Patterson School iPad Project @ipad-patterson-blog - Tumblr Blog

End of Reader

As of this evening Google Reader will go dark. Reader is an RSS feed aggregator that has, over the past six years, been exceedingly critical to my professional and academic work. I use it not only to stay up-to-date with the latest from a wide variety of blogs and news sources, but also to categorize, tag, and share items of academic relevance. Before an update two years ago, Reader also had a robust internal sharing function. Finally, Reader allowed me to bundle feeds together and publish them in a way that others could subscribe to, which was ideal from a pedagogic standpoint. Google Reader also had a nice mobile website that synced easily across iPad, iPhone, and desktop.

And so what now? I need a service that will facilitate feed aggregation, but also categorization and tagging; since much of my work concerns extant debates on airpower, amphibious warfare, and military diffusion, any service needs to give me the opportunity to save key articles. In terms of sharing, I liked the old Google Reader share, but I *need* the ability to share easily to twitter, Facebook, and the several Facebook pages that I operate. I'd

I tried a few, including Oldreader, Digg Reader, and Feedly, and it turns out that a combination of Feedly and Pocket best fits my needs right now. I was able to save most of my bookmarked and tagged Reader posts to pocket (indeed, I suspect I'm a little better organized now that I was). Feedly and Pocket also both have good mobile apps, unlike Oldreader. We'll see if anything interesting turns up over the next few months, but I'd hate to have to migrate everything again.

--Dr. Robert Farley

Bloggingheads

Bloggingheads also has a new app for iPad. The format is extremely well-suited to watching on iPad.

--Dr. Robert Farley

Other Foreign Policy Apps

Follow up on my last post... Unfortunately, many foreign policy focused organizations have been slower than Foreign Policy to develop an iPad app. World Politics Review has an iPhone app, but as of yet nothing for the iPad. Same story with CFR and Heritage. On the upside, State Magazine has a nice app, as does Brookings. Human Rights Watch has an iPad app, but not Amnesty as far as I can tell.

- Dr. Robert Farley

Some Apps of Note...

A few recent apps of interest to the Patterson community. Some of these are new, but most are simply new to me:

TWC TV: Relevant only because Time Warner is about to eat Insight, Lexington's current cable provider Certainly makes watching TV from your iPad easier.

HistoryMaps: This is a great (although large) compendium of historical maps.

Google Drive: Makes google docs easily accessible by iPad.

ThinkProgress: New app from the Center for American Progress, if that's your thing.

--Dr. Robert Farley

Tracking Turkey with PressReader

Students using PressReader on their iPads have discovered the range of daily newspaper offerings enables them to track in very real time the unfolding dramatic developments in Turkey. Mainstream Turkish media was largely slow to react to the demonstrations in Taksim Square (see Hurriyet's weak coverage, for example), but accounts can now be found across the political spectrum as demonstrators swelled into the 10,000s and spread from Istanbul to Ankara, Izmir, Adana and a dozen more cities. Milliyet, Sabah, Zaman and Radical all offer detailed accounts, as well as photos. Of course, reports in English can also be found in Today's Zaman and Hurriyet Daily News.

(Taksim Square protester just before the water cannons moved in)

2013 Summer Reading List

The Patterson School's summer reading selections are now out and all but two -- Water and China Goes Global -- are not currently available as iBooks. The free Google Play Books app for IOS will let you read those two exceptions as well on your iPad. There goes any excuse for not having your summer homework handy. Happy reading!

iPad, Conferences, and Twitter Streams

While the iPad’s utility in the classroom is well known, it can be particularly valuable when attending conferences. In April, our Diplomacy of Nuclear Weapons class participated in the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace's Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington D.C. The conference was exceptional, with keynotes by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. Their formal presentations were greatly enriched, however, by a live Twitter stream and the iPad proved a perfect device to join in. I, along with several other Patterson School students, tweeted from the conference during the various keynote, plenary, and breakout sessions. Through Twitter, we were able to connect and interact with fellow conference attendees, including several well-known experts in the nuclear arms field.

The iPad easily allowed me to switch back and forth between Twitter and my note-taking application. The conference organizers had set up a screen displaying the live tweet stream in the lobby, letting those without mobile devices see the side conversations and sparking further discussions and debates. Not only did the iPad give me a platform to network with other conference participants and speakers and build relationships, but it was easy to pack and light to carry around the city! Upon our return to Lexington, I was able to pull up my notes in both my Notes application and on my Twitter feed, sharing the insights gained in DC directly with my classmates and colleagues.

The iPad is definitely now part of my “go to conference gear.” Too bad we weren’t allowed to take any electronic devices on our visit to Y-12.

The Proliferation of Specialist News Apps

DAWNs Digest has a new mobile app:

Highlights:

Our team writes pithy summaries of dozens of top global news stories every day, sorting through articles and reports with a human eye to ensure you are up to speed without wasting your time.

Stories are categorized by the regions that matter to our community: Horn of Africa, Sahel, Africa, The Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and The Americas.

Want something more specifically tailored to your discrete interests? You can add up to 5 keywords (e.g. USAID, Sudan, Malaria, Refugees) to custom fit our system to your needs.

A daily roundup of the most talked blog posts, opinion columns and arguments buzzing in the humanitarian community.

Hand picked RSS feeds so you can stay on top of breaking news on the topics and regions that matter most to you.

An easy way to share stories you find with friends and colleagues, via email twitter or facebook.

Looks interesting from the point of view of the iPatt trial. As time goes by, I suspect we'll see more apps tailored to field specialists. --Robert Farley

The Patterson School's annual negotiations exercise, held with the cooperation of the US Army War College, is centered this year on the South Caucasus conflict involving the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is an exercise with many moving parts and demands deep understanding of a "frozen conflict" that has confounded peace mediators for more than twenty years. To assist students in getting a better handle on the history, issues and complex negotiation process, all exercise materials have been incorporated into an illustrated iBook with interactive features. We believe this new use of iPads should significantly augment the overall learning experience and help better prepare students for their future careers.

It will also further test the utility of the iPad as a pedagogical device when everyone is working with the same device.

G+

Over the last month we've been experimenting with iPad teleconferencing using Google+. Because G+ allows a chat function and allows multiple remote participants, it's worked better than Skype for our purposes. We recently conducted a class session with an alumna participating remotely from Congo. On another occasion we had four participants from around the world, including Texas, Istanbul, London, and Washington, D.C.

For a program like ours, which places people around the world and which relies on global expertise, this represents a tremendous advantage. The iPad isn't strictly necessary to such teleconferencing (a webcam will also work), but given that so many of our students and alumni now have iPads, it has become the platform of choice.

--Robert Farley

Recent App Downloads...

A few recent apps relevant to the project...

Numbers: Not a new app, but new to me! Using it's calculator functions to do some statistical work; very convenient to have quick access to data and a platform with sufficient capability to push projects forward.

LinkedIn: Again, not a new app, but certainly one that makes it easy to stay in touch with the greater Patterson diaspora. LinkedIn constitutes one of the most important ways in which Patterson communicates with its alumni, and the iPad interface is readily usable.

USNI: App of the United States Naval Institute, with (password guarded) access to publications and other information. Must have for those interested in maritime affairs.

Nuke Effects: Need to know how much of your city a given nuclear bomb will destroy? Look no further.

Chrome: Relatively new to the iPad, the Chrome app makes it very easy to access webpages on other devices; extremely useful if you have a laptop, desktop, iPhone, etc.

-- Robert Farley

Patterson School and MacWorld Expo

The Patterson School’s iPad project continues to draw significant interest and support from across the tech community. Director Cavanaugh attended last week’s Mac World Expo in San Francisco and met with dozens of software developers and accessory manufacturers, detailing our project and the impact the iPad has already had toward improving graduate study of international affairs. He highlighted in particular the merits of the iPad as an information delivery device, particularly for news from around the world. The New York Times was in attendance (Patterson students’ 2nd most popular news app), but unfortunately The Economist and PressReader were not

Many MacWorld attendees Cavanaugh met were impressed by the volume of material (and the range of languages) that PressReader offers and intrigued by how it was being used by Patterson School students to keep tabs on breaking developments in some of the planet’s most remote locales.

Companies have been exploring ways to enhance the iPad’s utility in information management and production, and many displayed new products at MacWorld to remedy some shortcomings Patterson School students have identified. Happily, several are also prepared to assist our project and we will report on those in the months ahead. Cavanaugh spotted a variety of new applications and accessories that should help facilitate iPad use in higher education. These range from devices to ease information input – like the cleverly-designed new iKeyboard – to improved contact and time management software to new hardware and apps that smooth the creation of presentations, podcasts, and videos.

One particularly intriguing app, CoBook (now only available in beta), was produced by a Latvian company. This new smart address book smoothly taps social media (like LinkedIn) to collect data. We hope to use it to improve alumni lists, for general communications, and possibly to assist with development efforts. Other accessories simply make the iPad easier to use like spiderArm, the nifty aluminum capacitive stylus that Proof is now bringing to market, or LensPen’s new Sidekick iPad screen cleaner.

One of the most interesting items unveiled at MacWorld was a new microphone developed by Dev/Audio in Australia. The “Microcone” is a multidirectional microphone designed to record six separate audio channels simultaneously. When coupled with related software, it can not only produce professional quality recording of a group discussion, but enables group conversation transcription. We see considerable utility with this new device in producing clear recordings for podcast of policy discussions.

Finally, in March Arizona-based i4Software will release a new version of its Video Camera app that will enable worldwide remote input of video clips. Cavanaugh met with CEO Michael Zalatel and they discussed possibly working together this summer to assess the apps potential as Patterson School students spread across the country and around the planet on internships and for foreign language study.

In the meantime, we encourage students to check out SlideShark which should let you view and show PowerPoint presentations on your iPad. Now, there’s a prayer answered. It’s also free.

News Junkies of the World Unite

A major challenge for students of international affairs is staying abreast of significant political and economic news in their subspecialty (diplomacy, security/intelligence, commerce, development) and specific geographic region of interest, as well as in the world writ large. Patterson School students report that the iPad offers particular value here, simplifying this complex task by providing ready access to breaking developments from sources major and obscure, in a multitude of languages.

Each student crafts his or her own personal mix of sources – print, radio, and video – to meet their individual needs. This typically includes a combination of individual news apps, RSS feeds, and subscription services. On occasion, it also includes using news aggregators or personalized magazines (with Flipboard and Zite being the most popular).

The entire Patterson School has access to PressReader from NewspaperDirect. This brings to the iPad over 2,000 full content newspapers and magazines from 95 countries in 51 languages (we will report more on PressReader later). For most students, this has resolved how to cover the more obscure. Whether, their interest is Belarus (Narodnaya Gazeta), Mauritius (Le Matinal), Sudan (Al-Raed), or Malaysia (The Borneo Post), this app and subscription service typically provides the newspaper coverage students need.

When it comes to more general apps for national and world news, our students have picked clear favorites. In a recent survey large percentages of Patterson School students identified regularly using the following apps as key sources for information:

Not surprisingly, The Economist, New York Times, and BBC were big winners. Subsumed under the “other” column above were apps focused on foreign developments such as Al Jazeera, Stratfor, and Foreign Policy; more general services like Reuters News Pro and AP; as well as apps that are directed more toward domestic politics like the Huffington Post and Drudge Report.

For news, the iPad appears to occupy a unique place between access by surfing the web and print media. Many of the news sources detailed above can be tapped with a laptop or desktop computer, but not exactly in the same way. Students declare that what sets the iPad apart is its portability, unobtrusiveness, and ease of use. Turning it on, collecting updates, reading and sharing information, all can be done on the fly – literally – without every slowing down for a plug, a desk or counter. Using your iPad is not a big deal, one student noted, it almost seemed nonchalant. Finally, they report that many iPad apps have been so well designed that they are far more functional and efficient than visiting the same media’s regular website on a computer.

Our students do not see the iPad as a replacement for their laptop. Indeed, they readily identify serious shortcomings in creating documents or presentations on the iPad compared to using their regular computers. Instead, they believe it to be a valuable supplement. This is especially the case in this key area: assembling and monitoring the information they require to become foreign policy professionals. For this purpose the device may in fact already be on the edge of revolutionary. It provides the information heretofore conveyed in newspapers, magazines, on radio and on television, in a form that is far more accessible, useable and affordable.

From the vantage point of school director, I have no doubt that the iPad is helping ensure that Patterson School remain at the top of their game.

Carey Cavanaugh

After 1 year - A "Must Have" Item

While it remains an open question when iPads or other tablet devices will become standard diplomatic equipment, the Patterson School’s iPad trial has already shown the considerable benefits this transformative technology may provide one of the world’s most traditional professions.

After a year with all of our students, faculty, and staff using iPads, the device has become a must have item. And, in our context, “must have” has actually meant “must have with you” at any given moment. Students almost always bring their iPads to class, but where the device has had the greatest impact is everywhere else: in the corridor, on a bus, at lunch, waiting for a plane.

The iPad has shined most not in content creation, but content delivery. Coupled with PressReader (which provides instant access to over two thousand newspapers), it lets international policy wonks in training stay current on breaking events from Caracas to Cairo to Cape Town to Canberra. Other apps offer up live BBC and NPR broadcasts, the evening TV news, or the featured author last night on The Daily Show. In many ways the iPad is an unbeatable media device. Light enough to always have at hand, battery life sufficient to go all day, and a screen that is large and bright enough to make reading enjoyable.

From the educator perspective, using the iPad has enhanced student teamwork and information sharing, provided an easy vehicle to convey class content and required readings, and improved student presentations. In a recent survey, over 90% of our students said the iPad had enhanced their academic experience, with more than 80% believing the device would be valuable in their future profession (a third said “extremely valuable”).

The 3G Choice

Way back when I acquired my iPad for this project, I was given the choice of a 3G or wireless only device. The choice was relatively easy for me to make, given that this was a trial and the iPad came free. Nevertheless, I have consistently been pleased with the decision to go with a 3G machine. 3G makes travel, whether by car or plane (or presumably train or boat) a much easier proposition; low bandwidth services (such as e-mail or Kindle) are extremely useful to have in travel situations. Because I often write on deadline, having access to the iPad (using either Quickoffice or Pages) for editing and finishing has been very helpful. I went with the 2 GB data plan, which was probably the correct decision despite the fact that I've only gone over 250 MB once or twice. Not having to worry about running out of data is worth something in and of itself, although if I felt constrained I probably could have modified my behavior. For my situation, 3G was clearly the correct choice to make.

-Dr. Robert Farley

Pages, IOS 5, and Comprehensive Exams

Earlier this year Patterson students and faculty received gratis copies of Pages and Keynote. As I'd already invested in Quickoffice, I hadn't had much of a chance to use either. During comprehensive exams, however, I found it very easy and efficient to open Word files sent by e-mail in Pages. iCloud was helpful in that it allowed me to view them on my new Mac and other devices, but the bulk of work went down on the iPad. I made notes, then used the iPad during the comprehensive exam oral defenses. Seems to have worked out pretty well, although I do wish that Pages had something approaching the "Track Changes" function that you find in Word; would mean fewer font and color changes for the comments I add.

- Dr. Robert Farley

iOS 5

See Jacqui Cheng's review of the iOS 5 for iPad and iPhone. Long story short, the new operating system has furthered development of the aspects of the iPad that make it most attractive to Patterson students, including most importantly the capacity to share information across apps, between people, and across platforms. The tabbed browsing in Safari is also very nice.

--Dr. Robert Farley

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