Learning no longer happens only at a desk. Students now expect constant access to information, no matter where they are. Which is exactly why more and more faculty are using iTunes U to distribute digital lessons to their students.

An Introduction to iTunes U

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An Introduction to iTunes U

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Mobile Learning

Students are already coming to school with portable computers and devices such as an iPhone and iPod in hand. So they’re used to gathering information on the web, getting their email, watching lectures, getting directions, or pinpointing exactly where their friends are — anytime and anywhere.

Now they can learn anytime and anywhere, too. As educators all over the world are discovering, mobile learning works. Students devour engaging, customized curricula when it’s delivered on the iPod or iPhone. It’s a familiar and essential part of their lives. Audio and video podcasts let students study at their own pace, wherever and whenever they want.

How Apple Makes It Happen

From portable computers and mobile devices to software and servers to iTunes U, Apple makes all the technology you need to make mobile learning a reality for your students.

Teachers are using iLife and iWork applications on the Mac to create customized educational materials, such as language lessons that students can listen to on the bus or at home. And with the help of tools like Podcast Producer and Wiki Server — both of which come with Mac OS X Server — IT professionals at your school can help you produce and distribute all kinds of multimedia content on iTunes U or a class wiki. Once your classroom presentations and lectures have been captured and published, students can download them from iTunes. Then they can transfer them to iPod or iPhone and take it all with them. And suddenly, any place — a café, a bus stop — can be a place to learn.

Apple Hardware for Mobile Learning

iPod, iPhone, and the Mac. The go-to devices for mobile learning.

MacBook Family

From the economical white MacBook to the powerful-but-portable MacBook Pro, Apple offers plenty of notebook choices for students, teachers, administrators, and IT professionals. All come with iLife and Mac OS X. Using the included Boot Camp, you can run Windows, too. And every new Mac comes with Wi-Fi, an iSight video camera, and a microphone built in, so collaborating — and screen sharing on the go — is effortless. Which MacBook are you?

iPod

The world’s most popular music player does so much more than just play music. Educators and students can keep all their audio and video podcasts organized in playlists, where they’re easy to find and ready to enjoy. They can store hundreds of hours of audio and up to 16 hours of video programming on an iPod nano, and even more on the 120GB iPod classic. And both models offer sharp, beautiful displays — a 2-inch widescreen display on iPod nano and a vivid 2.5-inch display on iPod classic. Learn more

iPod touch

This is the best iPod ever, and with its 3.5-inch widescreen display, it’s a great way to watch video podcasts and lectures from iTunes U. iPod touch also has built-in Wi-Fi, which finds networks automatically so you can easily do research and collaborate on projects. And with the thousands of educational applications available on the App Store, there’s almost no limit to what you can do with an iPod touch. Learn more

iPhone

It’s a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device, all in one product. iPhone 3G delivers everything iPod touch offers — Multi-Touch technology, a stunning 3.5-inch widescreen display, a built-in accelerometer, Wi-Fi, mobile applications — and 3G wireless technology that provides Internet access on AT&T’s remarkably fast 3G network, even when you’re far from a Wi-Fi hotspot. Learn more

iPhone Applications

iPhone also benefits from thousands of third-party web applications and native iPhone applications, many of which are made specifically for education — all available on the App Store. And the free iPhone Developer University Program can help you and your students learn how to create your own applications. Learn more

iTunes U

iTunes U, part of the iTunes Store, is possibly the world’s greatest collection of free educational media available to students, teachers, and lifelong learners. With over 100,000 educational audio and video files available, iTunes U* has quickly become the engine for the mobile learning movement. It puts the power of the iTunes Store in the hands of qualifying universities so they can distribute their educational media to their students or to the world.

iTunes U: Accessible by all students

iTunes U is fully accessible to students with different learning styles or disabilities. So your digital content is available to all students.
Learn more about Apple and accessibility

Internal iTunes U Site

If you want to allow access only to members of your campus, you can host your own password-protected iTunes U site. This enables you to create and manage the content available on the site, while controlling who can access and download resources from it.

Because administrative access is integrated with Apple ID, it’s easy to set up and manage your site, and you can add more Apple ID accounts to share site management responsibilities. Or you can integrate with your identity management systems to scale out management and access to hundreds or thousands of users. By default, iTunes U supports Shibboleth (the standards-based, open source authentication system), or you can create customized transfer scripts to integrate with popular authentication systems, including Kerberos, LDAP, Active Directory, and others.

Apple also provides templates you can customize with your own branding, and you can use tools such as RSS to easily add and remove content. To ensure compatibility, the media you provide should be in: AAC, MP3, MPEG-4, or PDF format. Learn more

External iTunes U Site

You also have the option of making your course material available to all iTunes visitors — alongside content created by Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, PBS stations, and some of the most creative K-12 state projects in the country. External sites are also a great recruitment tool, offering an inexpensive way to explain the benefits your school has to offer. With an open iTunes U presence, your school will gain recognition — and a competitive edge — as you reach out and share your knowledge with the world.

Media should be in AAC, MP3, MPEG-4, or PDF format.

As with internal sites, administrative access is controlled via Apple ID, and you can add more accounts to share site management responsibilities. Apple templates let you incorporate your own branding, and you can request browse/search integration to make it easier for visitors to find your content on iTunes and to extend the reach of the content you post.

External iTunes U sites are not just available to universities. Many museums, public broadcasting stations, and state education organizations also make education content available to the world through iTunes U in the iTunes Store.

A Mix of Both

Many schools choose to create both an internal site with a greater amount of course materials available exclusively to enrolled students with a user account and password; and an external site that provides a publicly accessible subset of those resources.