Special Assignment #2

Part 1

Kahn Academy: The Kahn Academy is free for anyone, anywhere. You sign in using your Facebook or Google Account. For students, the Kahn Academy offers an extensive video library, practice exercises,and assessments for each subject. You create a custom profile in which you earn points and badges to measure your progress. You begin earning points and badges as soon as you log in. For the coaches, teachers and parents who have students using Kahn Academy it offers 2400 videos in the following subjects: K-12 math, science: biology, chemistry and physics, and a little finance and history. It allows coaches to have access to what their students are learning and doing.
You can start and go at your own pace in any subject in Kahn Academy. You may choose to start at the beginning level or jump right to the harder more challenging material. And when you are doing practice problems, all the problems are randomly generated so you never run out of practice material. A record is kept of what you watch and what problems you do and all the data is kept private except to the student and the coach. You can easily view your profile and see if you reached your goal. Teachers have a class profile and they can access all their students data and get a summary of class performance as well as view each individual student's profile.
iTunes U: iTunes U is a free place to distribute information to students and faculty as well as others all over the world. Any type of digital content can be downloaded and viewed form any Mac, PC, iPod, or iPhone. Teachers can use any audio and video content to add to their lectures. The content becomes available through iTunes, which most students are already using. Students can download audio or video one at a time or subscribe to an entire course and the content will automatically be downloaded when it becomes available. The content is accessible to all students even students with disabilities.
Your institution creates a custom profile and can start posting right away. Apple provides free iTunes U sites with templates you customize. You can use RSS to easily add and remove content. Your institution can choose to make your content available to just your faculty or choose to make it available in the iTunes store to the entire world. Having public content allows your school to gain recognition as well as share their knowledge with others. Having a profile is also a way for parents to stay connected to what their child is doing in class. All profiles are password protected so only members associated with your campus can access the information.
TED: TED is a collection of the best talks for the TED conferences held throughout the year. TED brings people together from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. There are over 900 talks and more are added each week. All talks are available in English and many are offered in other languages as well. All talks are released to be freely shared and re-posted. There are all different types of talks separated into different themes, such as: technology, entertainment, design, business, and science. It is very simple, you choose what you want to listen to and you click the link to listen.

Part 2
Kahn Academy: Each video is about ten minutes long and is designed for viewing on a computer. When you choose a lesson to view the material is explained to you and examples of problems are demonstrated. It is like a blackboard in the classroom with the teacher writing her notes on it. And in the practice problems, each problem can be broken down for you step by step.
Kahn Academy would be a good tool for any math teacher from elementary school basic math all the way to calculus. It could also be used by science teachers and some history teachers. Their is a test preparation section which could benefit any teacher who has to give the SAT. Teachers could use Kahn Academy for extra practice work or for extra test preparation for their students.
iTunesU: There is more then 350,000 free lectures, videos and films from all over the world offered on iTunes U. Teachers can use iTunes U to distribute schedules, syllabi, lectures, outlines, study guides, notes, maps, and even entire books. This would be a good tool for any teacher to use. They can download their own content to their profile and make it available to their students anywhere, anytime. This is an advantage when a student is absent. They will always have access to what they missed at school, if the teacher downloads it to the class profile.
TED: The talks on TED cover many topics. Some of the videos are long and others are extremely short. Teachers could use TED as a tool to add a little more to their lectures. If a teacher wants to show their students information from a source other then a textbook this would be a good tool to use.

Part 3
Kahn Academy: I viewed the lesson Subtracting Fractions. This lesson explained how to solve a subtraction fraction problem and showed how to simplify your answer. The lesson solved the problem in number format and also demonstrated using a drawing.
iTunes U: I viewed the lecture Element or Subset from the Math 111: Principles of Mathematics page by Harrisburg Area Community College. This lesson explained what an element is and what a subset is. It demonstrated how the answers with six examples.
TED: I viewed the talk by Richard St. John 8 Secrets of Success. This talk is rated inspiring, funny and informative. He was once asked the question "What leads to success?" and he could not answer the question. So over the years he came up with eight guidelines for success: passion, work, good, practice, focus, serve, ideas, and persist. Richard St. John says follow these guidelines and you will succeed.

Part 4
Kahn Academy: I am planning on being an elementary teacher so when I become a teacher I could use Kahn Academy to provide extra assignments for my students in math. I could use the collections: Arithmetic and Developmental Math, and Developmental Math 2. I also may be able to use a little of the science collections such as the chemistry lesson about the atom. I would also be able to use the SAT preparation section to help prepare my students for their SAT exam.
iTunes U: As a teacher I could use iTunes U to create a profile for my class. This would allow me to post study guides and lectures, as well as a weekly class schedule. My students would be able to view my lectures form anywhere. If a student is absent they would not have to miss the day's lectures.
TED: As an elementary school teacher I do not think I would be able to use TED very often, but I might could find a few talks that I could add to my lectures to make them more interesting.

Part 5
I am very surprised with the information this assignment has provided me with. I had never heard of any of the three of these websites before Dr. Strange assigned us this assignment. I had no clue I could go online and find actual, view-able lessons in subjects such as math and science. I also thought iTunes was just for downloading music and videos to your iPod or iPhone. I did not know they offered a free site for educators to download their own content for their students to view. I find this information valuable and plan to use it as a future teacher.