Education is deeply imbued in the Apple DNA. In Apple's early days, the education market served as a base from which it would grow from and, in the process, introduce many of us to personal computing as well as a new way of learning.

Similarly, the iPhone has the potential to change the dynamics of learning. The device's multi-touch display has not only reinvented and breathed new life into apps that had previously lived on other platforms, but has also spurred the creation of a new class of learning apps.

One of these apps is Mental Case, a flash card application available on both Mac OS X and the iPhone/iPod touch. At its very core, Mental Case's main goal is to facilitate the flash card creation and studying process.

If you've already got a degree or a little knowledge in programming and you're looking to get in on the iPhone app craze (or maybe you wish to write a Mac app -- many people still do) you may want to look at the University of Washington in Seattle. They are now offering a certificate program in iPhone and Cocoa development, which should teach you the basics of iPhone and Mac development in a mere 90 contact hours (three classes).

Ars reports that the program may be extended to an online offering next year. I'd imagine that would be quite popular far beyond the borders of the UW campus. The course itself was developed with a stellar cast of advisors, including developers from NewsGator and OMNI Group, plus experts from Microsoft, Google and Disney Interactive and is "already close to capacity" for this Fall.

While there are myriad books, websites and other resources for learning how to write Cocoa software, this appears to be the first continuing education certification program specifically tailored to writing iPhone apps. Yes, you can write Mac apps too, but I'm guessing the majority of attendees with have mobile dollar signs in their eyes.

[via Ars]

ScreenSteps 2.6 is out, and has added two very useful features: the ability to export to Microsoft Word or Pages, and the ability to embed videos into your documents for online publication. We've covered this screen-based documentation application since its initial release, and it continues to be a personal favorite for me and an incredibly efficient way to create and maintain documentation for clients, employees and users.

The video embedding is a huge deal for my workflow. I've found through years of working with clients that a PDF or online document and a video serve two very different audiences. Some folks, myself included, have a learning style that does not work with video tutorials. We require text and examples we can scan, search and bookmark. The other half are in a reverse situation; videos jibe with their learning style, but pages of text just cause a logjam in their brains. Ultimately, because I can rarely predict the learning style of a client, I end up creating both; documenting a procedure step-by-step, and then demonstrating it while I record the screen, using the manual I just created as a script. With ScreenSteps 2.6, I can now add a shorter video to each step or lesson, allowing me to serve both audiences a little more efficiently.

Embedding video is as easy as copying the embed code from any video service which provides it, choosing the Step > Set Video Embed Code menu option and pasting your code. At this point, the "video embed" is a PR-speak way of introducing a feature which really has much more advanced possibilities. Quite simply, this feature allows you to embed anything you want, and -- at least in HTML exports -- have it interpreted within the documentation as Javascript/HTML. I plan to use this freedom to embed bookmarks in my videos using YouTube's Javascript API. You can also use it to insert code examples with HTML pre and code tags. The sky's the limit.

On to the new export formats ... I really should say format, as it's a single option to export a Office Open XML format. This format can be read by and edited in most modern word processors, including Apple's Pages and Microsoft Word. As with ScreenSteps' other export formats, users can customize templates for their OOXML files, allowing strict adherence to standards within organizations with such requirements. It allows for some pretty darn good-looking Pages documents, too.

A trial version of ScreenSteps 2.6 is available for download from Blue Mango Learning Systems. See the product page for further details. Pricing comes in two levels: $39.95US for the standard version, or $59.95US for the Pro version (which is required for the video embedding and OOXML export features). As noted by the developers in the comments, video embedding works in both Standard and Pro versions.

Our friends over at Pixelmator have released a new update, and while it's not quite as big as their point versions, it does add a few new features and a nice online guide to the program. The main new feature in-app is a noise filter that allows users to add random specks and pixels to an image, creating a little more realism and mess to whatever shapes they're working on. But the bigger addition is out-of-app: they've created an online Learning database with tutorials, tips, and lessons on how to make the most of the image-editing app. There's actually quite a bit of stuff there now, from text and video tutorials to even third-party tutorials submitted by users. If you are interested in learning more about how to use Pixelmator, definitely give it a look. They've also updated the user manual, too, so if you haven't seen that in a while, that's worth checking out as well.

There are also a few performance updates and bugfixes -- here's the list if you want to check it for something you're interested in. I still don't see my personal issue on there: it seems like whenever I switch between the Spaces on my Mac that hold iTunes and Pixelmator, the OS doesn't want to stay put -- it keeps jumping back to the iTunes Space while I'm trying to work on Pixelmator. Of course that might be an iTunes issue, but hopefully the Pixelmator team is looking into it.

Other than that, it's still a great app for editing and resizing images, and at $59, is definitely cheaper and simpler than investing in a big Photoshop suite. The 1.4.1 update will show up automatically for current users, and the app can be downloaded as a free trial from their site.

It's no secret that the American economy is suffering, and many of us are experiencing the cold-water shock of abrupt career shifts and planned or unexpected part-timer-ification. Want to spark up your value to an employer, or gain some new skills to improve your freelance mojo? Adobe's free video tutorials may be right up your alley.

The library of CS3-centric tutorials is extensive, and covers most of the content that was delivered on DVD with the products. The CS4 section is a little thinner, and most of the demos are performed with the Windows versions of the apps, but the videos are still valuable for new feature info. Adobe's full training site covers paid and e-learning options for all the company's technologies, and of course there are many respected third parties offering training on the CS4 suite.

If you've got a favorite training resource, free or fee, let us know below.

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September. Read on for a timely app update useful for students.

PDF management app Papers has been bumped to version 1.8.5, bringing what the developers claim are 100 improvements. Top on the list is a new sharing feature called Papers Archives, which lets you share a PDF file and its associated metadata with a colleague.

Papers isn't for everyone. Instead, it's specifically designed for students and academics, particularly those who deal with a lot of scientific periodicals in the course of their research. It lets you search them, sort them (manually or using Smart Folders), find them on any one of 14 different online repositories, rate them, browse your library in tabs, and much more.

Papers costs $42 for a single-user license, but students qualify for a 40 per cent discount.

Do you make documentation? Do you constantly find yourself having to explain step-by-step procedures to do things on the Mac? BlueMango Learning Systems has been doing this stuff for a while, and the tedium eventually drove them to create their own tool to make things faster. That's innovation for you-- if you can't find a tool, build one (that's how Plasq wound up creating Skitch). Screensteps is truly handy for anyone needing to illustrate steps, like bloggers doing how-to's, all the way up to professional manual-makers. Scott got a quick demo on an excursion to Moscone West. Video after the jump.

The guys and gals over at our sister blog Engadget were keeping busy at the recent CES and have turned up some interesting products with a Mac angle. In the video above they're checking out a new music instruction software package called Guitar Wizard which works a lot like the Guitar Hero game (our coverage). The key difference is that Guitar Wizard uses a real guitar and actually teaches you something about playing. The kit consists of the software and a midi pickup which can be attached to your own guitar for $150, or you can get a kit that includes a guitar as well for $300. New songs will be downloadable at 99 cents each.

It's a sad fact that despite an ever-growing list of compatible goodies for the Mac, there are still some holdouts. I know there is often some hack for interfacing that wonky 90's-era plotter (thank you UNIX underpinnings), but there are a lot of apps out there we'd love to see native on the Mac, Parallels/Boot Camp/VMWare be danged. 3ds max and AutoCAD come to mind... And in the niche arena we've got Piano Hero. You can maybe guess what it does, but it's essentially Guitar Hero for a keyboard, without all the fancy graphics and immersing gameplay.

Now if you want a Mac version you'll have to help the developer buy a Mac to port the thing over. So far he's none too close to the over $700 he needs, but once he's got his mitts on a real-live Mac mini he promises a port within two months. After using everything from the Miracle Piano to the new Fisher-Price "I Can Play" piano, maybe this is worth a shot...

Thanks, Timm.

Buon Giorno. ¡Hola!. Guten tag. Of course, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in the country where the language is spoken. But that's not always a possibility, especially if you're working your way towards a trip or preparing for a move. If you're trying to learn a language in the new year, here are a few ways that Apple technology can help you work towards your goal.

Subscribe to a Language-learning Podcast. iTunes offers any number of podcasts that will help you learn new languages. A quick search on "language" turned up lessons for French, Japanese, Italian, Latin, Tibetan, Turkish, Gaelic and more. On the down side, clearly some of these podcasts are home brew. On the up side, the podcasts are free. You may want to try out several podcast providers before settling on your subscriptions.

Buy a learning audio book. The iTunes store offers a wide range of language courses in their audio book section. These courses are typically of a higher quality than the podcast ones, but they also cost quite a bit more. If your local library lets you, you may want to borrow language audio materials from their collections and use them with your iPod. Ripping policy varies by library, so make sure you know the rules before you rip.

Use OS X-compatible language-learning software. Many top-brand language packages like Berlitz now run on OS X as well as Windows. Interactive software can really help you master certain language skills like grammar via interactive lessons.

Take advantage of OS X's internationalization. OS X is particularly multi-language, multi-alphabet aware. If you're trying to learn new languages, take a few minutes to explore the International system settings pane with it's "input menu" virtual keyboards that will help you type in the language of your choice.

Sign up for a class. The success of iTunes U has made it possible to sign up any number of university and college courses. The use of iPods and podcasts are now so prevalent that Duke now offers an iPod-orientation course for all its language instructors. Unfortunately, some iTunes U courses require that you have an actual student ID for sign-up. (Stanford is one such university.) Some do not. Also unfortunately, you need to perform quite a lot of googling to find public iTunes U classes for any particular language, so be persistent. iTunes does not yet offer a specific iTunes U search engine.