EDT676+Assignment+3

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EDT676-Assignment #3 Find 10 applications at the iTunes Store: 5 personal and 5 educational. List them on the WIKI and explain what each App is and how I plan to use it personally or in teaching:

PERSONAL

1. Movies // {This is a cool App where I can see movie trailers, reviews, interviews etc. I am not a movie freak but I like movies and I like to stay literate in the pop culture.} //

2. Solitaire // {I am not a big card player but I do enjoy Solitaire and it will be an interesting distraction if I am hanging out waiting somewhere and don’t have dead tree stuff to read.} // 3. The Weather Channel // {The use is obvious: to help me keep track of (severe or threatening) weather.} // 4. Free Word Warp // {I don’t fully grok this game yet but it sure looks like fun and should be a great fit for my (somewhat!?) warped sense of humor and warped word-smithing.} // 5. Championship Vuvuzela Free // {Ridiculous on the face of it but should be good for a laugh or two perhaps even in my classroom. I only selected this because of the World Cup permeating our very souls these days and it sort of makes soccer watch able (for a few minutes) and oh yeah, it’s free.} // 6. Chess Free // {I am the Chess Coach of our HS Team—enough said.} //

7. Blackjack Free // {Same reasoning as #2 above.} //

8. Touch Bible Free // {I am a Christian and will find this App to be a powerful and comforting resource to have with me. I can deal with the dissonance created with my gambling habit—see #7 above.} //

9. Fox News // {Unlike the Accomplice, Sock-puppet Media, FN reports, I decide!} //

TEACHING

1. Are you Left-Brained or Right-Brained? // {I hope this is as good as advertised. The LB vs RB idea is a continuing theme in my Physics course. This should be a neat exercise for students to self-evaluate how these two powerful but different brain functions intertwine to produce the amazing computer inside their heads!} // 2. Paper Pilot // {This Paper Airplane Game is an amazing fit to complement a first-day/first- impression I try to create for my students in my Physics course. I actually have my Physics students build a simple paper airplane during class and have them try to “fly” it into the “hangar” ( a wastebasket that I am holding!). It is virtually impossible to do at any distance. Then I have them make a new “projectile” out of a single sheet of paper that is wadded up into the tightest ball they can. That is “easy” to toss into the hangar! The point of the lesson is to point out that the (aerodynamic) physics of the paper airplane is incredibly complex and very hard to control/calculate while the wadded paper projectile (aerodynamic) physics is much simpler and very easy to control/calculate. Scientists do this all the time: they simplify experiments so that very complex physics can be clarified to allow them to see and understand what nature is really doing. My students will be very impressed with this App and how well it fits into the very first day of my Physics course!} //

3. Eye Illusions // {I have always been hooked on optical illusions and plan to use this as an attention- getter or as a “discrepant event” to stimulate class interest and discussion.} // 4. Paper Toss // {This is another direct-hit with my first-day demonstration with paper airplanes and wadded-up paper (see #2 above). This App should also be a great introduction into our extensive unit on Projectile Motion.} // 5. Dog Whistler--Your Free Dog Whistle // {This should be a beautiful addition to our (brief) unit on sound. I currently do some demonstrations with tuning forks, singing glassware, an oscilloscope etc. I also do a // // demonstration that blows the students minds: I use a sound generator that produces various frequencies from about 20 Hertz (= vibrations/sec. . .very low pitch) to about 20,000 Hertz (so high in pitch that even my young students with their great ears can’t hear it). What blows their minds is that my hearing “drops out” at about 11,000 Hertz, a level making them wince and they all can hear it very // // well but they can’t believe it that I can’t hear it at all even though I am standing // // right next to the speaker!! I simply explain that I am a living (fossil!!??) example of // // how normal people lose their hearing as they get older—losing the higher frequencies first. This Dog Whistler App will be a cool wrap-up as an example of how other animals can hear sound frequencies far above the human range.} //

6. Convert Units For Free // {The App claims this will allow students to create their own Unit Conversions. I will need to look this over very carefully. I currently give the students an excellent, fairly comprehensive “Conversion Sheet” during the first week of class. I urge them to clip it into their notebooks and __it is legal to use on every test and quiz all year, no__ __exceptions__. I am not sure this “Convert Units” App is going to be worth the risk of them pulling out their iPods (just made legal for “educational purposes” by our school board!) and using them to cheat via inappropriate stored data or just texting each other answers.} //