Open Source Content/Virtual School:
http://thejournal.com/Articles/2011/03/02/Open-Content-in-Practice.aspx?Page=1
- What Is OPEN CONTENT? www.opencontent.org/definition
- Open High School Website: www.openhighschool.org
Why Open Source Textbooks? (Video): http://davidwees.com/content/why-textbooks-should-be-open-source
Audiobook Creator: I had a couple of emails this week from teachers wanting to take some audiobooks they had and bread or divide them up into more manageable chunks. The books they have are all one audio file or all one single mp3, which tends to be difficult to navigate for students if they are required to, for example, open their books to chapter 3. So, you could potentially break it up into chapters yourself, but you’d have to do it manually, which might take some time. I think I blogged about these tools back in 2008, but now’s as good a time as ever to bring them up again.
- For PC : Free mp3 to m4b converter: www.freeipodsoftware.com/index.php
- For Mac:
- Audiobook Builder ($9.95): www.splasm.com/audiobookbuilder
- Make Bookmarkable (FREE): http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=makebookmarkable
Alternatively, You could import the file into Audacity (free) and chop it up manually into chapters or whatever… exporting each chuck as a separate audio file. This is free and very doable, but will take a little time and also require you to learn to use Audacity, which isn’t hard, but is a small learning curve. Probably a good thing to learn anyway, in my opinion.
PATINS Tech Expo 2011!
Still Time To Register: www.patinsproject.com/#techexpo
April 13, 2011
9am – 4pm
Free Lunch, Talk w/Assistive Tech Vendors, Attend Vendor Presentations and Earn PGP Points!
Tags: apps, audiobook, audiobook builder, bookmark, bookmarkable, chapters, Immersive, iPad, m4b, mp3, online, open source, school, Second Life, tech expo, text, textbook, virtual
By: Laurel Blough on March 11, 2011 at 9:00 pm
I wonder if the Open High School of Utah really is an answer to the structure and format of traditional school. Could this be where we’re going?
)
(rhetorical question, but comments are welcome
By: danielgmcnulty on March 17, 2011 at 11:19 am
This high school in Utah is not an isolated example. There aren’t a ton, but there are several virtual schools. I think this is absolutely where we are headed unless funding for public schools somehow becomes less of an issue. Restricting teaching and learning to the 4 walls of a brick & mortar classroom seems to deny everything that is happening outside of the K-12 world with regard to how “work” is being defined, where people are choosing to receive and respond to their content and the ‘on-the-go’ learning enabled by the mobile devices available to us now. Of course, there will always be a need for individual and face-to-face instruction for certain students, subjects, etc. I HOPE we don’t ever lose sight of that. However, there’s A LOT of teaching and learning that can happen very effectively w/out a physical building, in my opinion.