Sarah gives a train tour
We rode The Heartland Flyer Amtrak train from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth today. Sarah gave this short tour I recorded on my iPhone just before we got in to the final station.
Video uploaded to Flickr with PixelPipe, mobile blogged with WordPress 2.1 for iPhone.
Cleaning up Mom’s iPhone Apps
Alexander and I spent some time this afternoon “cleaning up” the shared iPhone and iPod Touch applications we have installed on our family iTunes account. One of the biggest jobs was reducing the number of applications on mom’s iPhone. She is not very interested in games and mainly uses her iPhone for phone calls, texting, and the calendar. We removed about 40 applications from her iPhone tonight.
We were able to get her down to just three screens, which is a big simplification and improvement over what she had previously. One disadvantage of using the same iTunes account for two iPhones and an iPod Touch is that whenever someone installs a new application and syncs back to the computer, the next time others sync that application is installed by default on their device. So, unless you “uncheck” applications which are not wanted, you end up getting lots of additional applications when others in the family are adding them to their mobile device.
Most of the apps on this second page are actually for our 6 year old, Rachel. The first two programs, Brushes and Sketchbook, are drawing programs we just bought for her today using an iTunes gift card Santa brought in her stocking.
I’ve updated our full list of now “pruned” iPhone and iPod Touch applications this evening. (We got this list down to 164 tonight.) Getting mom down to just 48 apps is pretty good!
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Fun playing in our record Oklahoma City snowfall
We shared a live webcast over Ustream yesterday on Christmas Eve of our front yard, as a record-breaking 14 inches of snow fell on Edmond and Oklahoma City! We recorded two segments during the day. The “Peaceful Christmas” Pandora channel was streaming as the audio channel for these webcasts.
18.5 minutes: Playing in the snow during the day
2.5 minutes: Playing in the Christmas Eve Snow at Night (with our camcorder’s “Night Shot” feature enabled)
Today we enjoyed a bit of sledding and more playing in the snow in our front yard. This was an image of PURE delight on Rachel’s face as we got ready for another sled run together!
If you’re wanting to order a hat like mine in this photo, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this was a custom creation I made several years ago when we lived in Lubbock using a stocking cap and a puppet. 🙂
Here is the Flickr slideshow of all the images we took on granddaddy’s camera yesterday and today. His Sony camera ROCKS. Someday we’ll get a camera that takes images this good! We’re fortunate he’s willing to share with us now!
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Cooking Holiday Sausage Balls (Int’l Cooking Show)
Sarah recorded episode #3 of “The International Cooking Show” today, demonstrating how to cook holiday sausage balls. Her sister, Rachel, joined in this episode which runs 7.5 minutes.
Background music for this video is “Malt Shop Bop” from Incompetech Royalty Free Music.
We used the same recipe for these that we’ve used since 2007.
Ingredients:
3 cups Bisquick
1 pound uncooked Jimmy Dean pork sausage
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary leaves
1/2 tsp parsley flakes
Steps:
Cook the sausage in a pan, breaking it up into small pieces.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl “meatloaf style.”
Form mixture into small balls, and place them evenly on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees F.
Share and eat!
Please create your own cooking videos and add them to The International Cooking Show project wiki!
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Lego Stickers
I love legos, especially minfigures. My friends and I traded good ones for better ones. It was great. Some times I wish I could make my own lego figures, I thought I would make one and put it on a sticker. I tried to make a outline for one but could never get it right. Then while searching google for legos I found this picture:
It was a picture on flickr that also was in a group called LEGO Stickers and Decals. I found lots that I like and plan on making. I was then compelled to make my own. This is the one I made:
It’s pretty  good and I like it. I also found this guy who prints strait onto a lego brick so you can send in a design to him and he uses special equipment to put it on the lego. The name is CJ Graphics.
Alexander’s Second and First Class Court of Honor
We recorded part of the ceremony tonight at Alexander’s Court of Honor for Boy Scouts, using the UStream Broadcaster application for the iPhone. Alexander was recognized for advancing to second and first class tonight.
How To Tie a Scarf
Sarah received a request today from a friend to create a video showing how to tie a scarf. Here’s her video we recorded this evening!
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Signing the Declaration of Indepandence
In my social studies class we got to sign the Declaration of Indepandence! You get to pick what type of writing you want. You can choose Colonist,American or Patriot. You can choose black and white or color. It will give some background info. too. Also you will need a printer for this activity. I think this will get the students involved in history and it is a very cool activity to do in class.
Bremen Town Musicians featured in Edmond Sun
Our local paper, the Edmond Sun, published photos in its print edition today of the youth involved in last weekend’s performance of the musical, “Bremen Town Musicians.” The November 20th article, “Animals come to life in FAI musical,” provides more background and one photo of the cast.
Additional photos are available (thanks to Graddaddy) on my Flickr set for the performance.
Hopefully The Edmond Sun will run the photos from the print paper today online. Generally I’ve noticed The Edmond Sun doesn’t do as good a job as The Oklahoman / NewsOK to digitize all its content and make it electronically available.
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iPhones Enhance Learning By: Alexander Fryer
This is a paper I wrote for school.
iPhones Enhance Learning
By: Alexander Fryer
Some schools are buying iPhones for students hoping to enhance learning. Apple came out with the iPhone in 2007 and is in its third generation.1 Digital learning consultant Wesley Fryer comments, “Modern cell phones offer a variety of capabilities, which are being used effectively by educators in different schools to support curricular learning objectives and boost student achievement.”2
For example, you can use a free service by Poll Everywhere to conduct a classroom poll. Thirty people can respond to and vote on your poll by texting their information in. There are many useful applications that you can use for learning such as: a graphing calculator, flash cards, and a dictionary. The iPhone can also be used for converting measurements, and taking notes in class. The camera is a useful tool for recording data. There are hundreds of educational applications being created each day.
The iPhone has a built-in iPod. This means that you can watch videos or listen to recorded lectures as podcasts. “Lectures are the worst possible learning format,” said Associate Dean Brian Brooks, according to the Columbian Missourian. “There’s been some research done that shows if a student can hear that lecture a second time, they retain three times as much of that lecture.”3 This will require teachers to record their lectures, but if a student will remember and retain the information it will make the extra work pay off with better test scores.
As a result there are many educational applications, and you can remember lectures three times better the second time. So, contact your school principal and technology director and tell them that you want iPhones in school!
Footnotes
1. Wikipedia article iPhone
2. Teach digital: Cell Phones for learning
3. Columbian Missourian: School of Journalism to require iPod touch or iPhone for students
Sarah’s creation with Animation-ish at ACTEM09
Deborah Barrows’s took the following short video of Sarah at ACTEM09, sharing a quick animation she made for Cheryl Oakes using the software program Animation-ish by FableVision.
Way to go Sarah! Now I’m going to need to find time for Sarah to show me how to use Animation-ish, as well as her brother and sister!
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animation, creativity, fablevision, learning, software, sarah, Animation-ish
Driving along Scenic K-177 in October
I took the following four, 90 second videos yesterday driving north along K-177 between Cassoday and Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, enroute from Wichita to Manhattan. This national scenic byway is one of my favorite roads in Kansas. The low clouds and lighting in these videos don’t do justice to the autumn colors of the prairie, unfortunately, which are quite spectacular even though the “peak” of the fall colors seemed to have already passed.
I added these videos to my Flickr set, “Manhattan Fall Colors,” which includes lots of amazing images of autumn colors taken later in the day in Manhattan. These include three panoramic photos from the day, which I linked and discussed in my post, “Beautiful Kansas fall colors and more iPhone panoramic picture fun with Pano.”
Rachel gathering acorns and acorn hats
Yesterday Rachel and I gathered some acorns and acorn “hats” in the Sunset Cemetery in Manhattan, Kansas. She has been wanting to collect acorns for some time, and I remembered that the oak trees in this Manhattan cemetery produce LOTS of acorns each year, both large and small.
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VoiceThread about The Gingerbread Baby
Rachel created the following VoiceThread today about Jan Brett‘s book, “The Gingerbread Baby,” during the 2009 KATE Conference in Wichita, Kansas. She recorded the first three pages’ comments during the actual conference, in front of about 150 English teachers! She recorded the fourth/last page right after the conference keynote was over. We planned this VoiceThread last night, with Rachel selecting the Creative Commons photos she wanted to use from Compfight. She also practiced what she would say with each photo. Great job Rachel!
I added a link to this VoiceThread on the Great Book Stories project and wiki.
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kansas, kate, voicethread, gingerbread, baby, jan, brett, kate09