Big Think: Video Calls and Deaf People & Augmented Learning

Video Calls – Breakthrough in Communication for Deaf People

On Tuesday I wrote about how video calls as a breakthrough in communication for deaf people. There was an interesting article on the German magazine “Der Spiegel” about how the Internet in general changes the way people communicate today and it also included a lot of online learning examples. The one that caught my attention was the part where the magazine interviewed a deaf person and how the iPhone 4 with front facing camera and Facetime changed the way he communicates with others.

Augmented Learning

Yesterday I wrote about one of my favorite topics in technology, augmented reality. I believe there are great ways to use this technology in education and learning in general. Especially when you combine it with QR codes and Geo tagging. Seeing a complex concept or simply extended information on the screen of your mobile phone or tablet device instead of having to imagine it makes learning much more intuitive and brain friendly.

Word Lens – On-the-fly Video Translations Unplugged

Word Lens is one of those products that leave me speechless for a while. Apparently I was not the only one as the short video demonstration of the application instantly became viral on YouTube, something I never saw before. Up to today more than 3.250.000 people watched the video.

The application instantly translates texts from Spanish into English or vice versa, using the camera function of the iPhone 4. Just watch the video below, it speaks for itself.

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Did Video Calling finally reach Critical Mass?

According to the latest Pew report it seems to be the case. In the report you can find that about 20% of Americans have at least once used a video calling feature on the PC or their mobile phone.

And today we learned that Skype 5.0 finally got the full Facebook implementation. This could actually be the tipping point for video calls becoming mainstream which would be of course very benefitial for live online language courses. Fast Company is already seeing 40% of Americans using video call at the end of next year.

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Why I won’t buy an iPhone 4 anymore

Some of you might remember my blog post on “Why I will finally buy an iPhone”. The truth is, I did not – and I won’t.

Of course, one of the reasons was Antennagate although I would not use the iPhone for making calls that much anyway. But nevertheless, a not 100% working device for 100% of the price isn’t interesting to me.

The other reason: they delayed the white iPhone 4. Therefore, I bought an iPod Touch and until yesterday, I was really happy with it.

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review:ed #4.1 with Dave Schappell – iPhone 4, FaceTime and Skype

In the fourth episode of review:ed, the show where a changing guest and I talk about recent news in online education, tech and funding, Dave Schappell the Founder and CEO of TeachStreet made his second appearance.

In the first part of the show Dave and I talked about the recent launch of the iPhone 4 and of course FaceTime.

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Three Years of Resistance – Why I will finally buy an iPhone

Finally. After over three years of resistance I will buy my first iPhone when it will hit the market in France. This time Steve Jobs got me on the right nerve, FaceTime.

Of course there are other nice features like the new display, the smaller size etc that turns the iPhone 4 into a decent replacement for my Asus EEE netbook which I now use when I am not at home but I truly think that FaceTime could be a massive game changer.

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