iBabySteps Videos from the 2012 NCTIES Presentation

These are the two videos from the iBabySteps presentation at the 2012 NCTIES Conference.

Apple Configurator - Manage Devices Smarter

So many devices, so little time. I just found the new and improved iPhone Configuration Utility - Apple Configurator. Although I haven't had a chance to test it out, I'm sure it is worth checking out. They state that "Apple Configurator makes it easy for anyone to mass configure and deploy iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in a school, business, or institution."

QR Codes with Voice

http://qrvoice.net/

Just when you thought QR Codes were easy enough, audio appears. Go to http://qrvoice.net/ , type or paste your text and choose the size of the QR Code that you want... oh and don't forget to choose which language you want it translated into. Print off your code. Next, get your smart phone, iPod Touch, iPad 2 or whatever you like and scan the code. The results - you get a pretty clear audio of the text that you input. I smell differentiation!

iPhone Configuration Utility 3.4 - PROXY!

YEA!!! 3.4 is here. I just knew someone would listen... especially with iOS 5 and OS Lion out. Really, the only thing I cared about in the new iPhone Configuration Utility was the ability to add a proxy to the WiFi part. Now it is available. As you are configuring your profile, simply change your proxy setup to manual, then add your proxy settings. This is a good thing for Wake County Public Schools and other schools that are behind a proxy setting.

.epub - The Electronic Book Format

No, .epub is not the best place to get your favorite electronic cocktail.
Yes, .epub is the industry standard for the electronic book format.
And yes, you can create your own electronic book without going through a publisher. Using the .epub format will let that document be readable by apps such as iBooks on the iPod Touch or iPad and other eReaders. I discovered this information here. Basically, you make your "book" in Word or better yet, Pages (for Mac). There are some formatting issues that you may want to look into such as floating pictures or ones that move with the text. Anyway, save the file as a .doc or .docx. If you are using Pages, there is an export feature that will automatically save it as a .epub. If you have a .doc file, go to http://www.2epub.com/ and convert your file there. There is a 25Mb limit, but that shouldn't be a problem. I did a trial run with Pages and it was soooo easy. Give it a try.

Swiffy - Flash for iPod Touch / iPad

Swiffy - a Google tool that converts .swf to html 5 and makes it viewable for the apple mobile devices. I tried it with something that I created, but I made it with Action Script 3.0 instead of 2.0. It mostly worked. I may try to switch it to 2.0 sometime soon and see if that works better. Otherwise, I've heard good things about it so far.

A New Kind of Paperback

Your regular old paperback book, just get a 21st Century upgrade as you begin to paste these newfangled QR Codes in them. If you haven't checked out QR Codes, you can learn about them and create your own codes at QRstuff.com. So you take any book, find some closely related video clips, websites, question set, or some other multimedia enrichment activity and make a QR Code for that. Print your code, after shrinking it of course, and paste it in your book on the page that you want some enrichment. I can't claim to have created this idea. I give credit to this article that I read by Cyndi Danner-Kuhn. Thank you for sharing this great idea.