iTunes U

After researching online for websites about iTunes U, I found this simple, but very informative video on YouTube, YouTube. This video tells you all about iTunes U and gives detailed instructions on how to find what you are looking for at the iTunes Store. It is free and available to anyone, not just students. Along with downloading to your computer, you can also sync podcasts to your iPod or iPhone. Some of the ITunes U sources are universities, PBS stations and museums. What a great technological concept Apple has come up with again! I first heard of iTunes U this semester in my EDM 310 class with Professor Averitt. For one of my class assignments, I downloaded several podcasts via iTunes U. After listening to these, I was convinced that using iTunes U, along with podcasts in the classroom, would be an effective teaching tool.

I then decided to check out Stanford University, and see how they were using iTunes U. They include a restricted site for Stanford students, faculty and academic technology staff. But it also has a public iTunes U site for the entire community. (Hopefully iTunes U will be available for South Alabama students in the near future.) Standord’s restricted site provides curriculum information via CourseWork-linked iTunes sites. The faculty can request an iTunes CourseWork site for their course(s). This allows the instructor to create a private iTunes site visible only to registered CourseWork users in a particular class. Administrators and instructors can upload and edit the content of a course, while students are only allowed to preview and download course content. I predict it will be available to middle and high schools across the country by the time I graduate. iTunes U will certainly be a very useful application in the K-12 teaching field.