Université de Montréal has just launched the first french-speaking iTunes U portal in Canada. Currently, most of the content found there are podcasts, saved from courses.
iTunes University is a section of Apple’s iTunes Music store, only avalaible through their proprietary software, and allows universities to make course contents avalaible to the general public, without being formally a student of the university. Apple provides free hosting for the multimedia content, their logic behind it is that iTunes University drives adoption of the iTunes software, and at the same time, sales of their iPods. For universities, it’s a great way to build a brand and reach prospective students. I am sure it’s also a fantastic way for students to skip classes to deepen their understanding of a course.
MIT opencourseware
iTunes University received rave reviews in the United States, and is now used by most “prestigious” universities, the most known being MIT’s opencourseware; but I have also seen great content in UC Berkeley’s. In Canada, Université de Montréal is the 2nd to adopt it, as Queen’s University was the first to have their portal. I see this as a great way to use technology for education. Congrats, UdeM!
Comments
Smilingtriton January 11, 2008
SmTt
Heri January 11, 2008
Brian January 30, 2008
Heri January 30, 2008
Smilingtriton’s comment was that iTunes is Apple’s proprietary software, you can’t see its source code or modify it. so you have to follow their way.
nevertheless, it’s a great product. i like iTunes U too