There are many articles on webconferencing and a lot of schools & institutions of Higher Ed have already jumped in and started using webinars to provide training to faculty. If you haven't yet made the jump here are a few considerations that may encourage you.

8 Vital Tips for Teaching Faculty Using Webinars:
A Strategy for Professional Development Sucess!

1. The Strategic Advantage of Webinars. Webinars can build relationships with faculty/customers/clients, increase your name recognition, establish your expertise, communicate important changes, and can attract (or keep) your customers (in this case faculty and students).

2. Consider the Costs. A few cost considerations include staff time, presentation development time, marketing time and presentation materials as well as the cost for the webconferencing tool if applicable.

3. Choose a Tool. There are a variety of tools. Be sure and choose a tool that will serve your purposes and work well for your situation. If you have an LMS, I'd suggest using a tool that easily works within it. We use Blackboard Collaborate. However, there are also a variety of free options. Here is a list of 10 Free Webconferencing tools.

4. What to Present. This is one of the most important keys to consider. You have to put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Why would they want to spend an hour of their time (yes it should only be an hour) sitting at their computer watching your webinar? I would make a list (and ask those around you to help) that includes a variety of different topic options. Then most importantly, send a survey out to your faculty and ask them what topics THEY feel are needed.

Also consider checking out what other similar institutions are doing for their webinar series. This information is often on their website. This will help you to get some ideas of what types of topics you should present. Make a good list of webinar topics.

Here are just a few topic examples: What's New in Blackboard 9.1?, How to Use the Gradebook Tool, How to Present Engaging Webinars, Innovative Topics with Faculty, Mobile Learning, Best practice for Teaching Online, Best Practice for Developing Online Courses, Webtools, etc. The key is to make the topics relevant to what your faculty need or want to learn. Remember your trying to convince them that they shoudl give up their hour for your webinar. Make it worth their while!

5. Survey Your Faculty.  Before you put in stone what you will present, create a simple survey using a tool like SurveyMonkey. List all of the webinar options you and your team have brainstormed and be sure to have an "other" category so faculty can type in their suggestions as well. This will help ensure that webinars presented are in step with faculty needs.

4. When to Present. Consider the semester timeframe. One of the great advantages of webinars is that you can present them at key points when faculty need them with just-in-time training. At the begining of the semester, faculty may benefit from a refresher on best practices for teaching or a review on how to use the grade book. At the end of the semester, a good review on how to develop study guides for students or final exam procedures may be helpful. Consider holidays, busy times, etc when planning your calendar. You will want a calendar on your website complete with all the webinars clearly marked and a simple registration system (or email if you have no other option) so that you have an idea of which and how many faculty plan to attend.

5. The Process. After you know what and when you will present there are three steps to the basic process a) Invitations - client list, prospect list, newsletter link, link on your website, etc b) Deliver the content - Webinar on relevant topic w/ knowledgeable speakers c) Follow up with a survey and a link to the archive or handouts (whitepapers, docs, etc).

6. Creating an Audience. Email is a great tool to contact your participants. Create a marketing email promoting your webinar and send it to existing or potential clients/faculty. Encourage invitees to forward the invitation onto other colleagues. Place a link on your website and put it in your newsletter along with links to the registration page, previously archived (recorded) webinars, and to the master webinar calendar. If you have a marketing team, leverage other marketing options that you have available. Remember, if faculty don't know about your webinar they will not attend. ;-)

7. Best Practice for Presenting a Webinar. Always be sure and practice a run through of your presentation prior to going live. Make it engaging and interactive (not just a one way presentation). Have participants ask questions and encourage interaction through the use of poll questions, annotative tools, etc. Its also good to have one person be a moderator who welcomes the participants, checks their audio, answers questions, and introduces the speaker. Here is a link to some tips and best practices for presenting in a webinar.

8. Don't Forget to Archive! Whenever you do a presentation, be sure and save an archive of the presentation. Its likely that some of the registered participants will be unable to attend and its nice to forward them a message containing a link to the archive after the webinar.  This also begins to establish a library of presentations that your faculty can refer to in the future (if you place a link to them on your site). Archiving is also good because as a presenter you can watch yourself and think about what went well and what didn't for future improvement.

What other tips do you have for using webconferencing to teach faculty? Do you use a web conferencing tool for professional development at your institution? What have you found to be most effective?

"Badges, I don't Need No Stinkin Badges"
Actually Yes I Do and Students Do Too!

If the caption above confuses you, this youtube video is where it came from. You can rest assured the video has nothing to do with online learning. ;-) But badges on the other hand, yes, they certainly do!

When I was in Boy Scouts years ago, they had a merit badge system. Complete the projects and learn what you needed to learn (competency based) and then you would earn a badge to show everyone that you accomplished something. This article talks more about badges for competency.

Now consider video games. One of the motivating components of a video game is the fact that you can earn points, acrue tokens, weapons, or other advancements as you proceed through the game.

Both of these concepts can be applied to online learning. There are a variety of articles on gamification in learning. Boise State University developed a 3D Gamelab Professional Development course, which I took last summer. It was a learning management system developed to implement gaming principles. There were options and rewards with a totally different setup compared to what you often see in traditional learning management systems.

So I'm left to wonder, If I'm using Blackboard, what principles of gaming could I still do? Here are a couple ideas but I'm hoping those of you reading this will provide some additional insight in the comments area below.

1)  Develop Modules So They Are Quests With Options. Give students the choice of selecting a number of the options (or quests as 3DGamelab calls them) to complete. You can even make the diffrent quests worth different point values (which is similar to how the 3DGamelab works).

Imagine you have 10 quests (modules/topics). Students are asked to choose however many topics they like, but they have to earn 100 points by the time they complete the course. Some modules may be worth 10 points, others 20 points or more, but this gives students a choice as to what they want to learn (which quest to complete). It also makes it clear of what is needed in order to "win the A" (earn 100 points). Finally students are free to choose what they like while still learning the key concepts the instructor wants them to learn).

2) Implement Badges as Proof of Concepts Mastered. Imagine being able to have simple proof that you've mastered something. Yes, a degree is that in a sense, but how much learning goes on that isn't attached do a degree? How much learning is going on inside just one class or maybe even inside one unit? You still learned a skill. Why not have a badge that you can show for it?

There are several articles that talk about the use of badges in learning. What I take away from it is that students want to be able to say "Look, I learned this". If a course is vague or not relevant to students, its less likely they will be able to finish the course and say to themselves (or better yet a future employer) "I have learned this skill, and this skill, and I know how to do this....,etc". 

Badges are a great way to movitate students and let them know just how much they have learned. I think the motivation is similar to that of being "certified" in something. I'd sure like to add an "Social Networking" or "Adobe Photoshop" badge to my digital portfolio that shows mastery of these concepts. When relevance is often forgotten or overlooked in courses, these badges can really make a lasting impression on students.

3) Even better, do both! One of the cool things about the 3D Gamelab was that it had the best of both of these. It had quests (topics) open so I could pick topics that most interested me as I earned the points.  It also had badges, awards, and achievements to motivate me.

Here below is a video introduction of the 3DGamelab.

This all sounds great and I get really excited until... I remember that I'm not using the 3DGamelab system, I'm using Blackboard...But wait! There has got to be some way to implement these ideas (at least partially) using a standard LMS. Right? Now, I'm bound to figure out some way to implement these principles in a regular online class using Blackboard. I think its going to be a little tricky but its definitely worth considering!

Have any tips for me? Do you do quests or badges in your online courses (or using a standard LMS)? Please leave  comments in the area below.

I was a huge fan of the Android App Maker by Google. It was so simple and easy to use. With just a few clicks, one could quickly create a simple app and use it for teaching topics in online or blended learning. However, sadly, Google shut down support for the App Inventor and that was it..... until now!

Have you built an app for your class using the MIT App Inventor? What do you think? How have you used the apps you built for teaching or learning?

Interested in Mobile Learning? Check out a few of my previous posts:

8 Ways to Jumpstart Mobile Learning

14 Crucial Tips for Mobile Learning

A 100% Mobile Course Using Blackboard Mobile: PE

13 Superstar Mobile Apps for Blended Learning

Growing up in Idaho, you see a lot of these silos. They work great for storing materials and keeping them separate and isolated from other materials. Isolation is good in this sense because you don't want to mix the "outside" with what's "inside".

Unfortunately, in education, too often we live and work in silos, trying to solve problems, innovate, and advance education with only a limited view of what we are doing, unable to see "how others are doing it" or being able to ask questions to those doing the same thing we are doing simply because we don't know them. Conferences are great but sometimes you want more!

When was the last time you searched out someone doing your similar role at a different institution and started collaborating? I realize that some are not interested in sharing ideas or collaborating and that is okay, but there many educators that would love to ask  questions and receive feedback, suggestions, and responses. With all the growth of Professional Learning Communities, I think now is the time to start asking questions and really collaborating, building upon ideas to advance education. What works for one situation may help in another. Why reinvent the wheel again and again?

Follow me on Twitter at @Kodystimpson, if you are interested in online learning, Edtech, Instructional Design or Technology.

I also just created a new Twitter account specifically for educators interested in Online Learning in Higher Education @HigherEdOnlineL  It doesn't matter what college, university, or school you work in. If you're interested in collaborating, asking questions about online learning in Higher Ed (policies, processes, best practice, instructional design, tools, etc), please follow and ask your questions, I'll tweet them out and let's get some answers. Also be sure and reply to other's questions. You don't have to be an expert, you just have to be willing to SHARE your perspective.

So let's begin collaborating & break out of these silos once and for all!

If your still wondering about whether to create a Twitter account, check out this post on Why Every Educator Should be On Twitter.

See you there!

I was thinking about the ARCS model of motivation the other day and it reminded me of how important the concepts are for any course. Below are a few thoughts on the ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction) model and how to integrate it into course design for online or hybrid courses.  

The ARCS Motivational Model:

Get Your Students ATTENTION:

When a student first logs into the course site or LMS (learning management system), is the banner engaging? Do you have an introductory video or prompt that will get them really excited about starting the course? Do they know who you are and why you're passionate about this topic or course? As you develop new modules, is there an article, a clip, an interactive, or something that quickly pulls them into the topic? Think about the blockbuster movies, within the first 5 minutes they are trying to pull in their viewers to peak their interest and hold them captive. Is there anything you might do in your course to accomplish similar results?

Make What You’re Teaching RELEVANT:

It’s sometimes difficult to remove ourselves emotionally from the topics we teach. As good teachers we're passionate about our areas of expertise. We live it and we love it! However, take a moment to consider this... Your student may not share that level of passion about the topic and the ONLY way you may infuse it in them is by making the content relevant to them. Does your course leverage surveys and polls? Are there discussion prompts that are thoughtfully calculated to encourage students to "prove" to eachother why the topic is relevant to them?  Are blogs used to help student’s journal and post on topics that are related to the course content while also being of interest to them? Are current events embedded in the lessons so students see that the course is relevant far beyond the next test or even semester?

Build their CONFIDENCE:

Consider the students that often sit silent in class, too embarrassed to respond to questions for fear of being wrong. When students no longer fear failure, they are empowered to try. Online learning allows unlimited opportunities of practice through auto-check review practices. Do you have self-check activities prior to graded assignments or assessments? Why not help them figure out what they need to review even before they submit their assignment. Does the feedback you offer build their confidence? If they are failing in a particular areas of the course,you may reflect on the lessons and assignments in that module. Which modules have the lowest grades for them? Can there be additional material, an alternative assignment, or a web conferencing study session for those problem areas?

I still remember a Geometry class that I loved! I've always struggled with Math but there was one class I remember where I really got it. It’s been over 15 years since then but I still remember how great it was to be confident I knew how to complete the assignments. Are objectives clearly listed to help students know where they are headed in your class? Are they encouraged to call you anytime (most of the time)? Do you create an environment through announcements, text alerts, or email that encourages them to call you when they are struggling? These ideas can help students increase both their confidence in learning the topic as well as inspires them to be confident that you are there to assist them as they need it.

Encourage their SATISFACTION:

What reward will your students have after completing a lesson, topic, or course? Have they achieved some level of satisfaction beyond the grade? What types of praise might they receive for doing well and how may it be delivered? Are there formative assessments that you referred to and used to help you adapt your teaching as needed? Do you respond to emails from students within 24 hours with encouraging feedback? Are there built in rewards for reinforcing positive behavior in the discussion boards, assignments, peer review work, or blogs? What might you do for your particular content area that will help students feel satisfied well after they complete a module?

What are some things you have done in your online or hybrid / blended courses that increase student motivation?

Recently, I was blown away by  an online "Race & Gender Issues" course here at UNLV. Not only was the course well designed and very interesting, but for each module, there were specific surveys that really encouraged the students to get excited about the topics explored. It made me think about what an important tool surveys and polls can be in online and hybrid courses.

If you want to increase the interest level or help students relate what your teaching to their everyday life, then a well designed survey is a simple way to work towards that.

From a students perspective, the most interesting courses are ones that are applicable and relevant to them. Most instructors are passionate about their content area but only some of them are able to convert their passion into something that students relate to. It's true that we aren't all passionately interested in the same things. However, when we integrate the student's perspectives, passions, opinions, and thoughts, not only do they become more connected with the content but everyone enjoys the topic and everyone learns together! That is why surveys are so great! Here are just 3 steps to zap some life into a course.

(download)

Click here to download:

3-ways-to-zap-life-into-your-course-with-surveys-dpgxjiBkqtDyjvnIFkEm.zip (176 KB)

1. Explore the free survey tools that are available!  Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a couple minutes and check out the options. Seeing samples and types of surveys out there will be a great start in helping you design high quality, interesting, and successful surveys for students. Here are just three tools that I think are amazing!

• Polldaddy.com is awesome! In just a few minutes you can create a poll question or survey and embed it right into your LMS (Learning Management System) or presentation. Students can vote and immedietely see results.
• Polleverywhere.com allows students to use their mobile devices to send a text or respond online to the survey question and it's immedietly reflected. You can embed these in PowerPoint or other presentations, asking your students to respond using their devices. No clickers needed!
• Surveymonkey.com allows you to develop a thorough survey asking multiple choice, likert scale questions and much more. It allows up to 100 respondents for free. It's a great tool to help you find out what your students think about the course and what suggestions they have for you to consider in future revisions which leads me to step 2.

2. Find Out What Your Students Think About Your Course! Feedback like this is crucial when you review and make updates/changes to your course. As we all know, curriculum development is never ending so why not let your students help you! Consider how the following info might influence how you revise your course:

• Which topic are they most interested in?
• Which part of the course/module/lesson do they like the most/least and why?
• Which module could benefit from additional practices or lesson aids
• Do they have any feedback regarding: course design, instructor interaction, the etextbook, or course materials?

Successful companies always encourage feedback from their clients. Your students are your clients and their feedback can help in many ways. After just a single survey of gathering feedback like this, you can target needed areas of course improvement, plus imagine how empowering it is for them to know that you care enough to revise the course and make it better based on their suggestions. Just because students offer suggestions, doesn't mean you have to do it all, but at least you will know what they are thinking. Also one other tip, don't "over survey" your students. For best results consider the length and time restrictions your students may have.

3. Survey/Poll Students on Course Related & Thought Provoking Issues!

If you visit a news website, it's likely there will be a poll question on the page which relates to a current topic of interest. It's hard for me to ignore them. I'm always curious to vote and see how my thoughts correlate with the majority. Students are the same way!

Carefully review the topics you are teaching and consider how students might be individually interested in it. Here are a few survey question starters:

• What do you think about....
• Which of the following are...
• How do you feel about....
• When do you....
• Where do you....
• Why do you...

Then list the options. Questions/Polls can be simple yes/no questions or more advanced allowing students to post their individual responses for all to see. The key is to survey them on topics that are related to the objectives of the course while also relevant and interesting to your students.

What other ways have you used surveys/polls in your course? Have you seen an increase in student satisfaction, course completion, etc since using surveys?  What tips do you have for design? Please share your thoughts in the comments area!

There are a variety of Instructional Design models and theories but one that I have always been impressed with is Gagne's 9 Events of Instruction.  I think it's a great process and with the different tools available online, you can really make courses engaging and effective for online or blended learning. Here are just a few ways you can do it with online tools.

Online Tools to Integrate Gagne's 9 Events of Instruction:

1. Gain Attention.

Get the learners attention by presenting something interesting that will help prep the students for what they are about to learn

• Videos (TED videos are fantastic and intriguing, Youtube, Teachertube, Discovery Streaming, PBS, etc. Find a brief video that grabs their attention and gets them excited to learn more!
• Articles (CNN or other news sites contain thousands of articles which can be shared. Find a mysterious, strange, intriguing, or otherwise interesting article to start them off on the topic. Remember what is interesting to you may not necessarily be interesting to a student so try and find an article that will really grab their attention and appeal to their interest.
• Photos (Flikr and other great image sites have pictures of anything and everything. We've always heard that a picture can mean a thousand words. Throw a picture out there to get their attention, or even better have them discuss it using discussions or Voicethread. Be sure that it's not just a regular picture (ex: For Biology, a picture of a body), instead find a picture that will get their attention and keep it. They expect to see a picture of a body for Biology, but what relates to Biology, gets them excited, but is not expected? That is where it gets more captivating. 

2. Inform Learners of Objectives.

It seems obvious but often this critical component is overlooked. Let student's know what the goal is of the course, unit, or lesson.

• Voki.com or Xtranormal.com text type to movie tool is great for creating a simple video letting students know what they will learn. Be sure and include why they are learning it!
• Wordle.net is a good tool to simply create a graphic representation of the important objectives that will be covered in the lesson. You can make the text of the words larger to strengthen its meaning.

3. Stimulate recall of prior learning.

Too often we forget to review what was covered earlier to help students prepare themslves to learn more. I always appreciated the classes that had a review built into the beginning of them because it really inspired confidence in getting ready to learn more.

• Review Practices.  Hotpotatoes (free), Raptivity, Articulate Quizzmaker, or Engage, really any of these tools work great for creating practices which can review earlier studied material. Since they all give automatic feedback it can quickly help students review and remember what was covered earlier.  A lot of times these review practices are already created so all you have to do is simply link to them and make a note that they are available for review if needed.
• A Podcast or Video Podcast is a great way to review what was just covered and then get the students excited about what is coming up ahead. Remember the goal of this to help them remember what they already know and then link it correctly to what they will learn. Aviary.com has a great free online music & podcast maker.

4. Present the Content.

Presenting the content should be much more than a link to power point slides or an etext. The best presentations are engaging and require the participant to interact.  In an earlier post I mentioned the different ways that you can get students to interact with the content of the lesson.

• Presentation Interactions - Content is presented and is interactive, Softchalk is great because it allows students to hover over text or images and additional information appears. Instead of just reading the lessons, students can interact with the lesson.

5. Provide "learning guidance"

Guiding the student to learn the objectives in a way that helps them expand their learning is essential.

• Video Interactions - Videos are great but using Camtasia Studio you can take a video and add in questions that pop up at key points of the video, effectively "waking up students" and helping them reflect more as they answer the questions while they watch the videos.
• Provide feedback to students through written, audio, or video explanation (maybe using Jing to create a quick demonstration video or walkthrough of the submitted assignment).

6. Elicit performance

• Practice Interactions - Practices are essential in helping students prepare for graded assessments. These practices can help them remember the concepts and apply it when it comes time for an assignment, project, or other graded assessments.
• Learning Games -Why not throw in simple learning games (Raptivity or Elearningbrothers learning flash games)to help them practice what they have learned.
• Leverage blogs to allow students to post what they know, what they learned, and even what they are most interested in that relates to the topic. Then offer feedback and comments which brings us to the next event.

7. Provide feedback

• Practices provide essential feedback for students. As one blogger mentioned "When students no longer have a fear of failing, they will be empowered to try".  Automatic feedback practices are great for allowing students to quickly get on target in the areas where they struggle.
• Feedback can be given using email, text message, or phones, during webinars using web conferencing tools, or face to face. The key is to provide feedback to the students in a timely manner and that the feedback be geared towards helping them learn from their mistakes and get back on track.

8. Assessment

• Projects, projects, and more projects (opportunities for students to create)!  A project can be a presentation, a blog post, a group wiki, or even a video demonstration. 
• Leverage tools like Voicethread, xtranormal.com, voki.com, etc that allow students to create things using tools they already like to use. Have them SHOW you what they have learned by CREATING something.
• Assessing vocabulary, mere facts, and figures is often done by multiple choice, true false, or short answer questions, but encouraging the students to create presentations, projects, and blog articles helps them use that information to help shape their learning in much more enjoyable ways.

9. Enhance retention and transfer

• Blog posts - (Wordpress, blogger, Posterous, etc). Encourage the students to transfer what they have learned in the unit to their everyday life and post about it. You will be amazed at all the different ways students can apply the topic and if you encourage them to post and read other students blog posts, it empowers students to be the "salesman" to their classmates, telling them why this topic is so great and applicable to their lives. Never again need students sit in their seats and ask "now why I am learning this"? Blogs one tool to use to help them express what they have learned and apply it to themselves.

The most important thing to remember is that it isn't the tool that is going to make or break your course. It's how you use it!

What other tools have you found to be effective in helping students learn? Please share with us your thoughts below.

One of the big buzz words I hear at conferences is that everyone wants to create a “mobile app". There is something special about seeing the tiny little square on your mobile device and knowing that you created it. More importantly, mobile apps and resources increase students interaction with coursework and can help them ultimately learn the material better.

Educators are developing mobile apps as resources or supplements to their courses. They may be course-based practices covering topics to help students prepare for an assessment or just a few web pages linked together that look and interact well on a mobile device. I'll be honest, I am new to developing apps so please realize there is a lot I don't know but I have a few things I’ve tested out and wanted to share with you what I’ve learned. You can take this and run with it if you like. If anything, I hope to give you a headstart if you are excited to develop a mobile app.

Want to make an app for the Android?

You are lucky! Creating a basic app for the Android system is about as complicated as filing out a form. Using Android AppInventor, you design how the app will look by moving "puzzle pieces" to set your app's behavior. You create it all online and the app appears on your phone.

Here is a demo video to give you an overview of how simple it is to create an app for the Android.

So if you want to test it out, try it and let me know in the comments area below what you think.

On a side note: 55% of our students (that have smartphones) use the Android system so this takes care of a big chunk of them. However, the rest say they have an iOS mobile device which is quite a bit more complicated. Less than 5% of our students are using mobile devices outside of Android & iOS but your student use may differ.

Want to make an app for the iOS?

Whenever I speak with educators about developing their own mobile apps, they usually tell me that developing for the Android is easy but the IOS is more challenging. I agree!

However, it is possible!  I used Phonegap, an open source mobile framework which allows you to drag your HTML files into it and create an app that houses those HTML files to create an app that works on the iOS, Android, Blackberry, WebOS, Windows, Simbian, etc. Here is an introduction demo to Phonegap.

This is nice because you may already have some HTML files you use in your courses. Or better yet you can create some new HTML files using Dreamweaver or a tool that publishes to HTML (like Softchalk, Lectora, or Hotpotatoes).

I'll be honest. This is much more tech heavy than using the Android Appmaker but it also lets you convert your HTML pages to be viewed for different mobile devices. In order to create an app for iOS you have to have an Apple Developer account (including paying the fee to Apple to become a Developer). Once you have that, and you have the HTML files you want housed in the app, you follow the steps here to build an iOS app using Phone gap.

The nice thing is once you have it set up, you can simply drag HTML files over to the WWW folder in Phonegap and it will convert your HTML files so they appear nicely in the app.I created a practice using Hotpotatoes (a free open source tool to create practices that are simple HTML files) and it worked surprisingly well.

Ever heard of hotpotatoes?

One advantage to using Phonegap is that you technically can use whatever tool you like to create HTML files and then send them through Phonegap to "app-ize" them. ;-)

Hotpotatoes is a freeware sofware program that lets you easily create multiple choice/true false, etc practices and it publishes the practices in HTML files. Using phonegap you can take these HTML files and house them in an app container whch appears on your device.

Here are some screenshots of the app I made using Hotpotatoes. Warning: Its not a beauty! I didn't spend much time working on the design, its pretty much what Hotpotatoes publishes (HTML) when you make a practice. But I did replace some of the links in the navigation with Icons (by opening the index.htm hotpotatoes file in Dreamweaver and editing it). This is a work in progress. All the practice types worked great in the app. I was surprised. Even the audio (MP3 files) and pictures (PNG files) worked without a hitch once I sent them through phonegap. The next step for me would be to open each of the HTML files in Dreamweaver and make them look better.

(download)

Click here to download:

create-a-mobile-app-for-your-class-today-nfhDmIkwuosisdjpfnyB.zip (1.58 MB)

Steps to use Hotpotatoes & Phonegap to create an app for iOS:

1) Create the hotpotatoes practice. It can be multiple choice, true false, fill in the blank, and there are some crossword puzzles and things too you can use too. Link them all together. You save them just like you would normally save practices that are developed in Hotpotatoes. Keep them all in one folder (which you will drag to Phonegap).

2) Setup an iOS Developer Account. This costs $$$ but is necessary.

3) Setup phonegap.

4) Then you drag all the HTML files into the WWW phonegap folder. Make sure that there is a file called "index.html (not just index.htm as hotpotatoes creates)"and that the HTML on the "index.html" file is identical to the hotpotatoes index page (copy and paste the HTML). This page will be the home page of the app.  Click "Clean" and then "RUN" or "BUILD" while your iOS device is connected. It will create the little app on your iPhone. There is actually a multistep process to get phonegap workign for you but once its working, you are good to go.

3) The next step is submitting your app to the iTunes store for approval. I haven't gotten that far yet but I'll let you know how it goes. So far everything works on my iPhone. I'll keep you posted.

The phonegap app also works on platforms including iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry, webOS, symbian, and bada.

Q: Do you know of tips or other app inventors/app creator tools that are even easier to use? Android appinventor is a cinch, but I'd love to know if there are other tools that make creating an app learning even easier (particularly for the iOS). Let me know. Thanks!

This is the last of three posts on 13 Resources, 13 Tools, and 13 Mobile Apps for Blended Learning. If you haven't checked out Mobile Learning Design or 8 Ways to Jumpstart Mobile Learning, you may find some helpful tips there as you begin to explore the exciting world of mobile learning. Here also is an infographic of iPad apps using Bloom's Taxonomy I found recently.

First important question: Why is mobile learning so big right now?

Mobile technology is increasing amazingly fast. Just check out this video on some statistics!

Thanks to the variety of apps available, there are numerous ways to engage students by leveraging this technology. Below are only 13 of the many apps out there. Have a favorite that is not listed? Share it with us in the comments area below.

13 Superstar Mobile Apps for Blended Learning!

1.  GroupMe - Discussion boards can be a great way to have students share ideas and thoughts around a topic. Groupme make this easier by allowing you to set up groups of people by cell phone number. If anyone adds a comment, the rest of the group is notified by text. The cool thing about this is that if some of the students don't have smartphones, they can still send and receive texts to participate. We used this at a conference recently to keep us all connected. No more being tethered to a non-mobile and less efficient discussion board! Click here for a video app review of GroupMe.

2. Ustream - A few weeks ago, my nephew came to play football at the BSU Bronco stadium. My brothers all wished they could have been there to see him play, but thanks to Ustream, they were able to watch it from home! I used this app and held out the phone and streamed the game to them. It lets you share a URL to email or facebook/twitter. Just hold the phone out like you are filming. My brothers were actually surprised at how clear the audio & video was. No, they couldn't really identify my nephew but it was a lot of fun. The polling and chat features make it somewhat interactive. This could be great if you want to bring in a visitor to your class or broadcast from somewhere "on location" or outside.

3. Aurasma - Aurasma uses augmented reality. Add levels of augmented reality into your classroom for a virtual field trip. I would suggest you download the free Aurasma Lite and go to this site and check out some of the auras. You will see that as you view the images with the app, they come alive with animations, sound, and video.  Imagine your classroom with hidden layers that you created and send students around to view the hidden videos/pics/etc using the app. The possibilities are endless!

4. Layars - Think about how much information is on the Internet about the town where you live. If you were to search the Internet, you would find multiple videos, images, crimes, neighborhood information, news articles, etc. that relate to your area. Now imagine if the GPS in your mobile device could link all this information depending upon where you are located, and then show you location specific relevant information. The Layars app does this remarkably well! It ties in websites and uses GPS to tag them to your location. You turn on the different layers and see different things depending upon where you are. Go to the courthouse and turn on a layar and you will see youtube videos and images about that location.You can turn on the wikipedia layar or any of the hundreds of others. If you want students to explore the history, culture, or city surroundings in their area, this app really makes it easy and enjoyable.You can also read here about why one guy thinks this is the coolest app in the world.

Here is a video on the Layars app. As you watch it consider how this technology may create exciting and engaging ways for learning in your course.

5. Dropbox- You may have heard about the cloud that allows files to be stored on the Internet and accessed from multiple computers. Dropbox is a great app that allows you to have a folder on your computer at work, laptop at home, and mobile device. Inside that folder you can access images, videos, and other files. Students can easily share work on files and projects as well using dropbox or sharing the folders with their teacher. Here is a video on Dropbox for more information. Now with the iOS 5, there is also the iCloud for iOS which is similar to Dropbox.

6. Voice Thread - Voicethread allows you to set up groups to collaborate around a video, picture, text, or any type of multimedia. Students can post comments similar to a discussion board, but they can comment by text or audio recording. The voicethread app makes these even easier by allowing you to stay connected and post & view comments from anywhere. If you want to learn more click here to learn more about Voicethread Mobile.

7.  Join.me - Have you ever wanted to share your computer screen with someone? Now you can! This app makes demonstrating how to navigate a website or a software tool a cinch. The nice thing about this app is that you can also share your computer screen to a mobile device (which allows for chatting back and forth). Its free and simple to use. The only con is that you can't share your mobile device screen (only desktops can share). However, you can view the desktop being shared on your mobile device.

8. Skype - Skype allows free calls and video face to face meetings. Why not bring in professionals that use the topic you are teaching in their everyday life. Help students learn the relevance of any topic by having an outside visitor come and answer their questions virtually. Teaching Zoology? Have a visitor from the zoo skype in. Teaching culture? Have a class from another country skype in and learn from other people. The world is smaller once you start using apps like this.

9. QR Code Maker & Reader - There are many ways to use QR codes for blended learning. I posted earlier a video on just a few ways you could use QR codes from McGuffy, PA.  QR readers are free and allow you to scan the code and jump quickly to a website, video, or other file. Instead of remembering long websites, once you scan it, it's stored on your phone. We use QR codes for practices so students can scan them and then have them on their phone ready to view and practice whenever they like.

10. Animoto - Animoto lets you upload images, pictures, and text, select from their audio library or upload your own, and then quickly make it into an exciting collage video. This is a great way for students to use their creative skills to develop brief presentations on the topics you cover in class. You can do it on a computer as well but this Animoto app is so easy to use I had to include it here.

11. Algebra Touch - Math is one of the areas where you never really have enough practice.  This app allows students to practice Algebra. There is a free version you can try out. It makes a great supplement for students struggling to grasp Algebraic concepts.

 12. Star Walk - This is a must have for any Science or Astronomy teacher. It uses GPS to display the stars, constellations, and planets all relative to how you hold the device. Even if no stars are visible, you can still see them with the StarWalk app.

13. TourWrist - Take a tour of far away places or create and share your own 360 degree tour. You likely see this technology when house hunting with 360 virtual tours but this app makes it easy for you to create your own and the view responds to where and how you hold the mobile device. Imagine it being a lens you are looking through to view Egyptian Pyramid, Machu Picchu, or even the White House. Engulf your students in virtual field trips that would never otherwise be possible with this app. Exciting!

What other Superstar Mobile Apps have you found that are great for mobile learning? What concerns do you have with using apps like this for learning? Leave a comment.

Creating something can be an overwhelmingly rewarding experience. You may have read the Lucky 13: Resources for Blended Learning list I posted last week. This week I wanted to share 13 online tools that educators or students can use that inspire creativity and learning. Tools are great because they can help teachers create original and engaging content for their courses or they can be recommended for student's use on projects. Creating something related to a topic can achieve one of the highest levels of critical thinking so encouraging students to use these tools for projects is a win/win situation for any educator. If you just want to use them to develop your content, then that's great too!

Here are 13 Excellent Tools for Blended Learning:

#1. Jing Screencapture. I use this tool all the time. It's made by Techsmith, the same company that makes Captivate, another great tool but this one is free and excellent. Use it to take a screenshot of your desktop. Easily select a portion of your computer screen and select an area you wish to copy. Then use the tools available to draw call-outs, textbooks, shapes, and arrows. When I make tutorials I often use this tool to help guide students through steps. You can also create a video screencast using the tool complete with audio. Imagine how helpful it is to show to demonstrate how to do something with audio walking the student through a process, website, etc. It is a great tool and even makes sharing the information a cinch. If you haven't tried it check it out. I have the paid version of Snagit on my computer, but instead I use Jing for most of what I do.

#2. Imagination Cubed Instant Whiteboard. Very simple tool you can use to draw out a process or explain something. It has shape options and a pen/ marker to draw with as well. Simply draw what you like and then save it. The student can quickly watch the entire process of how you drew it. I think this would be a great tool for showing math practice examples. For me at least, I can use all the examples I can get, so something like this would be pretty cool!

#3. Animoto. An alternative to using PowerPoint for presentations. This nifty tool allows you to upload images, and create text to appear over it, similar to a slideshow but then you select music to go with it, hit publish, and wallah you have an interestingly original presentation. It is much more fun than just slides going by. Students love it because it allows them to be very creative with the text. It also requires that they be concise with the message they are portraying. The 30 second version is free and there are educational licenses available as well. By the way, there is an Animoto app now too!

#4. Voki. Create an avatar of yourself. It is very addicting and fun. You can select a person to represent you and then either type in the text to make him/her speak or you can record yourself speaking and the mouth moves with you. It's a fun and personable way to connect with your students through announcements or other communications.

#5. Xtranormal. Warning! Once you start playing around with this, you may be distracted for the rest of the day. ;-) I love this tool. Use it or even better have your students use it to explain a topic. You select a character and a background. Then by using type or drag and drop options you create a cartoon video. It is so easy to use. I love it for Foreign Languages since the avatars will say whatever you type in there in English, French, German, and Chinese. It is so fun and students will never complain about creating a presentation to share again if they use this tool. Very fun!

#6. Voicethread. Have you ever posted a comment on a chat board or blog? Well this is much better than that. With Voicethread you can have students interact and collaborate all around a piece of media (video, image, document, etc). They can post comments by text, audio, or video comments. Voicethread also recently released a mobile app that makes it even more accessible to students. There are free versions and pay for versions with more options.

#7. Audacity. Do you want to create a podcast? This is an excellent open source tool which you can use to record your voice and quickly publish to MP3. It is widely used and works very well. An online alternative that is fantastic is Aviary's Podcast Maker. On a side note: check out the whole Aviary.com suite. It has several good online tools for image editing and music creation.

#8. Hotpotatoes. This trusty friend has been used by educators for years to create multiple choice, true false, and fill in the blank practices. It is free and very easy to use. It isn't the most engaging of sorts, but practices are so important for students to grasp a concept so the more opportunities for them to strategically practice something, the more prepared they'll be for assessments. In a face to face classroom where you have 25 different students, you might suggest specifically targeted practices for the student.

#9. Many Eyes Data Visualizations. Sometimes it's impossible to effectively explain large amounts of data. Data doesn't have to be boring and "pie chartie". Just check out a few of the visualization options available and you will not want to go back to boring basic data charts ever again. It's much easier to get your point across using tools like this and its interactive which engages people much more than a flat image of a chart. Another great tool is the Google Public Data Explorer. Just check out this example here: The World's Fertility Rate.

#10. Big Marker Webconferencing. You may use Wimba, Elluminate, Collaborate, or other web conferencing tools, but one free option for webconferencing that is getting a lot of attention and is free is Big Marker. With this tool you can various participants on at the same time, desktop share, draw using the tools available, and have webinars and webconferences with students. Think of all the great guest appearances you can have in your courses using a web conferencing tool like this? Suddenly the world is much smaller when you can bring almost anyone into your class. We also use a tool like this for Math tutoring afterhours as well as teacher office hours.

#11. Collaborize Education Platform. There are many learning management system options but this one I played around with a bit and I like it. It's free so it may not have all the bells and whistles but it is pretty cool. It's a free collaborative education platform for students & teachers. I set up an account and was surprised at how simple it was to use as well as all the different options I had.

#12. Google Education Apps. This is a suite of software tools like no other. We use this for email, document, spreadsheet, presentation sharing & collaboration, chatting, calendar, etc. It is fantastic! If you are a district or college administrator, I would definitely check this out. I can confidently say these that these educational apps help everyone I work with be more productive and collaborative on our projects, processes, and creations. It is much more than just an email service.

#13.Realplayer Video Downloader. Okay this one is not something you can use to create something but it is so helpful I'm listing it as a way to create convenience. ;-). Once you install this free tool, whenever you see any video on the web ( in your browser) such as youtube, etc, you can hover your mouse over it and click the "download" button which downloads an .FLV (flash video) version right to your computer. This is so handy! Then if you need to convert it to another format, the realplayer tool does that as well.  You can even convert it to mobile device friendly format (please be sure that you obey copyright and attribute anything you download). Realplayer is not my default media player by any means but it sure is great for downloading videos from the web.

What other tools are you using for blended learning?