Free learning tools

Wednesday and Thursday played out much nicer than the two previous days.  Ahhh, relief.  Training today was nothing short of awesome.  We had a meeting with an apple representative to teach us how to use our computers in our classroom.

I'd like to share a few highlights from the training.  I am also going to do something that I usually don't care to do, use branded names.  So the advertising that I do today will be in the name of free self improvement. 

Itunes.  Not just for music.  Apparently there are a lot of things that one can do with itunes other than download music.  One of them is podcasts.  Podcasts are short audio or video segments that are recorded and then uploaded to the internet for people to download.  Open up itunes, click on store and then click on the podcast tab.  Today we looked at grammar lessons, math help, and even short snippets from popular radio broadcasts.

ItunesU.  While in the ITunes store, there is something called ITunesU, click on the tab on top.  Here one can take college courses from a number of colleges.  Of course, you can't get credit, but if you have a student that is interested in something, direct him or her there.  It would also be nice to learn a skill or even see if a particular class is of interest before taking.  Plus, who wouldn't want to say this...  Oh, I have taken that class from Stanford you know, just for fun... 

Lit2go.  Type it into a search engine.  Online books!  The rep. mentioned that he visited a small villiage in Alaska and came across a panicked student.  She had to read a book for a class.  Apparently, the student sturggled with reading and didn't have the money to purchase a copy of an audio version of the text.  The two went to the website and found the book for free.  Unlike a similar website, these books are read by a single person.

Khan Academy.  There is a guy out there that is creating videos of just about everything (lots of math and science).  If you have some time look this up.  Too bad this kind of stuff had wasn't available to me when I was younger, school would have been a tad easier.  Shoot, even in college this information would have helped quite a bit (too bad I didn't come across it until now--though I think I remember seeing something about it on TV).

Lastly, all of the sites that I mentioned above except for the audio books have reviews on the videos and audio.  If something seems hokey, scroll down to see what other people say if you don't want to waste time.

Yay for free stuff.  Today was just too cool to keep to myself.  Enjoy.

Today's snowfall.  It resembled  freeze dried ice cream or the insides of a beanbag chair.  The dark object is a rock.