Webware

If the student in your life has an iPhone, they're probably text messaging, surfing the Web, checking e-mail, and using apps. And although the phone can be a distraction in the classroom, it can also be a viable companion for students.

There are several great iPhone applications designed specifically for students. These apps all aim to make the student in your life just a little more productive in their educational endeavors.

The educational iPhone

BlackBoard Learn Since many college students use BlackBoard to access class information, BlackBoard Learn seems like an ideal choice for those students.

BlackBoard Learn, a free app, allows students to access all the information they normally would find on their unique online account. They need only to download the app, input their username, and they will be able to access all their class information. Everything from teacher announcements to new assignments are available. They can even check their grades. It's a free app, so as long as the student's institution uses BlackBoard, it's worth trying out.

Blackboard Learn gives college students all their class information.

(Credit: Blackboard)

Cram Cram is designed specifically to help students study for a big test. The app allows them to create multiple-choice quizzes and study guides with a flash-card-like system. The app even randomizes the answers to ensure students aren't memorizing a particular option.

Perhaps the best value from Cram comes from the many places students can access those tests. Since creating a quiz can take quite awhile on the iPhone, Cram has an online site where students can create their study tests. They can then sync their Cram account with the iPhone app. Cram users can also share their tests with friends to help the whole class do a little better. But before you get too excited about Cram, beware that it costs $4.99. That's a little steep for an app that requires so much work to make it useful.

Cram features the option to create tests quickly and easily.

(Credit: Cram)

Comedian Penn Jillette demos his new iPhone app.

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

SAN FRANCISCO--The fall season has officially begun. Starting Monday morning, the annual TechCrunch50 conference took over the San Francisco Design Center for two days of start-up pitches and presentations; the conference's angle, as co-hosts Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis reiterated, is that all 50 companies on the roster are completely new and launching for the first time.

Start-ups presenting at the conference, which were chosen through a behind-the-scenes elimination process, were grouped into categories. The first of the day was "Youth & Games," with an array of kid-focused and entertainment start-ups.

The day had already begun with some theatrics: the news was broken (unsurprisingly, by TechCrunch) that a previous TechCrunch50 winner, personal finance start-up Mint, had just sold to Intuit for $170 million in cash. Mint CEO Aaron Patzer took the stage on Monday to formally confirm the announcement.

So it was appropriate that the first pitch of the session, kicking off the TechCrunch50 conference as a whole, was pretty far out in left field: an iPhone app created by comedy-magic duo Penn & Teller. At first, their developers came onstage and apologized that the entertainers couldn't actually make it to the conference, and proceeded to demonstrate a text-messaging magic trick app. But then Penn Jillette stepped out to formally demonstrate the app, which has the aim of (ideally) fooling the iPhone user's friends into thinking that they're actually playing a guess-the-card trick with Penn and Teller via text messaging.

"It's not so much a moneymaker for us as a public service to get guys laid," Jillette said when asked if there was a revenue model to the app, which sells for $1.99 and is now in the iTunes Store. "If there's a Nobel prize for getting guys laid we'd definitely be in the running for it."

Jillette also announced that the app's alpha tester is a stripper from Philadelphia who has raked in extra tips by demonstrating the app alongside lap dances. Unfortunately, the array of judges didn't seem terribly impressed at its long-term business prospects.

Child's play for start-ups
The next presentation couldn't have been more different: Story Something, "which makes the personalization of children's stories simple and easy," founder Jim Rose said. The Web company uses Mad Libs-like text fields for a parent to personalize a story with their children's names and other attributes, and new stories can be sent on a schedule--for example, every evening before bedtime--as part of a paid-subscription model. There's also an iPhone app for easy reading to kids.

Most of the questions from the judges pertained to business model and the intellectual-property rights associated with the stories published through StorySomething. Judge Don Dodge called it "a lottery-ticket investment" for an angel investor, given the relatively low overhead costs and likelihood that such a company could scale without much additional investment.

Other judges' questions were a bit sillier.

"How profound is the assumption that parents will continue to make kids?" judge Yossi Vardi asked facetiously.

ClaseMovil lets you wander around a virtual world and spend microcurrency. It's also got an education tools, but is currently for Spanish-speaking users only.

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

The third start-up in the round was the Mexico-based Clasemovil, a start-up that offers game- and video-based online educational exercises for kids in areas like math, science, and history. Clasemovil uses a format much like trendy kid-focused virtual-world services--its virtual currency, for example, is used to teach personal-finance lessons. The executives were accompanied by an on-staff teacher who vouched for the company's platform as a classroom tool, demonstrating progress-report tracking features.

It's launching first in Latin America (in the U.S. next year, apparently) but its founders hope that it ultimately will allow elementary-school students from around the world to learn by interacting with one another. ClaseMovil, which hopes to make money from subscription fees from both individual users and educational-institution subscriptions, has already raised seed funding and is looking not just to investors but also grant money from governments and organizations.

When asked by conference host Jason Calacanis whether they'd invest in it, judges said they'd consider it. Veteran investor Ron Conway said that it could benefit from some partnerships with other companies. "I would consider, but I wouldn't write a check until it's in English," Don Dodge said of the currently Spanish-only site. "English is where the money is."

Two judges, investor George Zachary and MySpace exec Jason Hirschhorn, said that they'd turn the investment opportunity down outright, with Zachary citing "so much competition" and "huge brand and marketing challenges" when it comes to making a splash in the education market.

The fourth start-up was another kid-focused one, ToonsTunes, a virtual world focused on teaching kids about making music. Players can record music through a mixer interface, network with other users, and sign up for "concert" spots at virtual "clubs." They can share their creations on social networks like Twitter and MySpace, or download them as ringtones. There is, of course, also a virtual currency involved for micropayments like purchasing samples of pop songs.

Obviously, virtual worlds for kids are hot in the wake of the success of companies like Club Penguin, which sold to Disney for $350 million two years ago. And the graphics-heavy ToonsTunes received a pretty warm reception.

"I like it very much," George Zachary said, calling it "GarageBand meets Club Penguin." Don Dodge said that "the quality is absolutely amazing." Hirschhorn questioned the company's ability to compete with the likes of "Guitar Hero." Vardi called it "very, very impressive," considering especially the fact that the company was privately funded and employs only five people.

Ron Conway said that the makers of Guitar Hero would love a product like this, but Hirschhorn remained the skeptic and said that it would be easy for the likes of a huge player like Electronic Arts to create a similar product with far better resources and connections.

Sealtale lets you claim products or services you use, then stick a logo of them on your blog.

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

The Sealtale of approval
The last company of the "Youth & Games" round was a little different: Sealtale, a Korean company that lets users create personalized badges (or "seals") to embed on their blogs to identify themselves and express their affinities--as an iPhone user, a supporter of a certain cause, a fan of a band, for example. Clicking on a "seal" can bring up related blog posts from other bloggers with the same seal. It's one part self-branding service, one part blogroll, and one part Google Friend Connect-like networking service.

Calacanis asked the judges what they thought of Sealtale, which he called "Webring 2.0" in an allusion to the '90s-era blog network start-up. "We'd have to see how the product took off and how the acceptance was in other countries (besides Korea)," Conway said. Hirschhorn said he liked the user interface but wasn't totally sold how it was needed in a world of MySpace pages and Facebook fan pages.

So what did the judges think overall of the "Youth & Games" category at TechCrunch50? Calacanis asked them which of the five companies they'd take an investor meeting with, and it looks like there was a clear winner: Dodge and Vardi both preferred ToonsTunes, and Conway said he'd take a meeting with either ToonsTunes or Story Something but ranked them about even. Zachary, meanwhile, said "I'd put ToonsTunes at the top, Story Something a distant second, and the others are off the map."

Hirschhorn--the lone entertainment-industry member on the panel, it should be noted-- was the dissenter, ranking Story Something at the top and ToonsTunes behind it, sticking to his instinct that it'd be tough to get a music games start-up off the ground when there are already so many big players in the industry.

Shmoop, an online learning tool designed for high-school students, has unveiled several new categories and a whopping 115 iPhone apps.

The site now features study guides on poetry, bestselling books, civics, and biography. It already offered in-depth information on U.S. history and literature.

The timing on Shmoop's announcement is certainly appropriate. School is about to be back in session. Students will be needing Shmoop's online offerings to help them get through class.

But just how they use Shmoop's features is up for debate.

The basics
Shmoop is basically a study guide, although the site's founder Ellen Siminoff, said that it aims to become the first online textbook for high schools all over the U.S. In either case, it provides in-depth information on topics ranging from the basics like what's in the Bill of Rights to more obscure topics like the U.S. Gilded Age. The site does remind me of a textbook on topics like U.S. history, biography, and ethics.

Shmoop provides in-depth information on great novels.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

But I'm not necessarily convinced that Shmoop is as useful to educators as the company wants everyone to believe. Siminoff was quick to point out that several teachers have been using Shmoop in the classroom. But when pressed about the possibility of students using its material to help them cheat or not complete assignments, Siminoff said that her company's focus on reading battles that.

"Shmoop starts out every section with a 'Why you should care,' item," Siminoff said. "We sell reading the book."

I'm not convinced of that. Although Shmoop does provide a nice resource for kids who have already read a book for literature class, it also provides a fine resource for kids who decide they don't want to read the book and would rather use Shmoop to learn all about it.

Each book listed on Shmoop's site includes a basic summary, in-depth analysis, themes, and other information that practically every teacher is referencing when they ask students to write essays on those topics. Similar to CliffsNotes, Shmoop can be used as a free alternative to actually reading the book. It's an intrinsic issue with Shmoop that I just don't see the company fixing. It's a necessary cost of doing business for a site like this.

Information overload
Outside of that, Shmoop's content is extremely informative. In fact, the company hires Ph.D. and master's students to write the content on the site. Siminoff wouldn't say how much they pay those students, but once they write an in-depth analysis, all ownership is transferred from the graduate student to Shmoop, so it can do what it wants with the content.

Shmoop features some interesting biographies.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

As good as the content is, it's limited. You won't find math help. You won't see any science topics. So far, the company has decided to stick to novels, poetry, and general history, including biography and civics. That's a problem. Until Shmoop can offer all kinds of subjects, the chances of it gathering significant support from the educational community are limited.

I also wonder if Shmoop will eventually expand its focus. The company currently only caters to high-school students. Some of the content, Siminoff claims, can also be used in first-year undergraduate programs. I believe it. Considering the sheer breadth of the content the site offers on important topics, I could see a freshman U.S. history class analyzing some of the content the site offers. But what about younger kids? Middle-school students are just as much in need for this kind of service. Hopefully Shmoop will offer content for them, as well.

I was also surprised to learn that Shmoop, which already features study guides for the Kindle, has delivered 115 apps for the iPhone. Those apps offer the same basic function as the site--study guides for great novels. Considering Apple's troubles with developers in the past, getting 115 apps in its store is quite a feat. It underscores Shmoop's desire to bring its offering to as many places as possible.

Shmoop is on the iPhone too.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Looking ahead
Shmoop is a fine study guide for students, but it also has the potential of being an assistant for those who don't want to study. It has interesting content, but its content won't appeal to many people outside of high-school age. And its coverage is great for history and literature buffs, but math and science lovers are left out in the cold.

So it seems that Shmoop is a little perplexing. On one hand, it has the features users want. On the other hand, it's lacking many other features those same users are looking for. But since Shmoop is still in its early stages, it's hard to fault a company that has provided so much great information to students. From the common topics to the obscure, Shmoop provides every last detail. That counts for something.

If you're a parent or a teacher, Shmoop is worth checking out. Just make sure to monitor your students to ensure that they're not using it for anything other than a study guide.

I spent part of last week in Washington, D.C., at the annual National Educational Computing Conference. The event, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, is sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

As you'd expect, there were plenty of workshops on the nuts and bolts of using technology in the classroom. But as technology evolves, so does the way it's used by some creative educators.

There were several sessions, for example, on how to use cell phones within the classroom. Considering that some school districts still ban students from bringing cell phones to school, it's great to see that there are enlightened teachers who are instead trying to figure out how to actually use them in the classroom.

Speaking of things that are banned in schools, I attended a session called "Classroom 2.0: What Is Web 2.0's Role in Schools?" This was particularly refreshing considering that many schools don't allow any use of social-networking sites and some districts actually employ filters that completely ban student and teacher access to MySpace, Facebook, and similar interactive sites.

Rather than fight the idea of students using the Web to communicate with each other, the presenters at this event were encouraging it. Chris Lehman, the principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, talked about the use of interactive technology in schools as part of a "collaborative culture" that he says is likely to be with us for a long time.

"Whether it's a wiki or Twitter, the notion of a participatory culture--upstream and downstream--is not going away," he told the audience. A wiki is a Web site that can be updated and edited by any of its participants. Unlike traditional publishing tools, it encourages collaboration.

Panel member Vicki Davis, a teacher from Camilla, Ga., demonstrated what could be the ultimate--one could say subversive--tool for changing the nature of participation in the classroom. During the event, she encouraged the audience to sign into what she calls a "back channel," which is basically a chat session going on while the panelists were speaking. People both in the room and those not attending NECC were able to comment, in real time, about what the panelists were saying via the free Chatzy service.

I've seen similar technology used at numerous conferences, but Davis says she uses it in her high-school classes. What a change from when I grew up, when it was an infraction to pass notes back and forth during class. Back then, students were punished for trying to collaborate. Of course, the technology has to be used appropriately with students staying on topic. But that should be true for any subject-oriented chat or forum. Even adults sometimes get mad at each other for going "off topic."

Such back channels also make it possible for people to say less-than-kind things about the person speaking, which can be either good or bad, depending upon your perspective. I've been to conferences where lots of people have used Twitter to comment on what was said at the podium. At one event I heard laughter after someone tweeted a funny, but cutting remark about the speaker. It seemed like the only person in the room not in on the joke was the speaker himself.

If this technology is used in school, I would hope that the students feel free to make critical comments about the subject matter but practice good online citizenship by refraining from insulting the speaker and each other.

Whether in school, the workplace or personal life, the use of interactive technology can sometimes get a little messy. But the same can be said about almost anything worthwhile. Just as we don't avoid physical education because kids sometimes skin their knees or refrain from art projects because kids can get their hands dirty, we shouldn't let the risks keep us from embracing Web 2.0 technology in school.

This post was adapted from a column in the San Jose Mercury News.

Now here's one you don't see every day: Wordnik, which launched out of private beta on Monday and states its mission as "discovering all the words and everything about them." Taking the basic premise of a dictionary, Wordnik supplements each entry with Web 2.0's tastiest treats--relevant Flickr images, Twitter search matches, user-contributed tags and comments--and then invites users to add their own words, too.

Calling itself a "project" rather than a company, Wordnik's origins are sort of like a dot-com fairy tale. CEO Erin McKean, then serving as editor-in-chief of Oxford University Press' American dictionaries, was giving a talk at the elite TED conference when she raised an issue for lexicographers--dictionary scientists--that, in her opinion, the digital age hadn't solved yet.

"There are so many more words than dictionaries can handle," McKean said to CNET News about the issue she raised at TED. "There's no program for anyone to go out and try to find all the words. People have been conditioned to be more or less content with what they've got." She has a point: many online dictionary sites are little more than digital replicas of their print predecessors.

As is often the case with TED, some pretty important people were listening in, including Silicon Valley venture capitalist Roger McNamee--now one of the investors in Wordnik, which McKean promptly co-founded with two lexicographers and an engineer. Now the Bay Area-based company has six full-time employees, and is launching with 1.7 million words in its directory.

McKean says she isn't too concerned yet about dealing with the pranksters and vandals who give Wikipedia its more-than-occasional headaches ("people have tended to be well behaved with us, and we're not sure how long that's going to last") and says that copyright issues shouldn't be too much of a problem ("there's about 400 years of precedent in terms of fair use in a dictionary"). Right now the priority is expansion. On the way, McKean said, are smartphone apps, a developer API, and a cleaned-up version of Wordnik for kids to use.

The site's design and depth of information leave a little bit to be desired (it lacks the smooth, words-meet-visuals feel of something like news aggregator Daylife), and McKean said that bringing more interesting and unexpected information to Wordnik is also on the agenda.

But Wordnik faces one of the same concerns that pretty much any information- or search-focused start-up does: what if the likes of Google create a competing product? McKean said that Wordnik's advantage is its team's dedication. "Nobody's going to have as much money as Google," she said, "but nobody's going to be as interested in this as I am and my lexicographer colleagues are."

Now check it out and go look up "bacon."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shows off the Kindle DX

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET News)

NEW YORK--Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the much-anticipated large-screen Kindle e-reader in a lecture hall Wednesday at the downtown Pace University. Called the Kindle DX, the new device is geared toward readers of personal and professional documents, newspapers, and magazines--and textbooks, a potentially huge target market.

The debut of the bigger Kindle wasn't exactly a secret: rumors of a larger-screen Kindle had been around for quite some time, and concrete reports began to surface earlier this week.

Amazon's Kindle DX

(Credit: Amazon)

According to Amazon's Kindle DX page, the device has the following:

• A 9.7-inch display with 16 shades of gray. (The standard Kindle has a 6-inch display.)

• Capacity to hold up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents.

• An auto-rotating screen to show either portrait or landscape views.

• A built-in PDF reader.

• 3G wireless network support with no monthly fees or annual contracts.

• Battery capacity to "read for days without charging."

• Text-to-speech abilities to read publications aloud.

Several of those features are shared with the current Kindle 2, but several are unique to the Kindle DX: the native PDF reader that doesn't require the files to be converted, the rotating display, the 3,500-publication capacity compared to 1,500 for the Kindle 2, and of course the larger screen.

Few topics interest me more than space. Though I'll admit that I don't know nearly as much as I would like, it has always been my goal to learn about the universe. I bet I'm not alone. That's why I'm sharing this list of 18 space sites. They all offer something neat. And they're all informative.

Space sites

Amazing Space provides incredible pictures.

(Credit: Amazing Space)

Amazing Space Though the site is designed for students, Amazing Space is a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to learn something about space. If you want basic information on topics such as gravity and black holes, the site offers it. If you want to gain some knowledge about Earth and how it was formed, you can learn that too. It's not as in-depth as some sites in this roundup, but it's not meant to be. Amazing Space is for the beginner.

Astroengine Each day, Astroengine sifts through studies and documents released by scientists around the world and publishes those that don't get noticed. For example, Saturn's icy moon, Enceladus, might have a liquid ocean, according to a study published by scientists. Astroengine has a nice discussion on that. Few major sources do.

Astronomy Picture of the Day If you just want pictures of what's going on in space, look no further than NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. Each day, the site is updated with one picture of space. Underneath the picture is an informative description of the image's significance. I go there every day to see what they'll display next. You should too.

Chandra The Chandra X-Ray Observatory from Harvard University continuously takes pictures of space phenomenon thousands of light years away. You can view all those pictures on the site. I'm amazed at the quality of the photos. If you want to see space outside of the solar system, this is the destination for you.

Daily Galaxy Daily Galaxy provides news and information about galactic events. There are also some videos that help you gain a better understanding of space. Daily Galaxy doesn't often stray beyond the Galaxy (thus its name), but you'll still find a wealth of information on the site. Check it out.

A picture taken of a far-away galaxy by the Hubble Telescope.

(Credit: Hubble site)

Hubble Site As you might expect, Hubble Site takes an in-depth look at the Hubble Telescope. From news to its latest image captures, the site has it all. You can even learn about how it works and how it helps scientists learn about space. The best part of the site is its galleries section. I literally spent over an hour last night looking through the beautiful images. The Hubble Site is fantastic. It's a must-see.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's site is filled with space news. It also has updates on missions. But if you want to be entertained, you can spend hours perusing the site's images and videos depicting different solar systems and star clusters around the universe. NASA.gov even has interactive features that let you see objects in Space in 3D. You'll be blown away by NASA's resources.

There are a variety of online tools available to teachers. And though they all focus on something slightly different, they can help make classroom instruction more effective.

Most online tools for teachers provide the option to both create and keep a grade book. Teachers can upload assignments and keep track of their students' attendance. The tools also let teachers share grades with parents. And since the syllabus and assignments are online, students will have access to the class resources no matter where they are. The classroom is truly anywhere the teacher (or student) wants it to be.

The majority of online teaching utilities are designed well. They guide teachers through the process of creating a grade book, uploading content, and making that information available to parents and students. The learning curve isn't steep.

If it's instruction help they're looking for, teachers can join social networks to find best practices or video sites to get class instruction ideas.

Here are five teachers' aids that stand out from the rest.

Google has been busy over the past two days with announcements related to YouTube. From Twitter buttons to a new YouTube channel for educational content, there's quite a bit to see.

Dubbed YouTube EDU, the online video site's newest channel is a volunteer project that highlights the educational content being uploaded to YouTube by colleges and universities. It boasts videos from educators all over the world who placed their instructions and other content on YouTube. The videos are pulled in each day from the main site and are arranged by title or number of views.

Google also announced Thursday that it has added a "share to Twitter" button under the share options on all videos on the site. Users who click the button will be able to send a video directly to their Twitter stream with a pre-filled tweet. So far, the video URLs won't be shortened, but the company did say in a blog post that that feature will be added "down the road."

Google also announced that YouTube will now feature an upload progress bar that lets users know how much time is left in their upload. At some point in the future, it plans to add an "estimated video processing time" feature for all videos.

Those who already have Google accounts will be happy to know that the company will now allow users to log in to their YouTube account with their Google.com credentials. There's just one catch: the user's YouTube account must be associated with their Google account.

Finally, Google is poised to start linking its TV ad business to YouTube. According to the company, it will start selling companies on video advertisements that will be placed on television, YouTube, and other websites that support video.