Creating iTunesU courses and how to use iTunesU in your classroom

Today was a very busy class indeed!  My group and I worked very hard to finish up our iTunesU course on Reluctant Readers and Apps to use for Reluctant Readers.  Here is a really great image that we found detailing some of the apps that are available for reluctant readers.  Some of them you may already know, but I thought they may be helpful.  The image can be found here.


I really enjoyed creating this iTunesU course, as it’s intention is to be used in the future as part of a school PLC.  I am so looking forward to some time to share this with my new colleagues this coming year as (it is my understanding) that each school in the AVRSB is getting a cart of iPads for school use, which would be about a class set.  I have not been informed yet of any PD that we will be doing on the iPads, and this iTunesU course will be a good introduction and resource for teachers to have who may not have a lot of apps yet in their repertoire.  I think we do a disservice to technology by not allowing educators, the people who are supposed to be the facilitators of the technology, time to explore, investigate and examine the potential that lies in the board supported technology.  I hope that my iTunesU course will help with this next year! J
I really enjoyed creating this iTunesU course as I think that there is a lot of potential to where I could use iTunesU in the future.  As I will be teaching a 2/3 class next year, I am not sure how applicable iTunesU would be without support for students using it (although my video below may have changed my mind!), but I can certainly see it being appropriate to use with students who may spend some time out of the classroom working on other outcomes.  For example, this past year I had 2 students who needed a lot of support and often spent about 1 hour a day working specifically with their Educational Assistant on reading and writing remediation and social skills.  I could see iTunesU being extremely beneficial in this situation, as I could create assignments for students, with appropriate apps, which they could complete.  This makes my teacher expectations very clear-cut for both the students and the support worker. 

I also love that all of your content is in one place and you don’t have to move it, find it or dig it out the next time you would like to do the same unit.  It may even be beneficial to create my own course content, like unit planning, in iTunesU, because then all appropriate apps and material are all in one place and the next year, all I have to do is find my course again and there is will all be!  I also love that you can use and draw from the iTunesU courses of other educators, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time!  I can't wait to start hunting for units that would be applicable for my 2/3's next year!  I love the possibilities, and am sure now that I have had some experience with iTunesU that new ideas of how to use iTunesU in my classroom will arise. 
Here is a cool video I found about how a teacher uses iTunesU in her Grade 4 classroom.  Some of it may be a repeat, but it is interesting to see how teachers are using this technology in their classrooms!

The link the video called REMC Connected Educator Series: All In One Place - iTunes U in the Classroom (Rebecca Wildman) can be found here (because for some reason I can't search it properly to add it).
It was interesting to see how one educator used google maps, screen shot feature, GoogleEarth and a comic app to create interesting and engaging projects for students.  GoogleEarth is a program that actually has a great deal of potential and one that I have explored a bit in the past.  I love that you can pin places and add comments, which is a really great feature when doing Social Studies and Canadian Geography.  Not to mention, street view is just so cool to play with!  Kids love GoogleEarth and many of my students often choose to “play” GoogleEarth rather than computer games when given the chance.  It is so rewarding to be able to offer educational, engaging learning experiences for children using fun apps!