Serendipity35

Update: Version 5   June 2008    view earlier versions

Apple has now added universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia to the iTunes U list of schools now offering content. iTunes U now has more than 60 colleges around the world (mostly in North America) plus other types of educational institutions sharing audio & video through the iTunes U portal.

Since Apple launched the version of the iTunes Music Store with an iTunes U link and listed the original 16 colleges last year (NJIT was one of the initial 16 schools), schools have been slower to join the list.Perhaps that was why they opened up the iTunes U area to "educational" organizations that are not universities this year. You can find those offerings in the "Beyond Campus" area including the NY Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and others.

The updated, unofficial, incomplete list below is of schools that have partnered with Apple, Inc. to use iTunes U.

If you know of another school that has a public presence on iTunes U, please add a link with a comment at the bottom of this entry and I'll add it to the list.

NOTE: These are public sites, not those schools that have podcasts available in the iTunes Music Store, but only as password-protected content for their own students.

To open these sites requires the free iTunes software which allows you free access to play or download content. Apple has a simple video on the basics of using iTunes for podcasts.

1. NJIT on iTunes U information & launch page or open NJIT directly in iTunes


2. Bowdoin College


3. Penn State on iTunes U


4. Stanford on iTunes U


5. Duke University's Fuqua School of Business


6. Harvard Extension School


7. University of California at Berkeley


8. Sacramento State


9. Arizona State University


10. Texas A&M


11. Ross School of Business at U of Michigan


12. Santa Monica College


13. University of California at Berkeley


14. Queens University (Canada)


15. Wellesley College


16. Georgia College and State University


17. Rollins College


18. Radford College


19. Gordon College


20. Lafayette College


21. Virginia Tech


22. Guilford Tech Community College


23. Concordia Seminary


24. Otis College of Art & Design


25. College of William & Mary


26. Villanova University


27. Florida Tech


28. Ohlone College


29. Texas Tech


30. Wilkes University


31. Seattle Pacific University


32. Abilene Christian University


33. Reformed Theological Seminary


34. Southwestern College


35. University of Michigan


36. Vanderbilt University


37. New Mexico State University


38. Agnes Scott College


39. Aquinas Institute of Theology


40. East Tennessee State University


41. University of California - Davis


42. University of Washington


43. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee


44. Clemson


45. School of the Visual Arts (NY)


46. Griffith University


47. The Australian National University


48. The University of Western Australia


49. UCL - London's Global University


50. Trinity College - Dublin


51. University of Melbourne


52. University of Otago


53. University of New South Wales - Sydney


54. The Open University - UK


55. Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne


56. American Military University


57. Miami Dade College


58. Michigan Tech


59. Central Washington University


60. Loyola Marymount University


61. New York Law School


62. Rock Valley College


63. University of Houston

I welcome your comments below with the URLs to other schools with public access to iTunes U.

This list was first posted in January 2007 when I worked at NJIT and we launched NJIT on iTunes. Though I am no longer at NJIT or involved in iTunes U, I try to keep up on schools that offer a public face in iTunes U both to see what they are offering and to download materials. Although a lot of content is specific to a school (admissions, sports etc.), there are also public course materials and speakers that have a much broader appeal and real educational value.

Free the knowledge!

As a high school student and undergrad, I was a cineaste and hoped to go to film school. That didn't happen, but I read a lot about film, took film courses and watched a lot of movies anywhere they were showing in New York & New Jersey. I still try to keep up via Netflix and go to the movies just about every week, but the past year, what has really gotten me back into thinking, reading and talking about films has been podcasts.There are a lot of podcasts available about movies, films, and cinema - and, yes, there is a difference.

First up is "The Treatment" with Elvis Mitchell. It's one of a bunch of great podcasts available from KCRW. In Hollywood speak, a treatment is a brief overview of a script that people sometimes use to pitch a movie idea. Mitchell gets big guns into the studio - directors, writers, actors - and they talk widely about film. He's got the background. He was film critic at The New York Times.

It's a professional podcast, as you would expect knowing the host and KCRW. I like that the shows run a comfortable half hour (though when they are really interesting, you wish for an hour).

Next up is Movies 101. It's kind of Ebert & Roeper style (whatever happened to their podcast show?) with three hosts. Bob Glatzer is a film critic and Dan Webster is a Spokane film critic, and Mary Pat Treuthart is a law professor, film buff and Dan's wife. This show also comes out of a public radio (KPBX and KSFC). The shows run under 30 minutes and cover a few films that are in the theaters.

If you want some short (around 5 minutes), insightful reviews of current films, subscribe to the film reviews at KCRW. The reviewer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic from The Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern.

"Out of the Past" is a monthly podcast with an academic sound and feel. The hosts, Clute & Edwards, have focused their aim at film noir. They are academics and their analysis is academic. But they don't sound like radio show "hosts" and the show's production is somewhere below pro and above homegrown. The shows run around 30-60 minutes.

The mix of films is diverse. You'd expect films like The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity and such - maybe not immediately Blade Runner, It's A Wonderful Life or Batman Begins. Good stuff.

The podcasts from the Film Forum in New York City. This one takes me back. A long time ago I used to attend film showings at the Film Forum. These podcasts vary widely. Some are just a brief intro to the film being shown (Coming Home introduced by producer Jerome Hellman or Mary Beth Hurt's odd 5 minute intro to Woody Allen's Interiors) to great free form film stories (Peter Bogdanovich intros his Targets with a tribute to Boris Karloff; Isabella Rossellini on Blue Velvet).

Watching the Directors is a podcast has been going since May 2006 and has 40+ episodes online. This is cool homegrown podcast done by a couple. Joe & Melissa watch lots of movies, have taken some film courses and apparently love making lists. Each show focuses on a director (Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Scorsese, George Lucas, Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Akira Kurosawa...) Some shows also have a companion "Ten Quiz" for that director. Not a whole lot of information on the website about what it's all about, but listen to a few episodes and you'll catch on.

I starting to think of them as this nice couple you know who are really good company at the movies. You watch a movie, then you go out afterwards to get something to eat and have great conversations about what you watched.

They are not pros. That's part of the appeal. Their site says, "Our kids' college fund is going to Netflix." (Unfortunately, the contribution link to PayPal didn't work.) And they also do a podcast called "Watching Theology" that looks at a single film through a theological/philosophical lens.

Many film courses are learning in the dark, but you can join these and listen on a walk in the sun or while you prep the garden for your Jersey tomatoes.

A year ago, Apple launched a new version of the iTunes Music Store which included an iTunes U link and 16 colleges whose podcasts can be accessed directly from the iTunes application. Happily, NJIT was one of the initial "sweet 16" schools.Since then, they have also opened up the iTunes U area to "educational" organizations that are not universities. You can find podcasts in the "Beyond Campus" area from the NY Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and others.

My updated list of schools below have partnered with Apple, Inc. to use iTunes U. This list was first posted in January 2007 when we launched our own instance of NJIT on iTunes.

Though I am no longer at NJIT or involved in iTunes U, I try to keep up on schools that offer a public face in iTunes U both to see what they are offering and to download materials. Although a lot of content is specific to a school (admissions, sports etc.), there are also public course materials and speakers that have a much broader appeal and real educational value.

This list is not official, definitive or complete - but I'll keep at it here until one that is appears.

If you know of a school that has a public presence on iTunes U, please add a link with a comment at the bottom of this entry and I'll add it to the list. NOTE: These are public sites, not those schools that have podcasts available in the iTunes Music Store but only as password-protected content for their own students. Of course, all these sites will require the free iTunes software to access and play or download content.

 

1. NJIT on iTunes U information & launch page or open directly in iTunes


2. Bowdoin College


3. Penn State on iTunes U


4. Stanford on iTunes U


5. Duke Digital Initiative - Open Duke University's Fuqua School of Business


6. Harvard Extension School


7. University of California at Berkeley


8. Sacramento State - open in iTunes


9. Arizona State University


10. Texas A&M


11. Ross School of Business at U of Michigan


12. Santa Monica College


13. University of California at Berkeley


14. Queens University (Canada)


15. Wellesley College


16. Georgia College and State University


17. Rollins College


18. Radford College - open Radford


19. Gordon College - open Gordon College


20. Lafayette College


21. Virginia Tech


22. Guilford Tech Community College


23. Concordia Seminary


24. Otis College of Art & Design


25. College of William & Mary


26. Villanova University


27. Florida Tech


28. Ohlone College


29. Texas Tech


30. Wilkes University


31. Seattle Pacific University


32. Abilene Christian University


33. Reformed Theological Seminary


34. Southwestern College


35. University of Michigan


36. Vanderbilt University


37. New Mexico State University


38. Agnes Scott College


39. Aquinas Institute of Theology


40. East Tennessee State University


41. UC - Davis


42. University of Washington


43. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Free the knowledge!

Click here for another update to this post. 

 

I'm no longer involved with iTunes U as I was when we built our site (very successfully, I might add) at NJIT. I've written here a number of times about podcasting and I think it's an important learning tool and a significant marketing tool too for a school to use.

I'd love to see my new home at Passaic County Community College get into that area, but it's not part of my current job. If your school is considering trying to enter iTunes U, I can suggest the seminars being offered by Apple that look at the IT aspects of becoming a participating school. For smaller institutions like PCCC, the size and capabilities of your IT staff might be the biggest factor in successfully making it into iTunes U.

The Apple seminars (which cover other educational areas too, so search by PRODUCT/iTunes U for the current offerings) on iTunes U are listed right now as being in NY, KY & IL and have a cost of $149.

Their description:

Understand the power of iTunes U. Learn hands-on how you can get started delivering educational content—class lectures, interviews, videos, and other course materials—that students can access in the familiar iTunes environment anytime, anywhere with their iPod, Mac, or PC. iTunes U is designed as a service that enables schools to easily manage and deliver a broad range of audio, video, and PDF content to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the public.

The content is set to include four IT/admin areas that I would agree are critical to this process:

1. Initial iTunes U set-up, site activation and preference tracking
2. iTunes U site planning and templates
3. Building a transfer script for administrative access
4. Understanding and using identifiers and credentials

If you need more than just IT information, I'll recommend the on-demand 3 webinar series from Higher Ed Experts that I participated in last fall. The three programs cover the biggest areas a school needs to address outside of IT support.

• "Podcasting 101: How to record and produce your podcasts with ease" is the technical & production side of podcasting. Micah Ovadia, from the University of Cincinnati is the author of "PoducateMe, Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education," and he'll discuss what you need to know to get your institution started with podcasting. He shares a simple plan to get your institution ready to plan, record, produce and publish its first podcasts in 30 days.
• Dennis Miller (Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania) covers marketing and how podcasts can become powerful tools to engage students and their parents. He shares best practices and good tips to make sure your podcasts find their audience.
• My session is called "To be or not to be an iTunes U(niversity)" and I addressed what it takes to join Apple iTunes U (and if you even should consider applying to Apple ) and how we planned and implemented NJIT on iTunes U in 2007. I also talk about our podcasting efforts before iTunes U and use of podcasting outside the iTunes platform. There are ways you might optimize your presence there, and in other platforms. NJIT was one of the original sixteen schools to be featured by Apple in iTunes U in May 2007.