iTunesU and other university resources: A whole lot of sharing going on

June 7th, 2007

It’s been around for a bit, but I just discovered it.  Apple now offers iTunesU, podcast lectures and course materials from some of our finest institutions of higher learner. (They should work nicely in our high schools and on our ipods too.) Among the participating institutions are MIT, Arizona State University, Duke, Penn State, and UC Berkeley.

From the Apple page:

iTunes U has arrived, giving higher education institutions an ingenious way to get audio and video content out to their students. Presentations, performances, lectures, demonstrations, debates, tours, archival footage — school is about to become even more inspiring.

Just like the iTunes Store, the popularity of iTunes U has exploded. Already, more than half of the nation’s top 500 schools use it to distribute their digital content to students — or to the world. Any school can open all or part of its site to the public, from alumni to parents to anyone with a love of learning. iTunes U is transforming the way people learn on campus, off campus, and where there’s no campus at all.

Don’t forget The Research Channel, a portal more than 3000 shared educational videos, and the wonderful OER Commons, which provides shared curricular materials in multiple formats for K-16.


2.0, About learning, Video, podcasting | Comments (2)

Sharing student work

June 7th, 2007

I thought I’d share some of the media we’ve posted in the past couple of days.

George’s class got truly engaged in their Voice of Vocab podcasts. Much effort went into making these very short podcasts.

Interviews with these sometimes less-than-motivated students revealed that this assignment truly motivated them. They learned the technology and some of them emerged and functioned as clear leaders.  They wanted to be proud of the products they posted.  And, the students reported, they LEARNED those words!

It occurred to me that if others of you out there were also creating vocab podcasts, we could put them together as one big audio dictionary and study tool!

I also just posted the latest batch of our grammar learning objects. This semester’s student work includes:

These videos join a group of other media lessons I’ve been planning with the media production class and the Language Arts Department. I will share these new additions at the faculty inservices next week and promote their use as tools for all our teachers.

Please feel free to give us feedback or use these yourselves!

2.0, About learning, Video, podcasting | Comment (1)