EdTechUK

Cooking Mama

No, it isn't any kind of Cannibal Holocaust franchise - Cooking Mama is an ingenious and educational game which may well help to upgrade me from my current Sandwich Making Mama level. Even better, it may well save me the bother by turning my son into Cooking Child. 

Currently only on release in Japan, Cooking Mama is designed for the Nintendo DS platform, and by using your stylus on the portables touch-screen, promises to teach you to cook. No sign just yet of the vegetarian version, but still stands as a solid use of a handheld gaming system.

Skype + iRiver

Equals ingeniously simple audio file construction! Rob Wall of the Edtech Posse has just posted a nice picture of his set up and a handy how too. I'm going home now to try it out. His previous post also rounds up a bunch of other suggestions from Dan Weinstein for recording your Skype conversations and conference calls.

An introduction to USB drives

Inspired by new blog on the block edugadget, and owner Steve's teacher-friendly mission statement, I've decided to post a report I recently delivered to my College looking at USB drives.

We're trying to encourage the staff to switch to them here since they're lighter than laptops to carry around and so easy to use. I know to many of you they'll be a pretty rudimentary technology, but in terms of making e-learning an integral part of all our staff's lives they're going to be invaluable! Feel free to download and use the attributed sheets as you like.

Download jfraser_usb_drives.pdf

Sonica Spanish

The UK government's Department for Education and Skills have recently commissioned Sonica Spanish, a software and dance mat package for teaching Spanish to key stage two (7 to 11 year olds) pupils:

"Sonica Spanish is stimulating software for teaching and learning about Spanish language and culture. Encourages pupils to enjoy learning languages at an early age - they learn whilst having fun with interactive games, dance mat activities and karaoke.  Created with the teacher in mind - includes full support notes and audio/visual dictionary. Ideal for teachers with basic or no grasp of Spanish."

Sounds fantastic! Available from March 2005, a site license will cost you £284.50 (dance mat available everywhere, separately), includes a range of learning activities - including dance mat and karaoke - a journal facility for pupils and a cartoon Spanish family (who look suspiciously like the characters from Nick TV's Fairy Odd Parents).

You can check out a review from Fraser, a 10 year old from Norfolk, over at the CBBC newsround site.

What we need to know is when are they going to release the software for private use, and when are they going to release other language packs?

And when can we expect to see the first modern language dance mat mini-Olympics?

iPod as storage media

Nothing new about using an iPod as a cheap bulk storage device, but a couple of developments.

Via the Educause blog comes this story, reported in December's issue of RSNA News (the online publication of the Radiological Society of North America):

iPod Helps Radiologist Manage Medical Images

The article outlines how likely it is that your friendly local radiologist has more than tunes on his pod. Two radiologists, Dr. Ratib from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Dr. Rosset, from Geneva, Switzerland have developed a Mac based programme called OsiriX,  to display and manipulate complex image data, which can be downloaded for free from homepage.mac.com/rossetantoine/osirix/.

The interview is well worth reading. If using the iPod as "a giant memory stick" is becoming common place, today's launch of the iPod shuffle is Apples direct assault on not only the cheaper end of the MP3 player market, but the high capacity Memory Stick market too.

The Flash-based iPod shuffle comes with a USB connection only (no Firewire) and is available in two flavors: 512MB for £69/US$99 & 1GB for £99/$149. With a basic pen drive of the same size costing around £30-40 less, the shuffle's advantages lie in Apples brand profile, the units clean, slight design, and the ease of use/appeal of design of the iTunes software. The iPod raised the profile (and profit levels) of all MP3 players, and I'm sure the shuffle will contribute to the rising ubiquity of the pen drive.