There’s been some discussion at the College about iTunes University. We have been thinking about the challenges of distributing audio and video content, and iTunes U provides a "free" way to store and distribute that content. Michael Feldstein at SUNY Learning Network has been discussing this issue as well, so it is clear there is a broader interest across the university system.

For my courses, the uses are clear. iTunes could make it easy for my students to podcast and distribute videos they produce. I can do those things here, but this way I wouldn’t have to worry about storing media. I’m not much into formal lecturing, so I’m not sure of the value for me in terms of recording and distributing lectures. However I think that would be a signficant interest for some of my colleagues.

More interesting from my perspective is what new developments might result down the road if/when we start to integrate downloadable, on-demand content into our curriculum.

But before we get there, we need to figure out how to get started. In the past when we’ve discussed the idea of requiring students to have laptops, it was apparently thought that there weren’t enough courses (or faculty) that would integrate the technology to legitimize requiring such a purchase. While we wouldn’t have to require every student to purchase an iPod, it’s clear from the iTunes U application that some significant purchase of iPods is part of the bargain. In order to do this, we would have to make that legitimate that expense for our students, just like we would for laptops.

In some cases we can simply "recommend" purchase. After all, the iTunes U website and its files are accessible from a Mac or PC. Students don’t need an iPod to use it.  But somehow that missses the point, at least for what Apple is trying to accomplish. So I think we need to require the purchase for a good number of students, perhaps by program, and then integrate iTunes U use throughout the program’s curriculum. From there, we could move horizontally through general education classes where the purchase would be recommended.