apple Archives - LearnJam

Apple’s electric car and the death of language teaching as we know it

January 30, 2020December 2, 2015 by Nick Robinson

When I was four, going on five, a TV show called Knight Rider premiered in the UK. I loved it and remained a fan for most of my childhood (OK, I admit it; I’m still a fan). There was The Hoff, of course – all leather jackets, open shirt buttons and swagger – but the real star of the show was K.I.T.T – Knight Industries Two Thousand – the ‘advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware and nearly indestructible car’. Over thirty years later Apple and Google are in a head-to-head race to bring K.I.T.T’s spiritual successor – the driverless car – to market. And, as a little-known and hard-to-spot side effect, the ramifications for the teaching of languages, especially English, could be huge.

How to be a successful education app developer

January 30, 2020March 23, 2015 by Laurie Harrison

When this blog was brand new (nearly two years ago), I stumbled across a post by a French indie app developer called Pierre Abel who was having great success by focussing on educational iPad apps for young learners. As someone who had spent quite a lot of time and effort trying to develop successful ELT apps while working in-house at an ELT publisher, I was interested in how an independent developer had approached it, and whether I could find any useful lessons that ELT app publishers could apply. I thought it would be interesting to see how he’s done since then and whether the same lessons still apply.

Me and my iPad

January 31, 2020February 19, 2014 by Tim Gifford

In this honest, insightful and helpful guest post Phil Wade shares his experiences of taking an iPad into the classroom …

Duolingo: Cause for Applause

January 30, 2020January 7, 2014 by Tim Gifford

What is the appeal that has led to Duolingo being awarded the free iPhone app of 2013?

What Does 2014 Have in Store For EdTech?

January 30, 2020December 31, 2013 by Tim Gifford

eltjam looks ahead to 2014 and share 7 of their top EdTech predictions

Did Apple accidentally invent a cool language learning app?

January 31, 2020September 23, 2013 by Mike Boyle

“What is today’s date?”
“It’s now Friday, September 20, 2013.”

Mike S. Boyle is one of the authors of American English File. You can follow him on Twitter at @heyboyle or join one of his webinars on September 26 and 27. This post originally appeared on Mike’s blog mikesboyle.com.

I’ve just upgraded my iPhone to the new iOS 7 operating system and discovered some amazing improvements to Siri, the virtual assistant that responds to your voice. The old Siri barely understood a word I said, but the all-new Siri understands my English perfectly. Not only that, it even perfectly comprehends my far-from-perfect Mandarin Chinese.

So, what is the potential for the new Siri as a language learning app? How can it help learners of English?

iOS7 and Apple TV: Are Apple finally going to make life easy for educators?

January 30, 2020July 2, 2013 by Laurie Harrison

Re-run of a post from a few weeks ago, worth a read now that iOS7 is out in the wild. In a recent post, I predicted that tablets are inexorably going to take over our classrooms, at the expense of printed books (despite what Nick says!). However, there’s a big problem – implementing a one … Read more