Tag Archives: iTunes

Science Apps for the Classroom

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Time for another post in my series of “Long-overdue responses to questions that were worth blogging about.” It’s a mouthful to be sure, but it comes up more often than you might think. Today’s question comes from Allison.

Hello!

I’m a student teacher right now in a ninth grade earth science class and I’d love to find more ways to involve technology in the classroom. Do you have any suggestions for iphone or ipod apps to use in a classroom at the middle school or high school level? (I’m focusing on Earth Science but all science apps are welcome).

Thanks,

Allison

Great question, Allison! Let’s dive right in by exploring my own phone. Here’s a screenshot of my “Science” apps folder on my iPhone. I have a 4S, but these should all work on any iPhone or iPod with a camera, compass, and GPS.  They’re not organized in any particular order, so I’ll just go through them from top left to bottom right.

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Michal’s Czech Pronunciation Challenge!

Ryan's Ramblings, , , , , ,

Listener Michal sent in an e-mail containing his iTunes review. Problem is the review is only visible on iTunes if you’re in the Czech Republic. It’s also written in Czech. Now apparently I said I’d try reading German reviews if they were sent in and Michal thinks that maybe I could handle Czech too. I disagree, because this looks really hard to pronounce. Germanic languages I have a clue about, Slavic languages remain a mystery.

So on Episode 91, which also came out today, I fumble through a word or two before giving up entirely. Yet I still want to know how praise for the show would sound in Czech, thus, this post. I’m going to post Michal’s review and the pronunciation guide he sent. If you can handle it with your mouth, then call us at 312-Paleopals (312-725-3672) and read it for us! Fun times will be had by all…

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Randomness

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You’re on a road trip with your buddies and your iPod is the one churning out the tunes, when a Captain and Tenille song comes on.  The guy riding shot gun shoots you a look and skips to the next song.  After that one finishes, there they are again, “Do that to Me One More Time” is killing the good vibes in the car. Skip.  Then, of all things, “Muskrat Love” comes on? “Dude, how much Captain and Tennille do you have on your iPod?”  Turns out you only have a greatest hits album and you have something like 8 days worth of other music on that Jobsian box.  Clearly the iPod can’t generate a random playlist worth a damn.

Noise, chance, whatever you want to call it.  Often times people misunderstand what randomness actually is.   Randomness is a sequence of things such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination.  The problem is we expect that random means that things will be equally spaced out or that there will be “no coincidences.”    In fact, one of the ways you know your are looking at randomness is that there will be repetition or related items in the list.
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