iTunes U

Things have changed a little at iTunes U. Apple is now offering the ability to create a limited amount of courses that you can share without making them public or applying for an institutional license. This is different from having to go through the process of applying for publication after creating a course and making sure all your ducks were in a row first. This change now gives you the opportunity to work within iTunes U to get a feel for the platform and know if it really is for you.

To help you get started Apple is offering in French and English, a 3-part webcast series.
The first of the series will be held on December 12. You'll hear an overview of iTunes U  and learn about some of the powerful features of the iTunes app. You'll see a course from a student's perspective and have the opportunity to ask experts, live during the webcast, how educators are teaching with iTunes U.

Skills for Learning 2.0

I love this quote from Steve Wheeler about how learning has changed:
"...from passive to active, from individual to social and from consumer to producer..."

Read Wheeler's blog post here on digital learning and how the 4 C's are the new skills for literacy.

Pros and Cons of Social Media

There is so much discussion about how or even whether to use social media in the classroom. "Free range" schools are popping up all over the place. As educators, don't we have an obligation to help students navigate their way through a consistently growing online presence? Here's an interesting article from our friends at TeachThought: Read here.

Educateurs-francophone

Our friend Darren Kuropatwa posts a newspaper for francophone educators. He uses Paper.li
You can subscribe directly from his newspaper or follow him on Twitter. Check him out!

http://paper.li/dkuropatwa/educateurs-francophone

Learnist

Learnist makes it super easy to share what you know by curating the web. You can use video, blogs, books, docs, images, or anything on the web to explain a concept.
Once entering the site, find out how to get started by typing "learnist" into the search window.

Popplet

Have you tried Popplet?  It's a great web tool for idea mapping and idea collaborating (there is also an app for iOS). You can add maps, video, images and of course text and drawings. Popplet creates a link for sharing and collaborating in realtime. You can create 5 free Popplets or subscribe for unlimited.

100 of the Best Twitter Tools

If you love Twitter...or even if you don't, check out the post at  www.teachthought.com,  100 of the Best Twitter Tools. Teachthought has organized the tools into categories.
My favourite so far for classroom use is in the "Groups" section (scroll down to #75-86): paper.li. Paper.li lets you create a daily newspaper from your Twitter feeds. There are other great classroom ideas under "Twitters", "Games", and "News and Research".

Future Learning

French Podcasts

Those teaching French Second Language might be interested in Linguistica 360 where you can download "News in Slow French" podcasts from iTunes for free. Each podcast consists of  Weekly News, French grammar, and French expressions, and much more in simplified French at a slow pace so that learners can understand almost every word and sentence. The French is Parisian, but the news is current and global.
For information on Linguistica 360 and lessons in French and Spanish go to: http://linguistica360.com/

TED-Ed

TED-Ed is worth checking out. Educational videos have been animated and lessons with quizzes and links for digging deeper have been attached. Any YouTube video can be "flipped" into this kind of lesson. Check out the intro video here.

QR Codes

Lately we've been discussing all the ways we can use QR codes in the classroom: Scavenger hunts, video instruction on work sheets, for sharing documents...so many ways. One of my favourites is creating an audio message. By dropping an audio file into your Dropbox public folder, you can generate a link. Create a QR code with that url and voila, you have embedded an audio message. These can be used as commentary beside art pieces, or pronunciation for new words, or new languages - well you get the idea.
Here is a link to 50 ways to use QR codes.

edX

Check out MIT's and Harvard's edX
edX - Home

iPads in Education

8 Great Free Web Resources Focused on Using the iPad in Education