iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Love that iPad stand !

Those of us who work with students who have print challenges can offer opportunities to tell their stories without the delays of language processing commonly associated with dyslexia. Once students are using the video technology, they can incorporate storyboards and scripts to advance and integrate language skills. --Lou

Excerpt: "....Your students can become moviemakers, too, thanks to some powerful apps for mobile devices. With these tools, your children can take videos and edit their work to make professional quality movies using iOS devices (iPads and iPhones) and Android tablets.

One good thing about this easy-to-use technology is that students can still use important English language arts skills like writing a narrative, planning a sequential story, and including key details when getting ready to make a movie. These apps can enhance the work that you are doing with children in the classroom and give them room to be creative storytellers...."

The Appification of Ecommerce
About a year ago I purchased a new MacBook Air. Seeing how my new laptop related to the world much like an iPad with apps and an app store was a revelation. Apps will rule the world. 

This trend is why we are all app builders now and these tutorials are a must view. The trend toward apps is more than you think. A few days ago I shared a Haiku Deck about the future of web design 3.0 (http://sco.lt/7r6zkf). 

 I missed the appification of everything. Apps, the widget-like shrinking of code to Lego blocks, form the core of mobile programming. Since mobile is taking over the smart move is to "appify" everything. 

This means thinking of websites as interconnected blocks responding to each other and our visitors in real time (as described in the deck). Best demonstration or analogy for this fluid app future is MIT's David Merrill explaining Siftable at TED http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html .

The way Siftables related to one another (they are aware other Siftables are present and have a desire to connect if code expressed as a toy can have desires) and link in order to create a sum is greater than the whole universe is a great way to think about the New Ecommerce. 

The new ecom is location agnostic (capable of converting anywhere at anytime and with the merest snippet of Siftable-like code), socially self aware (capable of pulling friends and their influencers into the equation) and appified (small Lego-like blocks snapped together to meet specific needs). 

Sometimes we will snap in the predictive analytics block sometimes we might now. Other times we will want the social share block other times not. Design, in this Siftables-like future, becomes a series of WHAT IF conditions and testing, always testing. 

Going to be fun and why it is a GOOD idea to become an app builder.   

Creativity, creativity, creativity