Chris Betcher

With the impending release of Mountain Lion , Apple's new version of the OS X operating system, I've been giving some thought to whether I'll bother upgrading or not. I am, or at least I used to be, what many would refer to as a Mac Fanboy. I still think Apple builds the best consumer computer hardware on the planet, and, so far anyway, OS X is probably still the best desktop/laptop operating system currently available. A few years ago I would not have included the "probably" qualifier in that last sentence, but lately I'm feeling more and more disenfranchised with Apple and their litigious nature and walled garden approach to creating customer lock-in. It's not that I don't like their products. I do. I have several Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Apple TVs. Walled garden or not, they build beautiful products that -  for the most part - do exactly what they claim... they just work. While I don't always approve of their proprietary attitude to the way the...

Thanks to everyone who came back to me with such positive responses to the last two posts... it's great to hear that other people were also able to benefit from some of the things I learned about Google Calendars recently. This final post will just tidy up a few loose ends and give you an idea of some of the extra things I'm doing with my calendars now they are set up the way I wanted them.  It's working far better than I anticipated, and certainly far better than Apple's MobileMe service ever worked.  And did I mention that Google Calendars are free? (I'm pretty sure I did!) We've touched on Gmail, Contacts and Calendars, and looked at how these can be synced to your iPhone and iPad. Naturally, they can also all be synced to your Android phone and tablet if you have one of those. But what about Tasks? In the spirit of GTD , it would really help to be able to have a decent task (ToDo) list that also worked with the rest of my digital (Google) lifestyle. Gmail d...

This is an experiment. I'm using DragonDictate, a program for the iPad that lets you talk directly into the computer as it turns your words into text. A teacher at school today asked me about using dictation and word recognition software for her students that had trouble with learning. I think it's a great idea, although the problem will probably be that in order to have speech recognition recognise your voice you do need to speak really clearly in the first place. For many kids, especially the ones that struggle with learning, speaking clearly can be almost as difficult as writing. Still, I think we will try the experiment because, well, the software is free and it would be interesting to see just how well it can handle the students voices. I'm dictating this blog post into dragon and I'm going to publish it pretty much as it was recorded mistakes and all if you see mistakes in this you'll know why. And if you don't see mistakes in this then you can assume that...

With nearly two week down in the 365 Day Photography project I'm starting to get my head around some of the more useful tools for photography on the iPhone.  There are lots of interesting photography apps to choose from in  Apple's App Store, and I've had a good play with many of them - something I probably wouldn't have done if I didn't have a project to focus on.  That's one of the reasons I like doing "projects", and one the reasons that Project Based Learning works so incredibly well. When you have something to focus on, even something as innocuous as simply taking a photo each day, it opens up a whole range of new learning experiences. This blogpost outlines some of the more useful and interesting iPhone photography apps I've been using (or plan to use). Firstly, I should acknowledge that the camera in the iPhone 4 is pretty damn impressive to start with. It has its limtations, sure, but it really can take some pretty extraordinary photos if...

I like photography. In fact I like imagery in general, which is, I suppose, why I enjoyed art school so much. The combination of not only interesting images, but also interesting ideas, made the four years I spent at art school some of the best years of my life. However, it was only after I taught art for a few years that I discovered that, while I liked art, I didn't necessarily like teaching art. I've since spoken to many people who proclaim that the quickest way to kill your passion for something is to do it for a living. I'm not sure that's the case... what I do now, working with kids and technology and the future, is what I love doing. But I understand what they are saying... for many people, their passions need to be unshackled from the daily "must do" so that they can be enjoyed as a "want to" instead. So, working with imagery and design and graphics and photography remains something I enjoy simply for the sake of it. I like to take photos, o...

I've been travelling a fair bit lately .  Although much of it has been within Australia, I've just spent the last few days in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, for the Sitech Champion Schools Conference , and I'm writing this from in the hotel foyer. New Zealand is starting to feel a bit like a second home lately... this is my fourth trip here in the past 12 months. Aussies and Kiwis have a friendly relationship. Aside from the obvious opportunity to take shots at each other over the cricket and the rugby, our two countries get along amicably well, and the trip across the Tasman is something that feels more like going interstate than international.  It's easy to feel at home in NZ. About 12 months ago I was here for last years Champion Schools Conference and some readers of this blog may remember that I came home to a $1000 phone bill for international roaming. That was a saga in itself , and much was said about it both here on the blog and on Twitter and Facebook.  While I sho...

The following post was originally written as a reponse to a thread about interactive whiteboards on the www.iwbrevolution.com Ning.  One of the thread participants there made a statement about needing to see IWBs used in new ways. I'm interested (read desperate) to see the revolutionary value adding aspects. I have an IWB, I love using my IWB, but I need to grasp the ideas and strategies that move people to describe it as a 'revolution' in learning. Show me an idea that is actually new!!! While I appreciate where he's coming from, I think the question is somewhat flawed. In responded to the post, I found myself "thinking out loud" about the value propsition of interactive whiteboards.  For what it may be worth, here's the post. As always, your thoughts and feedback are welcome in the comments... --- I used to own a mobile phone, an iPod, a digital camera, a video camera, a GPS, and a voicerecorder, and I often carried many of them with me at any given mom...

There are moments when I really like my iPhone, yet others that frustrate the heck out of me. I finally got one a couple of months ago when my carrier, 3 Mobile , finally got the iPhone, long after nearly every other Australian mobile telco. This surprised me, since 3 Mobile were the first carrier to bring 3G services to the Australian marketplace about 8 years ago, so I was expecting that when the iPhone 3G was released in Australia that 3 Mobile would be one of the first to carry it. Not so. Until the iPhone, I was a relatively happy user of a Nokia N95 8Gb . As phones go, the N95 was a pretty impressive piece of hardware... it did a lot of things well, including an excellent 5MP camera, decent voice recorder, VGA quality video, GPS and the ability to install a reasonably impressive number of third party apps - nothing like the thousands of apps in Apple's AppStore - but it had quite a few that I found useful, including Gravity , and excellent Twitter client, and Geocache Navi...