Android and Apple: tablets in the ESL classroom

In previous posts I have been very positive about the role that the iPad could play in ESL education. The nature of the tablet form factor and the so-simple-a-child-could-use-it interface makes it a wonderful tool for bringing technology into the classroom and offering many new ways for students to interact with each other and with the language. You only have to look around the internet to realise that I’m not the only one that thinks that way. Ipad adoption by schools and teachers is growing daily and the variety of use case scenarios expanding all the time.

But..and it is a big ‘but’, the iPad is very, very expensive, certainly beyond the reach of many individuals and also beyond the budgets of many schools. Until recently there hasn’t been any significant alternatives, but now we are beginning to see many more tablets come onto the market, particularly ones running Google’s Android operating system. The Android tablets that have been available so far have not been particularly usable, largely because Google hadn’t designed an Operating System that was specifically for tablets, but now they have released one called Honeycomb and we’re beginning to see tablets appear on the market with the new tablet-optimised OS installed on it.

And I’ve bought one. Probably shouldn’t have but it was just too tempting, particularly as the one I got comes with an integrated keyboard that means it can double as a fairly decent netbook replacement (and finding a way to type effectively on a tablet is one of the biggest hurdles to wider adoption in my view). It’s called the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and is currently only available in the UK - and at the moment without the keyboard that makes it compelling, but that will be available soon.

My new toy

My old toy and my new toy

So, I thought this might be a chance to do a quick rundown of the pros/cons of using Android tablets in the ESL classroom. Why might teachers/students/schools choose these over the iPad? Can it offer anything that the Apple device doesn’t? Here’s a quick rundown...

The Good........

Cost

Actually, at the moment there isn’t a huge difference between the price of an iPad and a higher-end Android device. The cheapest version of the iPad 2 is only £399 while I picked up my Asus tablet for £379, so hardly a massive saving there. But - just as with Android mobile phones - a huge range of tablets will be coming onto the market in a variety of shapes/sizes and at a variety of price points. Expect to see this price come down very rapidly. Also, if schools are willing to put up with an older operating system and a little less functionality, they can pick up a basic Android tablet for as low as £120-150 pound. Of course it won’t be as slick as the iPad or as easy to use, but you will still get that basic form factor and also a lot of decent Google apps such as Google Maps and Gmail. The iPad, on the other hand, is unlikely to drop in price any time soon.

A variety of form factors

The iPad comes in one size and that’s it. But with Android there are more options in terms of screen size and also the kinds of features/add-ons you can use with it. So, for example, you can get Android tablets with a 7” screen, an 8.9” screen or a larger 10” screen. Some of them come with special pens for drawing/writing with, others have better cameras on the front and the back.

There are also more options for connecting cards/peripherals to Android tablets. For example many Android tablets come with some kind of memory card slot (such as micro SD or SD) for getting files/images/video on and off the device or they might have a USB port, meaning that you can plug in keyboards, mice or other USB peripherals. This might be particularly handy if students want to transfer images/videos/audio files they’ve recorded with a camera or mobile phone. This is much more difficult on the iPad. I’m constantly running up against the issue of how to get things on or off my iPad and I often give up in frustration.

Flash support

Famously, the iPad doesn’t support Flash in its browser. This means that many sites that have Flash elements on their pages just won’t display on the iPad. Now, the iPad does get round this by having a vast number of dedicated apps that can often replace a website, but not for all of them, and many of the ones teachers use with their students still don’t have an app, or they do have an app but it has considerably reduced functionality. Android, on the other hand, has had Flash support for some time now and on most devices you can view Flash sites through the browser.

To give you a couple of examples of this. I often use a site called Voicethread with my students. This site enables students to create interactive slideshows with pictures, text and audio recordings and other students can watch them and add their own comments. It works wonderfully well in the ESL classroom - students can create personalised presentations on their family/country/job and share them with their classmates. However, there is no app for the iPad and you cannot view these slideshows through the iPad browser because they contain Flash (see pic).

What you see (or don't see) on the iPad

Android on the other hand does a pretty good job of displaying them through the browser (see pic below) and while editing is less than perfect, it still is possible.

What you see on the Android tablet

Another good example is Xtranormal,  a popular site used by many teachers with students to create short animated movies. Students can choose the settings, the characters, write the dialogue and then view and shaer what they've created.

Again, you can’t view the full site on the iPad because of the lack of Flash. There is a mobile app for the iphone, but this is significantly less functional than the desktop version. On my Android tablet, however, I can access the full desktop site and use it exactly as I would on a PC.

Ipad browser version (notice the Xtranormal sign where the video should be)

And this is the fuller Android browser version

I know that there is a general move away from Flash in websites, but that is going to take quite a long time and at the moment many of the most popular ESL websites still contain a lot of flash elements.

Flexibility

Much has been written about the ‘openness’ of Android in comparison with Apple’s operating system (iOS). I’m not that technically minded so I’m not sure whether Android is any more ‘open’ than iOS. However, I always feel that Android tablets/devices offer a lot more flexibility than Apple ones, particularly in sharing information and getting things on and off the device. So, for example, when I write a note or save a picture on the iPad my first instinct is to be able to access it so I can send it to another device, either my phone or my PC. Yet the options are very limited. The iPad doesn’t have any kind of file system and you cannot transfer files/pictures via bluetooth, so you often end up having to email it to yourself or sending it to a third-party option such as Dropbox. It feels very cumbersome in this day and age to have to resort to that.

Conversely, Android has a wealth of options for getting stuff on and off the device. It has a file system just like on your PC and it’s very easy to move/send your stuff from one place on the device to another. Or to another device. I found this out this week when I was on holiday with my family. My wife had taken some pictures with her phone and we wanted to view them on a tablet. It was much easier to send them across to my Android tablet than it was to my iPad. Given that so much of what we do in class involves the sharing of created content (documents, images, video), it seems that Android wins out over the iPad in this respect.

The Bad....

Usability

Apple make incredibly slick and user friendly products and this is one of the key reasons for their success. Give a young child or old person the iPad and it will take them at most a few minutes to work out how to use it, even if they've never picked up a tablet before. This simplicity of use is a godsend in the classroom. Nothing can bring a lesson screeching to a halt faster than confusion about how to use a particular piece of technology or software programme. I've had lessons go belly up because students couldn't work out how to register for a site or find a particular setting (for some reason changing the volume on our computers at school is a mystery wrapped inside an enigma, God knows why it should be so difficult).

Android tablet - and smartphones - have a much steeper learning curve. They tend to use menus a lot more than Apple devices and it can be confusing to find what you are looking for at times. With the added flexibility of Android, you do get an unwelcome layer of complexity that could cause confusion for both the teacher and the students in the classroom and could lead to a lot of time wasted on troubleshooting the problems. And just the whole experience on Apple products is so much smoother. Things just work. You press an icon on the iPad and it does what you expect and it does it immediately. Android tends to be a lot less smooth, you might experience lag when swiping between screens or scrolling though the browser, programmes shut down more often without you wanting them too. For a teacher who may feel uncomfortable with technology, the iPad is probably going to be their choice every time.

Fragmentation

This is probably the biggest criticism of the Android platform, the fact that so many of its devices are running on different versions of the Operating System. And often manufacturers add their own 'skin' on top of that OS to give it some differentiation from their competitors. What this means first off is that there can be problems of compability. You may want to download a fantastic app you've found for your students, but it may turn out that it won't run on the version of the OS installed on the students' devices. I'm having this problem with my Android tablet. There just haven't been that many apps designed for this new tablet OS and so a lot of them either don't work with it or don't use the screen space effectively.

Apple on the other hand have a consistent user experience across their devices. If you've used an iPhone or iPod Touch, you will know how to use an iPad. All these devices run the same OS, so the compatability in terms of the apps you download is incredible.

The Ugly...

Apps? What apps?

And this leads us onto the biggest issue with Android tablets: the lack of apps. The iPad has tens of thousands of apps available for it, many of very high quality and many of them directed towards education and learning. Android tablets have very few available that have been optimised for a larger screen. Yes, you can use all the apps available for the Android smartphones, but they don't always scale very well and some of them just outright don't work. I'm not sure exactly what the figures are, but I know the iPad has somewhere in the region of 60000 apps available for it (and those have been designed specifically for that device) while the new Android tablet OS has somewhere in the region of 30-50. That's a big difference, and while that will definitely change in the coming months, the iPad clearly has a headstart in this respect and certainly is far better equipped for the classroom at the moment.

Final thoughts

There's no 'winner' here in terms of which tablet schools or individuals should choose for the classroom. In terms of breadth of software and ease of use, the iPad wins hands down. But Android is going to appeal to those people on a tighter budget, and the ability to share content more easily also makes it very attractive. It will be interesting to see the adoption rate in educational institutions over the next couple of years. The good thing though is that now there is more choice and the choice is going to get bigger every day in terms of finding the device that will work for your school or students.

Snapanda: interesting dictionary/camera app for Android

In my last post I looked at various free dictionaries available for Android, and Snapanda is an interesting addition to the list while adding a fun twist.

The app allows you to use your phone's camera to focus on a word - say on a menu, poster or any other text you have in front of you - and when you touch that word on the screen, it will recognise it and give you the option to look it up in the dictionary.

In the picture you can see I touched the word 'issue'. This took me a few goes admittedly. Sometimes it just recognises a letter or nothing at all and certain fonts or background colours seem to cause it problems, but it does work around 70-80% of the time and given that it's still in beta, that's not bad. The accuracy does also seem connected to how well focussed the camera is on the word and also the stillness of your hand when pressing on the word. My shaky middle-aged fingers might be the cause of some of the problems and maybe those of you with a steadier hand might fare better. 

The actual dictionary section is fairly rudimentary, but at the same time well laid out and easy to read. It's not too technical and they have some decent examples. 

You can also click through to find some expressions/idioms related to the word and there's the option to add the word to a personalised word list. 

As you can see from the screenshots, the developers have gone for a bright and breezy look, not quite sure what about dictionaries screams 'panda' but what the hell, why not try to make dictionaries a little less dull. 

Overall, I think it's a fun app, I would question whether it is actually faster than just typing a word into the dictionary and finding the meaning, but the 'aint this cool?' novelty factor might make English students use it more and learn words when they are on the street, in shops or restaurants. 

Review: free ESL dictionary apps for Android phones

A couple of days ago a student asked me to recommend a decent dictionary app for his iphone and I realised that I didn’t really know which one would be suitable for him. I know that Oxford and Cambridge have dictionary apps available for different platforms but I don’t know how good they are or which one I’d recommend over another. One big problem in finding this out is that they are normally quite expensive - often in the £10-15 range - and I don’t really want to spend that kind of money several times over comparison testing the different dictionaries. This is particularly true on the iphone/ipad as they don’t really have any kind of trial and refund policy, so once you’ve bought it that’s it. Android is slightly better since you do have a fifteen-minute window in which you can buy, try and then get the money refunded, but it’s not really enough time to really explore the dictionary in depth.

Apart from these dictionaries from well known publishing companies, there are also some free dictionaries you can download. Actually, you don’t really download the dictionary as such since you can’t access the words when you are not online, instead these apps are just a front end for a variety of online dictionaries like dictionary.com and the Free Dictionary.

So, I thought I’d do a quick post reviewing the dictionaries available for Android and then later do another one for iphone/ipad. The ones I’ve chosen to look at are:

Free Dictionary org
Dictionary com
Colordict dictionary translate
Advanced English and Thesaurus
The Free Dictionary

All of these - as some of the names already suggest - are free. I've decided to focus on these dictionaries because, well, they're free. I'm pretty sure the dictionary apps from companies like Longman, Oxford and Cambridge are excellent and have the obvious advantage of being available offline. But they are really expensive, and since many students already own a hard copy of these dictionaries, I would struggle to recommend them.

In reviewing these apps,  I focused on what would make them accessible and useful to my esl students. Particularly, I focused on the following things:

Features: does it have pronunciation models? Can you ‘favourite’ words you want to remember? Can you share words with other people? Is there a thesaurus?

Language/usefulness: Are the definitions written in an accessible style with vocabulary that is not too challenging? Is the information relevant to the students (e.g. not a lot of information about the etymology of the word or obscure definitions)? Does it provide example sentences to show how the word is used?

Layout: Is it easy to navigate the dictionary and find what you want? Is the layout easy on the eye?

I used these over a couple of days and here are my comments below with some pictures to accompany each one so you get a sense of what they look like on the phone.

Free Dictionary.org
In one word: dreadful. I was immediately put off by the fact that if you write a word with a capital letter  - which is something that a lot of keyboards do automatically - the dictionary refuses to identify and instead gives you alternative words it thinks you were searching for, a bit like the Google ‘did you mean......?’ correction. Normally the word you want is in that list but it’s an unnecessary extra step that is very annoying when you just want to quickly look up a word.

Also, the definitions seem to be aggregrated from various dictionaries, notably the Collaborative International Dictionary of English and they are not terribly well laid out or easy to understand. There are example sentences but they are buried within the definitions in the same font and colour and not always easy to find.

A couple of neat things it does do: you can do a Google image search straight from the dictionary home page, helpful if the word you are looking for is an object of some kind. There is also a quiz option where you are given a random word and four definitions to select from. Nice, but the words are pretty high level and I can’t really see it being relevant for most ESL learners.

The Free Dictionary

Very similar name to the previous app but a much better dictionary. The layout is much nicer on the eye, it doesn’t do that irritating thing with the capital letters, and you get some clear example sentences in a different font/colour. You can also filter results by definition, thesaurus and translation and you have the option of viewing information about the word in Wikipedia and other specialist dictionaries such as legal or medical. Definitely one to recommend to students.

Advanced English and Thesaurus

Well, it certainly lives up to its name, you have to be pretty damn advanced to use this dictionary given the language it uses and the way it’s laid out. You can see from the screenshot that it’s decided to use the high-frequency words ‘hypernym’ and ‘hyponym’ (no possible confusion there obviously) to refer to synonyms and related words. It doesn’t exactly make you warm to the dictionary.

One huge plus of this dictionary is that you do have the option of downloading all the dictionary entries to your SD card. This means that you don’t need to be online to access the entries and students can use it without potentially incurring costly connection fees. However, this is about the only thing I can recommend about it. It is a dictionary and it is a thesaurus, but it’s not terribly user friendly, the text is quite dense, there aren’t so many example sentences and no option to hear the pronunciation of the word. Again, not one I would recommend.

Colordict dictionary translate

Odd name for the dictionary, but a lot in its favour. Like the Advanced English and Thesaurus, you do have the option to download the dictionary data (I didn’t try this because I’d run out of space on my card) and this is great for when you don’t have internet access and want to access the entries.

It’s not the most intuitive dictionary to use, when you search for a word it doesn’t come up with the definition immediately but instead you get the word to click on and you are then taken to a mobile version of Google dictionary. This is not a bad thing by the way, because I really like the simplicity and clarity of Google’s dictionary, but it would be nice if it came up immediately. You also have the option of adding other dictionaries to the list and these will come up when you enter a search term.

Dictionary.com

This is the app of the popular website and the it probably has the most attractive design and layout. On entering the app you immediately get a word of the day, the option to hear the pronunciation and the ability to favourite the word. There is also a button for accessing a thesaurus entry on the word.

But I found it a bit disappointing once you start searching for words. Most of the time all you get is a list of definitions but very little information about usage, particularly example sentences. I was expecting a lot more from this because I use their online dictionary frequently, but this is a very watered down version of that.

Conclusions

If I had to choose one of these dictionaries for my ESL students to use on a daily basis, it would probably be Colordict Dictionary Translate for its ability to download all the dictionary data and the fact that it can access the very good Google dictionary. I would also recommend The Free Dictionary for it’s comprehensive definition of words. The others I would probably avoid, they either seem designed for native speakers who are willing to wade through dense text, or they are just poorly designed and confusing for the non-native speaker. Next week, I will do something similar for the iphone/ipad.

Cloudbank: sharing words via mobile phones

I recently went to a presentation about an interesting project called CloudBank, which is an Android app developed by the Interactive Technologies research group at the University of Brighton. It is essentially a crowd-sourced learner’s dictionary for Advanced ESL students. A member of the research group, Dr Lyn Pemberton, explained that it was designed to encourage higher level learners to collect, collate and share new words, expressions, and idioms that they came across.

The app on the phone is linked to a website and a widget. This widget is basically a virtual representation of the mobile app on a webpage that is updated in real time as students upload words to the shared list. This widget can be embedded in webpages the same way a You Tube video can be embedded on a page and I’ve included it below for you to look at. Use the mouse to click on the buttons on the screen to look around the app.

You can actually try this out here and now if you have an Android phone. Go to this page and download the app. Because this app is not available on the Android Market, you need to make sure your phone can install non-market applications. To do this, go to Setting > Applications > Unknown Sources and checkmark ‘enable installation of non-market applications’.

On your phone you can then click the ‘Add’ button and add a word/expression using the boxes provided. You then click the save button and - assuming you are connected to the internet via 3G or wireless - it will immediately be uploaded to see on the widget or on a phone. Here is my expression - ticked off - being entered on the phone.

There are also some other neat things you can do with the app. You can filter the word list to show either all the words or just the ones you have uploaded. You can favourite particular words and there is a search function that will do a Google search of the word/expression you are currently looking at. You can also upload a photo to accompany the word and do an audio recording of the pronunciation.

Applications for the ESL classroom

I love the idea of a mobile app being linked to an embedded widget and I can see students taking to this very quickly. Imagine being able to embed this widget on your class or school website and then students contributing words outside of class that could then be looked at inside the class as a group. There are some similarities to the British Council’s My Word Book app for the iphone that I discussed in a previous post but the crucial added element here is the social aspect of sharing your words with others. Although this project is only in its development phase, it would be great if the app and widget could be scaled or personalised to a particular class or school. I use Google Sites to create personalised websites/blogs for all my classes and it would be fantastic to be able to embed the widget on the site for easy access and reference.

At this stage there are obvious limitations to the project. Notably, the app can only be run on phones with the Android operating system but I imagine there would be plans to expand this across different platforms so it would run on iphones, Symbian phones, Blackberries etc. If we could get to the stage where this was available on the phones of almost all the students in the class, then I think we have a very powerful mobile learning tool for ESL.

I strongly urge you to go to the website and take a look and if you have an Android phone, download the app and try it out. Also, talk to your students and if they have an android phone, help them to download it and get them to try it out. Since this project is still in development, they are very open to feedback from users to help them improve it in the future.