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iTunes U graduates into separate iOS app
Announced today at Apple's education event, iTunes U -- a long-standing feature of the iTunes Store -- is now a separate application (universal) for iOS devices running iOS 5. Since 2006, iTunes U has been a way to electronically distribute class lectures. Both Berkeley and Stanford have released courses on iTunes U, as have many other schools. Now, the iTunes U app offers lectures from a wide variety of high-powered schools, plus more. Apple demonstrated a course overview, required credits, a syllabus, and office hours this morning. We also saw a place for posts from teachers so there's an easy way to update the class, and a spot where students can take notes. Tapping on an assignment automagically takes a student straight to the specific materials in iBooks, and there's even a task list for students to cross off items as they are completed. iTunes U is a free application for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, available now.
Apple event this month to focus on iTunes U and textbook initiative
Yesterday, TUAW reported on a rumored Apple media event to be held in New York City later this month. Shortly after that post blessed the Interwebs, TUAW followed up with further detail from sister site TechCrunch. The word from the TechCrunchers was that the January event will focus on iBooks and publishing. Now Fox & Friends anchor Clayton Morris is quoting "sources involved" and saying that the event will focus on iTunes University, education, and an electronic textbook initiative. Morris provided the following bullet points on his blog: This event will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education I learned of the event back in September when it was originally scheduled for late Fall in New York but it was eventually postponed. The event will be in New York rather than in the Silicon Valley because New York is more centrally located for textbook and publishing. This initiative has been in the making for years. The announcement will be small in size but large in scope: a big announcement in a demure space. I expect at least two large project announcements as they relate to Apple in education. Steve Jobs was intinimately involved with this project before his passing. He gave a hat tip to the textbook side of this project in the Isaacson biography. This will not be a hardware-related announcement. TUAW will be keeping an eye on the news about this event and we'll make sure you hear about as soon as we do.
iTunes U tops 600 million downloads
Launched in 2007, iTunes U is an Apple service that lets teachers distribute classroom content to students easily over the Internet. It's available at over 1,000 universities in 123 countries. In the four years since launch, the program can boast of 600 million downloads, with more than 300 million occurring in the last year. Unlike many online services that are US-centric, iTunes U is decidedly international with 60% of users residing outside the US. Among the participating schools, Open University and Stanford University are at the top of the download list with over 30 million downloads each. The bulk of the downloads are done on a desktop, but a growing percentage (30%) are gaining access to content from an iOS device.
iTunes U goes International, eh
Queens University of Kingston, Ontario is the first non-United-Statesian university to begin offering downloadable content via the iTunes music store. Yesterday, Queens joined Stanford, Duke, and Berkeley as part of iTunes U, Apple's free hosted service for colleges and universities. The Queens University site offers "public lectures, debates, sports highlights and more"--or at least it plans to. Current highlights include convocation lectures (which I am sure are just as fascinating as the material suggests--isn't it interesting that some of the first content caters to administration vanity?), lectures from EECS assistant professor Tom Dean, and material from CFRC, the student-run radio station.Thanks, Ben.
