Catholic Schools tune into iTunes U for anywhere, anytime education
Australian Catholic Schools are taking up the challenge to provide unparalleled opportunities for students to access high powered technology to connect wirelessly to virtual learning environments anywhere, anytime. Catholic Education is one of the first institutions in Australia to tap into the potential of sharing resources from a free and portable education centre called iTunesU. Technology is part of our lives in the classroom, in the home and in the workplace. From now on Australian Catholic Schools can publish teaching and learning resources on iTunes U.
iTunes U has been around since 2007 for Universities to upload lectures and has grown to allow State and Catholic Education systems, museums and other public entities to upload their work
So what is iTunes U? Have a have a look at this introduction from teachertube …
One of my colleagues read my St Mary’s Bowraville post on the different ways we hope to utilise iTouch iPods in an educational setting and sent me this information on a new section called ’ iTunesU’ I found thousands of audio and media files, flashcards, notes, surveys, quizzes for K-12 resources and university lecturers are available for sharing in one convenient place right there in the iTunes Store. Students and teachers can easily gain access by using their computer, iPhone or iTouch Apple ID account. Furthermore a school’s educational team can create and manage their own learning environment by uploading specific files to iTunes U to reach either their own school students or share with millions of students around the world. So it makes sense to tap into this learning in hand environment that is so familiar to our students today.
Teaching and learning has now punched through the boundaries of the classroom and the structures of the school environment by continually striving to enhance the delivery of flexible and accessible tools for both teahers and students. Significant shift has been observed in the way students can engage in 24/7 learning and assessment in MOODLE, iTunes and now iTUnesU. Learning anywhere, anytime is transforming the ways in which children learn outside their classrooms across the globe. Anywhere, anytime in the classroom, on the bus or train, jogging, or just chilling out on a Tahitian holiday!
Thanks Andrew! I have been able to tap into this resource and add iTunesU to my school’s iTouch program. iTunesU does not need expensive equipment to run it or an expensive account to access it – just time and innovative teachers! I managed to download a few “How to…” videos to trial with the teachers and students next term – looking forward to that learning curve!
I must admit I was a bit skeptical when my MAD friend, Jacki, emailed me this link on Google Wave suggesting that this could well be the new email!
So I followed the link to find a unique paradigm of new ways in which we can communicate in a mixture of conversation and documents with rich text, photos, maps and videos in real time collaboration. Google describes this as a new online tool and not a mere service.
Take a look at this demonstration on how you can use 15 of the features of Google Wave but there is more information to be found on http://wave.google.com
I didn’t realise that Email has been around for about 40 years! Maybe so but I discovered its potential about 10-12 years ago. Now it could be considered to be a little outdated. In a recent tech article, the Wall Street Journal reflected on the possibility that the reign of emailing is coming to an end.
At the moment Google Wave is currently available as a limited release to a select few. I can’t use the Google Wave service unless I have been invited by a friend. Anyone who has tried Google Wave please feel free to post a comment – I’d love to hear your impressions. Anyway, my friends don’t seem to have access so I had to rely on sneak previews of this Australian developed on U-Tube
I can definitely see this on-line tool to be fully utilised by the MAD group to collaborate and plan mentoring in ICT! We have used Google Docs before but Google Wave seems to be a vast improvement and so innovative to connect on-line.
Sorry – have you heard of MAD? Who are and what is MAD? Well that’s a whole ‘nuther story! Basically we call ourselves the Mature Academic Dames who try to get together for a weekend during the year to mentor each other in new ICT innovation we have discovered or latest find from any in-services that we have attended. And we are MAD enough to work and laugh and share from 8am till 11pm. Thanks to Google, MAD could be Waving soon!
Q: What has been described as “wonderful, shocking, awesome and threatening” all at the same time?
(response to this U-Tube video)
A: The Social Media Revolution.
Where are we headed with our communications? We are hurtling there at an incredible rate. I’d suggest we educators buckle up and take in as much as we can on the journey! It is becoming an awesome phenomena.
I have just been texting a friend of mine, Helen, who has an apartment overlooking the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s September 23rd, the morning of the big red dust storm in Sydney. I asked her what her view was like and she texted back that she was sitting at the Gold Coast airport waiting for a flight back to Sydney. So with a mixture of my access to the morning news; Twitter, Facebook, online news, phone pics and phone texts, we conversed and joked and updated each other on our news. I noticed my Facebook and Twitter friends were also stranded or in the dust storm.
What a powerful way to connect during this eerie Spring Equinox!
Within 30 minutes of this cyber conversation with Helen, I had an inspiration and uploaded this u-tube video to demonstrate how amazing the whole social networking has become in the world today. What does this availability of conversation methods mean for us in the classroom? How can we utilise this Social Media Revolution in our curriculum? Any thoughts?
Recently I attended Hall Jackson’s Free Open Source Software session at the 6th Annual IWB Conference in Sydney this year. He is currently working for Keepad Interactive but has extensive experience as a primary trained educator , as a learning technology integrator within primary and secondary schools in Australia, the UK and Japan. His blog is a must to add to your resource list and is always a great read: http://halljackson.blogspot.com/#ixzz0RbESMlWq.
Hall Jackson promoted the term “SOFTWARE RESILIENCE’ in his session. I am now more keenly aware of what this terminology can achieve in my work since then. It simply means that we should encouraging students to have the flexibility and open mindset to problem solve their way through a new piece of software. Instead of teaching about specific software packages, we should be targeting problem solving skills to help them discover the options of each new piece of software they encounter.
Wikipedia states that “Free and open-source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (free/libre/open-source software) is software that is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code.”
Just look at the potential of using Open Source Software in this concept map presented by Wikipedia:
In following the link to Helen’s presentation, I came across other e-portfolios and thought this Yr 8 Student Portfolio could stimulate ideas for you – any examples out there of Primary Student’s work?
What do you think of this min lab to introduce the concept of mobile learning to students? This little cart can store AND charge up to 40 iPod devices. Not only that the cart can give you the opportunity to sync 20 iPod devices at one time to the same computer.. You can choose a ready-to-go solution or build your own.
If you settle on the iPod touch, then your students will be able to store and carry a complete media reference library with them in any agile learning space. With the iTouch it is possible to store up to 10 hours of video podcasts, lectures, lab demonstrations, speeches, interviews, museum and excursion tours, documentaries. Students can connect via Wi-Fi and utilise an incredible array of applications for education.
In school we need students to be creative and to collaboratively research and communicate their findings in an logical and methodical manner. How do students see ICT assisting in their learning? Here are a few students giving valuable feedback.
Oh … I love TWITTER! One of my fellow tweeters alerted me to this FABULOUS wiki created by Andrew Churches who comes from Kristen School in Albany, Auckland. He is the Curriculum Manager of Computer Studies and the ICT PD Cluster Co-director.
In his Wiki Andrew, who describes himself as a teacher and an ICT enthusiast, has created a ‘revised – revised’ Blooms Taxonomy as a practical guide for the classroom practitioner. He calls it BLOOMS DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY.
Andrew states in his synopsis on the Blooms Digital Technology page of his wiki “http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/” that “Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy isn’t about the tools or technologies rather it is about using these to facilitate learning. Outcomes on rubrics are measured by competence of use and most importantly the quality of the process or product. For example. Bookmarking a resource is of no value if the resource is inappropriate or worthless.”
This is just a small taste of the ideas that Andrew’s wiki can generate for you. Please visit his site for more enlightenment. It is a positve step into 21st Century teaching and learning in the digital world.
Pandia Powersearch is a one-stop database for a full list of search engines and directories. Select one of the categories from the list on this link to find the best Internet search tools for your specific needs.
I saw this demonstration at the IWB net conference in Sydney in August this year. I found the link from my notes: it comes from a great website called ‘TED‘ It is really worth a look.
On this video clip from TED, MIT grad student David Merrill demonstrates Siftables. These are child block-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?
