Hi NIFL-Tech community,

     Last week I bought an iPod Touch and today I had success putting  
some freerice.com screencasts (which I called "cooked rice") onto the  
iPod.

     To suit the needs of different learners, I created two versions  
of the same screencast -- one with a nice, slow real-time spoken voice  
rate (which I call "slower") and one with a sped up spoken voice rate  
(which I call "faster.")

     This free learning material could be helpful to a learner waiting  
for a public bus (or school bus), waiting at a doctor's office, etc.   
It could also be used well on donated computers.

     You can download the two files from this link.

        http://bit.ly/ojw8V

     As you'll notice, there's better audio quality in the slower  
QuickTime, but the faster one seems fairly intelligible.

       I'm working on putting several thousand freerice synonyms into  
a spreadsheet so that they can be printed on paper and studied using  
no electronic device at all. After that, I'd like to add foreign  
language synonyms to this spreadsheet, so that foreign language  
learners can study freerice off-line.

       If you have the time and interest to help with either of these,  
thanks for sending me an email off-list. I'm not looking for major  
commitments of time -- just 2 or 3 per month (or more if you're able.)

        I might end up managing this collaborative project in Google  
Wave or perhaps in Ning. Does anyone have ideas which tool might be  
more appropriate? I already have a Wave account and could set up a  
Ning pretty quickly.

         Phil Shapiro
         Washington DC

-- 
Phil Shapiro  pshapiro at his.com
http://www.his.com/pshapiro/briefbio.html
http://www.twitter.com/philshapiro
http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html

"Wisdom begins with wonder." - Socrates
"Learning happens thru gentleness."