Thumann Resources

21st Century ideas to help facilitate good teaching and learning.

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Foreign Languages

Posted by lthumann on November 2, 2008

This is the sixth post in a series I have been blogging about on using the iPod iTouch in the classroom. In response to Day 2 of Steve Dembo’s 30 Day’s to Being a Better Blogger I took a look at what brings most readers to Thumann Resources and it turns out it’s my posts on the iTouch and iPhone applications.

I was most interested in which of the posts brought the most visitors. At no surprise to me, iTouch the Future…I Teach - Music had the most hits of the first 5 posts in the series. Listed below are the remaining four posts listed in order from greatest number of hits to least.

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Myself

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Math

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Science

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Social Studies

Since August was the last time I posted anything about using iTouches in the classroom, I thought I might get back on track a bit with what brings many readers to my blog. I have been saving a few really fantastic sites to use in foreign language or ELL classes. Take a look.

The first app is The Talking Phrase Book. If you look at this application on the web, it will work, but it will not give you a link to any audio. If you look at it on your iTouch or iPhone, it will give you a link to play the audio once you select to convert the English to French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish. Just watch this video tutorial to see how easy it is to use this convenient application.

Next take a look at Ask A Word. This is an all-in-one Spellcheck - Thesaurus - Dictionary - Encyclopedia, that is simple to use. It’s worth giving it a try.

You may also want to take a look at the Mobile Translator. This site allows you to take any Spanish word or phrase and translate it into one of ten languages including Korean, Russian and German.

Lastly, please visit Tech Dictionary. I got a real kick out of this site. I think it should be used as a resource at Cyber Safety workshops for parents. Not only can you look up any technology term (I tried CSS, shell and XML) but you can dive deep into their databases of IM-Chat abbreviations and Emoticon symbol combinations. This is the most extensive list I have come across in a long time.

Some of my favorites as seen below:

SFLA = Stupid Four Letter Acronym

( <> .. <> ) = Alienated

As usual, you can see the notes I put together for this post in a published Google Doc.

Posted in CMSCE, iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

I don’t know about you, but…

Posted by lthumann on September 12, 2008

I’ve been feeling like I can’t catch up. Every time I think I’ve completed my list on Remember the Milk, I have five more items to add.

Bear in mind - I’m not complaining. The fact is that more educators than ever before are looking to learn how to improve teaching and learning using technology.

THIS IS FANTASTIC!

But there are only so many hours in the day and days in the week. Building personal and professional learning networks takes time.

It’s been a long week. It just started raining about 10 minutes ago. I have 25 minutes left to work until my children come home from school. But I wanted to end my day, and my week, thinking about three things that make my job so enjoyable and rewarding.

Betty Napoli from Galloway Township Public Schools sent me this diagram earlier this week. Betty was enrolled in my iPods in Education workshop this past summer. Her district has purchased 3 iPod Learning Labs with 60 iPod Classics and 60 Voice Recorders. She put together this plan based on her knowledge of the technology, what she gained from the workshop, and the discussion that she and I had with her colleagues after the session ended.image by Betty Napolis, Galloway Township Public Schools

image by Betty Napolis, Galloway Township Public Schools

An administrator from a different district hired me to teach an after school series on using collaborative docs with her staff. She had never used Google Docs before, so when I typed up the session descriptions for her, I typed them in a - you guesssed it - Google Doc. She has a Google Account now and she has since edited  the shared document.

And, finally, the last thing that I want to think about before I go into the weekend. A weekend that will be spent going to two birthday parties, shopping for ballet slippers and tap shoes, working on our Everyday Math books, trying to finish a grant I’m writing, spending time with my husband and two girls, maybe relaxing a bit is this.

I have a PLN that listens and responds. I share what I learn with them and they share with me.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Posted in Google, PLN, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

iTouch the Future…I Teach - Social Studies

Posted by lthumann on August 12, 2008

ThumannResources - Google Sites

ThumannResources - Google Sites

You don’t have 20 years of teaching experience if you’ve been teaching the same lesson the same way for 20 years. You have to revisit and revise every time you teach a lesson because there is ALWAYS room for improvement.

I’ve decided that one of the things that I can do to improve the professional development that I offer is to move some of my resources from my old eBoards to my new wiki. As I’m doing this I’m adding some of my presentations to SlideShare and of course editing and updating many of them as well.

On August 13, I’ll be teaching my iPods in Education workshop again. This is one of my favorite sessions. I always look forward to sharing all that you can do with the iPod and I have had a great time blogging about all the resource that are available to educators and students that have access to iPod Touches.

There are a few resources I’d like to share for Social Studies, including some for the upcoming Presidential Election. Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you’ve found any others.

iCandidate Poll

This is a set of 20 questions that you answer to determine which of our two Presidential Candidates is a better match for your political opnions based on your answers.

iPodia

This site is Wikipedia for the iPhone / iTouch. iPodia does promise a new version is coming out soon, but I did not have a problem with the current version. Everything that you see on Wikipedia on the regular-sized monitor looks very nice and is readable on their mobile site.

Speedymarks.com offers some interactive quizzes for the iTouch. Pictured to the right is the quiz for the location of the United States. The user can select whether they be given 2, 3 or 4 choices to respond to the red highlighted area.

This same website also provides a Country Quiz. The user has a half dozen or so regions to choose from before they have to respond to questions specific to that region.

Once again, I’ve published the Google Doc that I used to gather the Social Studies resources for this post. Don’t forget you can also view my wiki on iPods in Education at http://sites.google.com/site/thumannresources/ or click on the Google Sites button under my picture on the right side of your monitor.

Posted in iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

What’s New with iTunes U

Posted by lthumann on June 15, 2008

This past Friday I attended the end of the year monthly meeting for NJECC. Members are asked to bring guests with them to present success stories of technology integration from the school year. We saw some great projects spanning the WII Fit to Scratch to Tablet PCs to the folks I brought from North Plainfield School District who spoke about their iPod and Podcasting initiative.

I Tweeted some new links while I was there. But what I couldn’t summarize in 140 characters or less was what Dave Marra from Apple demonstrated for us.

Among some other amazing tips and tricks Dave shared, he took us through a tour of iTunes U. I admit that I wasn’t as familiar with it’s offerings as I thought I was because I couldn’t wait to get home to starting searching around.

When you get the chance, take a look at these areas in iTunes U to see if there’s anything you’d like to subscribe to and remember – it’s all free.

·         Under the Categories section on the left, you’ll find a link for “Teaching and Education”
Within this category you will find so many wonderful things to view and listen to as an educator.

1.    Teaching and Learning – UMBC’s Hybrid Teaching Workshop

2.     Educational Policy from Stanford University

3.     Duke’s Digital Initiative

4.     Tech-Ease: Classroom Tech Help includes video podcasts on Inspiration, Wikis, Blackboard, podcasting as well as many others.

·         Under the Categories section, you’ll find links for Science, Mathematics, History and Fine Arts as well as other areas of interest. Check them out too.

·         iTunes U is SEARCHABLE!! Try it. I typed “Twitter” in the search box and got back 50 related podcasts.

·         Scroll down to the bottom left and you’ll find a link for the “Beyond Campus” category. Take the time to check these out. Here’s a few.

1.     Little Kids Rock – nonprofit organization that provides it’s curriculum and musical instruments to schools in need. They have guitar and drum lessons posted in podcast format as well as other videocasts.

2.    The New York Public Library – provides literature podcasts from the author visits as well as a business series on credit management and marketing.  They even have a teen program called “Turn It Up @ The Library” which you can subscribe to.

3.     American Public Media – offers a podcasts on the 2008 Election Issues

Take some time to explore and sync some these podcasts to your iPod or MP3 player. Have fun.

 

Posted in CMSCE, iTouch | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »