like the Shakespeare one. This would make teaching a lit class easy in terms of access to free books. Evernote has the biggest potential for impact in the mobile learning space. I will be exploring this a bit more this summer.

My last two pages are just a bunch of games and sports apps like for the Master’s and the NBA playoffs. Also MLB (At Bat) lets you listen to live game audio for $10 for the whole season. I also have the Stanza ebook reader, a dictionary, notes, and a calculator. That’s it. And like I mentioned earlier, I only paid for 3 apps. As I explore and try new ones, I’ll probably purchase more if they are worth it. We’ll see.

So what’s on your iPod Touch or iPhone? Leave a comment and let me know so I can add to my collection.

1 Comment
  1. jennifer53
    Jan 3 2011

    These are all obvious choices. We haven

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