Recently, on the QIAT list (a group of professionals who discuss Assistive Technology), a new web resource was introduced. The resource is called Tar Heel Reader. This is a simple to use service which allows you to create eBooks in minutes. The pictures are from the photo site Flickr.com. The books can be looked at online, or downloaded to powerpoint or a Adobe flash player. If you read the book online you can have it read by 3 different voices. Over 180 books are already available online in a variety of topics. Check it out and start creating!!
BTW - There is a code you will need to join and start writing books (to keep out the spammers). If you are interested, please leave me a comment and I'll give you the code.
Thank you to Samuel Sennott for sharing this information with all of us.
Many Thanks,
ReplyDeleteI was unable to access the Tar Heel reader via another website, I would really appriciate the log on details. Many thanks in advance
Amanda
Amanda - Please e-mail me directly through my profile, I don't want to give the code out on the internet.
ReplyDeletePatrick
The tar heel reader really is am amazing site - so simple, so elegant, yet to powerful.
ReplyDeleteLatin teachers discovered it only a couple of weeks ago, and there are now over 50 reviewed Latin beginning readers on the site.
Indeed, apart from English, Latin is the only language on the Tar Heel Site with a proper review process set up.
The Tar Heel site sits well in a growing suite of web 2.0 applications that have been colonised by Latin teachers over the past 2 years or so, as the article below describes: The use of Tar Heel reader is described near the end of the article:
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WEB 2.0 and Latin
Web 2.0 is leading to a massive resurgence in Latin across the globe: A few months ago, an interview with Evan Millner was published in ‘Iris’ magazine. Evan had just started the Latinum podcast, and the project seemed quaint, and intriguing. Little were we, or he, to know how successful the Latinum podcast would turn out to be. Evan produced latinum.mypodcast.com for free. His podcast has revolutionised Latin study, by making a full course in Latin accessible in even remote parts of the globe, at no cost. In 2 years, it has had over 4 million episodes downloaded.
The killer web 2.0 app, is the Tar Heel Reader, which burst into the consciousness of Latin teachers in early May 2009. Laura Gibbs, once again, was instrumental in getting this application up and running for Latin teachers. The site was started by the Univerity of North Carolina, as a means of easy publishing, to produce books for teenage kids with learning disabilities. These kids have different needs – they need adult topics in their readers – love, sex romance, but the level still needs to be at the ‘See John, See” stage.
Latin teachers have rapidly colonised the site, which now has its own Latin section. The books are reviewed, and get a gold star if they pass the test of having correct grammar. There are already over 50 beginning illustrated Latin readers - all written for free - have been published on the site. Within weeks, there will be dozens more - a burst of publishing in Latin not seen for over a hundred years.
“At present, it is really hard for a beginning student of Latin to find anything to read – most materials are pitched at far too high a level. There are parents all over the world, who would love to start their kids off with Latin. Now, using the resources on the Tar Heel Site, they can.”
These various web 2.0 projects, taken together, have marvellous synergy – a podcast course, an all-Latin communication site, a library of fun books in Latin for kids aged 1 and up, and collaborative sites for teachers and academics. Laura’s collection of resources, in particular, is extremely rich, both for students, and teachers.
Together, these are already having a dramatic effect on students studying the language, especially for the many thousands across the globe who do not have access to actual live teachers, but who are studying the language with online aids, and old fashioned text-books. (Latin teachers are a bit thin on the ground in most of the world). Web 2.0 is enabling the Classics world to build itself up, to pull itself up by its bootstraps, to effectively create a platform to revive Latin.
What is astonishing, is that all this activity has occurred in only 2 years - and it is the power of web 2.0 that has enabled it. The Classics world is by nature very conservative, and slow moving. However, as we have shown here, all it takes is a very small group of determined people with a shared vision, to initiate major change.
Some people have derided the internet and Web 2.0 as being terrible, as though our culture will be destroyed by some lazy Californian geeks, and the corrosive 'Cult of the Amateur'. When it comes to Latin, this is evidently not the case. “Everyone”, said Socrates, “is eloquent in the area of their own expertise.” Web 2.0 is allowing collaboration on an unprecedented scale. It isn't pulling people apart, it is throwing them together, allowing for enormous bursts of creativity.
Freeman subsequently became very extreme in his teaching on healing and created storms of controversy by disparaging medical institutions, doctors and medicine. His faith-formula theology has caused him to teach that God is obligated to heal every disease and infirmity if the believer were to response in genuine faith. acim
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