iTunes University and Podcasting
This concept of “extended learning” impacts directly on how courses themselves are being taught now—and will be taught in the future. We are beginning to see some glimpses of what’s ahead: a blended learning environment featuring large lectures and small discussions, a mix of traditional papers and multimedia creations, and live and downloaded lectures. Podcasting represents a particularly flexible and dynamic tool for delivering lectures of various length and format that can be accessed at a student’s will.
Podcasts are essentially “recordings” of lectures that can be formatted and revisited on an iPod or computer. Podcasts are just one part of the larger design of iTunes U, a multimedia, creative, and thoroughly portable classroom, featuring prerecorded lectures specifically designed for a class by the professor, classroom discussions, multimedia presentations, demonstrations and downloadable lectures from the iTunes U site, and archived resources (commencement addresses, talks by visiting scholars, lectures by other professors teaching courses on similar topics).
Now based on the same technology and commands that power its music downloading engine, iTunesU has achieved an important and growing presence at around 250 universities nationwide. We believe that the launching of iTunes U at Boston University in 2008 is of crucial importance. Taken together, the various component (and constantly updated) tools of iTunes BU can help integrate and unify the various elements of a course. It will stimulate a flexible and blended learning environment that maximizes the familiar iTunes software in new ways and enables the student to interact with the entire dimension of the class in a portable manner that transcends traditional schedules.
For information in having your courses at BU podcasted, please contact Dr. Swapna Kumar, Digital Learning Assistant to the Associate Provost <swpnac@bu.edu>
