Tim will be amazing!

We met to create a plan of attack for Tim and his iPod Touch project. We spent 2 hours over the lunch break to work out some ideas and address some problems.

Here are some of the notes from the meeting:

• Tim is teaching Literacy Methods online for the first time in the fall. He has some grave concerns. Hopefully we can help with ideas and technology
• His biggest concern/problem is the typical faculty one of time, or lack thereof. He'd rather have time than the development money. I told him we would provide either some money for a GA or a GA ourselves (in the form of Athena). This is the exact reason we chose to allow faculty to use TIE grant money for whatever they choose, they could hire a TA!
• We need to order him a Flip Video camera for Vodcasts on the fly
• He may want to do screen-capture so we'll need to either order Snapz or teach him to use Jing
• He will pod/vodcast short lectures every week which students can download to their ipods
• He will have 3 iPod assisted assignments: The "Running Record", students will record an "Running Record" using their microphone; a "teaching practicum" in which students will record themselves teaching a lesson and the Final Assignment, which is a mock interview, they'll discuss the components via the discussion threads and then record their responses to the interview questions.
• To support the students in the iPod portions, as well as some of the other technology ideas, we will provide "Tech Help Office Hours" where Cody and I will be available via Elluminate to assist students learn the technology necessary to be successful in the class. I think this is a brilliant idea and will write another blog post about the potential.
• We will look at sending out the iPods ASAP, once enrollments settle a little. It's a cohort group so it seems that attrition shouldn't be too bad.
• Additional apps that might be of value are Dictionary.com and Flashcards.

I know there will be many technical issues but I'm hoping that the flawless workings of Apple will help to cushion the blow a bit!

On the whole it was an amazing meeting and is one of the reasons I love my job. I LOVE working with faculty to try to better reach students.