Homeschooling Tip: iTunes U

iTunes U has had podcasts of college courses in the past, but is now featuring curricula for K-12, too:

For more than a year now, Apple's iTunes U has served as a repository of educational multimedia content and resources. While these materials have always been accessible to K-12 educators, the focus of the content has been primarily on post-secondary education. But through a new initiative launched by several state education agencies, along with the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA), K-12 now has its own home within iTunes U.

The initiative, which launched July 1, brings the creation of a K-12 destination to iTunes U, with a broad range of content from a number of state and district agencies--including Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Utah--as well as museums and other education-oriented institutions. As of the launch today, there are 11 sub-portals within the iTunes U K-12 destination.

The idea of the initiative, according to SETDA, is not only to bring state and district resources to K-12 educators within their own states, but to provide nationwide and global access to educational content, curricula, learning materials, news, best practices, and other resources.

"This comprehensive collection of quality digital content offers teachers and students a single location to access resources on topics from Florida history to the Navajo language to nano technologies," said Mary Ann Wolf, executive director of SETDA, in a statement released Tuesday at the NECC 2008 conference in Texas, where the initiative was unveiled. "Teachers can now access these resources in real-time to support teaching and learning. The new K-12 resources on iTunes U address the critical need to engage students through technology-based resources in the core curriculum areas."

For more information, hit that link above this snippet of the article.  For a free download of iTunes, head to the Apple Website.  (Warning: iTunes works best with a high-speed connection to the internet!)  There are tons of free podcasts (including video podcasts) that can be viewed right on your computer.  And you can even set up an iTunes account with an iTunes gift card (scroll down for instructions) so that you won't have to provide a credit card number (thereby preventing downloading that would wind up charging your credit card 99 cents at a time).

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