Brian Bergstein of the AP recently reported that IBM plans to make a formal announcement of the Lotus Notes e-mail package for Apple’s portable devices—the iPhone and iPod touch— at its Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla., next week. The report also asserts that IBM will release Lotus Notes and the free Lotus Symphony “productivity” package - which includes documents, spreadsheets and other Microsoft Office-like software for Apple’s Macintosh computers.

Of course, the iPhone already connects users to Web-based e-mail services and to corporate e-mail sent over Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail platform; however, Bergstein reports that businesses rarely enable the setting that makes it possible. He suggests that if IBM, which counts 135 million Lotus users worldwide, can get companies to let their employees check Lotus e-mail on iPhones, the partnership could make Apple’s gadget more competitive with Research in Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and other business-targeted smart phones.

If true, the application will be the first official, third-party app. developed with Apple’s new iPhone SDK. An IBM spokesman seemingly confirmed the announcements by saying that Apple and IBM have, “a lot in common. We’re going to cross-pollinate.”

For more check out Bergstein’s full article.

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, Jeffrey Young suggests that the growing popularity of scholars’ appearances on YouTube and other video-sharing sites “may end up opening up the classroom and making teaching—which once took place behind closed doors—a more public art.”

Young reports that in the past few months, several colleges have signed agreements with the site to set up official “channels.” The University of California at Berkeley was the first, and the University of Southern California, the University of New South Wales, in Australia, and Vanderbilt University soon followed.

Adam Hochman, a product manager at Berkeley’s Learning Systems Group, reports that YouTube was surprised by how popular the colleges’ content has been; some lectures on Berkeley’s channel scored 100,000 viewers each, and people were sitting through the whole talks. Hochman asserts that some professors are “getting as many hits as you would find with some of the big media players.”

In many cases, the colleges were already offering the videos now on YouTube on their own Web sites or on Apple’s iTunes U, but college officials say that teaming up with YouTube is greatly expanding their audiences because so many people are drawn to the service already.

For more information, be sure to read the Chronicle’s full article or check out Open Culture’s post on the topic.

Campus Technology posted a new article today that discusses podcasting and education with Rice University’s Jeffrey Daniel Frey. In the article Linda Briggs posits a few of the most compelling and, thus, frequently asked questions concerning educational podcasting: “Is podcasting spreading like wildfire across campuses, or does it just seem like it? Can good podcasts on your school’s site boost enrollment? How can educators get started in podcasting on a budget? What’s the first rule to follow in considering whether or not to create a podcast?”

In response to these questions and others, Frey—the Web services manager for enterprise applications in the Information Technology Department at Rice—discusses some of the misconceptions about podcasting, as well as its potential for boosting recruiting efforts. Fry suggests the number one reason for podcasting is recruitment and enrollment, stating: “When you do a podcast and put it out there, [no matter who the intended audience is], potential students are looking at it and saying, oh yeah, that’s interesting.”

He asserts that a podcast can give a real sense of what it’s like to be at the university. People, who can’t visit every prospective school can go to a Web site and actually experience a university’s unique environment. Frey asserts that “when you hear a podcast with an actual faculty member’s voice, see a video in which you’re actually in a classroom, or tour a particular campus, it makes you feel a little more connected to the university.”

For more of Frey’s insight on podcasting in education, check out his blog and list of podcasting resources.

Today, Apple announced a major software upgrade for the iPod touch, adding five more mobile applications—Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes. The iPod touch software upgrade also includes new features such as Web Clips, a customizable home screen and, beginning today, the ability to watch iTunes Movie Rentals. New iPod touch products shipping from the factory will include the software upgrade, but existing iPod touch customers will have to purchase and download the software upgrade for $19.99 from iTunes.

Mail on iPod touch is a rich HTML email client that fetches email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics along with the text of the email. Users can configure Mail for Google’s Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, .Mac Mail or most POP or IMAP based mail services.

Maps on iPod touch features the ability to automatically find your current location using nearby Wi-Fi base stations and use it as a starting or ending point for directions or to find local points of interest. Users can get real-time traffic conditions, and view maps in map or satellite view, or a hybrid view, which combines map and satellite views so you can see major street names overlaid on satellite imagery.

Stocks and Weather allow users to access live stock and weather reports at their fingertips, and Notes lets you jot down information on-the-go using the intelligent keyboard.

Also, the iPod touch home screen can now be customized, allowing users to reorder and add new icons, with support for up to nine different home screens, which they can easily flick between.

The software upgrade for iPod touch—available immediately—brings the device even closer to its more expensive counterpart (the iPhone), which is good news for university administrators looking for affordable ways to get as many features as possible into the hands of faculty members and students.

For more info., checkout Apple’s official announcement of the upgrade.

Don’t miss the streaming video of Steve Jobs’ keynote from Macworld 2008 this afternoon at Apple.com. Apple has revised its home page with a teaser for Steve Jobs’ keynote, using the tagline “Something is in the air.” Apple traditionally posts a video version of keynotes a day or two after they occur, but this time a stream will be available today–Tuesday, Jan. 15th–soon after the keynote is over.

Google has contributed to this year’s Macworld by unveling a customized ‘iGoogle’ interface designed especially for the iPhone. The first version, which debuted at the beginning of December, offered mobile Safari-friendly access of search, Gmail, Calendar and Reader to the handset. The recent upgrade boosts speed, increases arrangement and options flexibility, adds automatic refresh to the Gmail inbox and brings iGoogle gadgets to the iPhone.

Google plans to roll out the improved UI to international versions of the iPhone, as well as other handsets “that offer similar usability and browser capabilities.” You can access the new version by visiting www.google.com on your iPhone. Now, if they’d only @#$%* add editing of Google Docs on the iPhone, we’d be set!

Read more at My iTablet.

Eduventures—a company committed to collaborative educational research and consulting—recently released statistics from a research project conducted to explore the views, usage and future demand/ownership of various technologies and brands among 18- to 24-year-old students enrolled full-time at a four-year college or university.

The findings indicate that 79 percent of student participants own a laptop compared to 49 percent who own a desktop, while 30 percent own both. The research also found that most students spend up to five hours a day on the Internet with a fairly even distribution between personal and school use. Email remains the most popular means of communication for all school purposes.

Eduventures’ research also indicates that the number of students who own converged mobile devices (PDAs with or without phones) is on the rise. Of course, these statistics only confirm what we’ve been discussing for quite some time now: the combination of mobility and convergence seems to be crucial to the success of educational technology now and in the future.

Read more about Eduventures’ research in Campus Technology.

It’s hard to believe that just a year ago the iPhone made its debut … and with Macworld 2008 just days away, it’s exciting to imagine what’s next. Over the past few months, iThinkEd has joined educators around the world in discussing what convergence will bring to teaching and learning, so we thought we’d kick off the new year by sharing a few of our hopes and dreams for the future of the iPhone in higher ed….

1. iTunes U Push. Over the past few months, we’ve been none to subtle about calling for iPhone integration with iTunes U. Full Wi-Fi access to subscriptions pushed directly to the device would finally make educational podcasting a killer app. We hope the complete podcast directory will soon be available on the iPhone, but for a growing number of colleges and universities, iTunes U is a strategic priority, and we’re hoping it’s a priority for Apple, too.
2. Universal Playlists. Another quirk with iTunes U is the disappearance of content from a course playlist. The iPhone separates audio from video files, creating some confusion for new users. Universal playlists would unify subscribed content by subject rather than type, and we think that would be awfully handy for classroom use. In a perfect world, the playlist would even import PDF handouts added to iTunes U… Mmmmmm.
3. Next-Generation Clicker. Many textbook companies are currently bundling single-function, infrared “clickers” with their books that allow on-the-spot polling and assessment of students. However, these devices and their accompanying software typically don’t allow assessments to be randomized or adapted to particular groups, and their management is often difficult in large-section classes. The benefits of instant assessment for higher education are just too compelling to ignore, though, and having a device that allows randomization and greater flexibility would be a significant improvement for classroom instruction. (more…)