App Review: iTunes U

 iTunes U

(Currently Free) 

Basics: iTunes U has LOTS of curriculum material created by educators categorized by subject area, submitting institution, and grade level.  All the material is vetted through the submitting organizations, mostly Colleges, Universities and K-12 Education groups.  There is a Beyond Campus area that also has materials from museums, libraries (think Library of Congress!), and other educationally minded organizations.  Best of all - all material is available for  FREE.

Educational Use: iTunes U is all about education as a majority of the information has been created by educational institutions.  Find the material needed to introduce, reinforce or supplement topics you are teaching about.  If you are in a situation where your students have the devices, as a teacher you can now push out the material you choose within iTunes U to the student devices using a common Apple Account (as long as students leave it logged into that account... Please note: don't share the account password with students as it is an account that works in the App Store, iTunes and iBooks!!)

Drawbacks in Education: The biggest drawback used to be that it was housed inside the iTunes Music Store.  But, now that it is available as a separate app on mobile devices it takes away the fears that tech departments had in having iTunes open to access iTunes U when in a controlled environment

Cross posted at WaffleBytes

iPod Touch Ideas and Tips for the Classroom

Kevin, at Kevin's Meandering Mind, recently wrote a post about his classroom set of iPod Touches. He pointed to Tom's Barrett's Ways to Use the iPod Touch and selected some of his favorite ideas from the presentation...

"I like the ideas of:

• Collaborative flashcards
• Collaborative stories
• Google surveys
• Type Drawing for visual stories (new one to me)
• Martian App allows you to create an alien (and then your partner has to draw a replica based on descriptive language)
• Story Kit for writing and publishing a book
• Using iPadio for interviews and sharing at our blog (hmmm — I will need a little iPod microphone, though)"

(via Kevin's Meandering Mind)

My personal favorites from Tom's presentation (slide #'s included) are...

• #3: Collaborative story building with Voice Memos
• #9: Creation of a mini listening center with a "Belkin RockStar"
• #16: Use of "Instapaper" for sharing articles
• #18: "Storykit" for creating a book
• #20: Probabilities and percentages with "iChoose"

Have you done something similar to the ideas above with iPod Touches in your classroom?