Five Best History Podcasts

I was reminded last week of the huge treasure trove of goodies on iTunes. All for free. And all automatic downloads to your computer.

If you haven’t yet installed iTunes software, it’s okay. Travel over there, download the free software, come back here. I’m just gonna grab a Diet Pepsi. Tap the glass when you’re back.

Basically podcasts and iTunes U are user-created content that acts a lot like a TV show. Just like Grey’s Anatomy or The Big Bang Theory, every week (or day or month) you get a new episode. The content might be a history podcast from Williamsburg or a video of a economics lecture from Stanford.

Okay . . . pretty simple stuff but if you get stuck, head to the How To section on the iTunes site. They’ve got a couple of helpful videos for both podcasts and iTunes U goodies.

Once you have iTunes installed and opened, click on the iTunes Store. You can then select either Podcasts or iTunes U. This gives you the chance to browse through all of the different categories.But don’t be afraid to do a keyword search using the search box in the top right-hand corner.

When you find one (or more) that you like, simply click the icon and listen to samples of previous episodes. Then click Subscribe. The latest episode will begin to download and all future episodes will download automatically. You can also select earlier episodes.

Some sample podcasts and iTunes U episodes:

Williamsburg
Since 2005, “Past and Present” has taken you behind the scenes to meet interpreters, chefs, tradesmen, musicians, historians, curators, and more. We offer three versions of our podcast: one that’s audio-only, one that includes a slideshow, and a video podcast.

American Experience: PBS
On air and online, the series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that have shaped America’s past and present.

National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is the eighteenth museum of the Smithsonian Institution. It is the first national museum dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of Native Americans.

National Museum of American History: History Explorer
Features NMAH staff members discussing their work and projects here at the museum. Accompanying this series are teacher guides, work sheets and images for classroom use.

Cool Things in the Collection: Kansas Historical Society
An insider’s perspective on interesting objects selected by Curators at the Kansas Museum of History.

Okay . . . I said five but I couldn’t leave Deblina and Sarah off the list!

Stuff You Missed in History Class
Just what it says. Fun, energetic audio clips reviewing a wide range of topics

iPad app favorites: What you love

It’s been All iPads, All the Time for the last week.

We hosted a great iPads for Learning conference in our office last Tuesday, I spent Wednesday working with a small group of admin folks on integrating iPads into the classroom and was in South Carolina from Thursday to Sunday helping teachers with some iPad basics.

And during the entire week, people have been sharing their favorite apps. You can guess a few of them – Angry Birds, iBooks and Pages. But there are some I hadn’t heard of before that are pretty cool. I’ve pasted the quick list below. (A fast way to find out more about each of them is to do a Google search for each and include the word “itunes” in the search box.)

• Splashtop – remote access to your laptop
• Skype – video conferencing
• Loseit – diet app
• Finger Count – learning numbers
• Talking Lila – repeating avatar
• Appolicious – discover new apps
• Puppet Pals HD – fun digital story telling app
• Sums Stacker – fun early math app
• BrainPop – connects to Brainpop games
• Dropbox – online storage
• Story Kit – Awesome digital story telling
• Showme – create online reviews
• Tiger Woods 2012 – umm . . . golf
• Tower Madness – addictive, time-sucking fun
• Crazy Symon – iPad version of the 1980s Simon game
• Flipboard – magazine style reader for news, Facebook, Twitter
• Evernote – great note taker / saver
• Evernote Peek – based on Evernote, a fun content review app
• Starfall – the great website in app form
• AppAdvice – discover new apps
• iBooks – Apple’s e-book reader
• The Weather Channel – a channel for . . . that’s right, weather
• Shop Style – an app to help my wife spend money
• Angry Birds – perhaps the best app of all time
• Intro to Letters / Intro to Numbers – very cool early childhood learning app
• The Elements – awesome Periodic Table
• Essay Grader – fast way to score writing assignments
• Dragon Dictation – records audio and types it out
• Speak It: Text To Speech – records text and reads it outloud
• Tap to Talk – helpful autism app
• Motion Math – teach fractions
• Comic Life – a great digital story telling app
• Shmoop: Scarlet Letter – just one of the many Shmoop content review apps
• Civil War Today – follow Civil War events / people one day at a time
• Frog Dissection – cut up a frog without the smell
• Shakespeare in Bits: Romeo and Juliet – very cool lit app
• Stack the States – learn the states
• Stack the Countries – learn the countries
• A Christmas Carol – nice interactive book
• Book Creator – very useful ePub / digital story creator
• Common Core – the CC standards in app form
• Jack and the Beanstalk – interactive book
• Pages – Apple’s word processor
• Keynote – Apple’s presentation tool
• Lobster Diver – learn fractions and percents
• Write Essay – plan your writing project
• iTranslate – easy to use translator
• NumberLine – learn fractions, decimals and percentages

10 Best Apps for Social Studies Students

Lindsey Wright from the Online Schools people put together a nice list of mobile apps useful to social studies teachers and asked to post them here. Let me know what you think.

Smartphones and tablets have become some of the greatest tools for social studies and history classrooms. Programs or apps available for these devices are useful for more than killing time or listening to streaming music. They are advanced programs allowing individuals to carry out research, write dissertations, share information with users from around the world, and everything in between. Here are a few of the top mobile apps for social studies, history, economics, political science, and more.