This is pretty cool. Apple is partnering with educational institutions and using iTunes as a mechanism to get educational content to a user’s mobile device such as an iPod or iPhone.
“Mobile learning” as it is dubbed, allows students to download content when it is convenient from a school-created website or from the iTunes Store. If the student is using an iPhone, they can discuss the content via chats, email, and social networks 24×7.
“Today’s students expect constant access to information—in the classroom and beyond. Which is why more and more faculty are using iTunes U to distribute digital lessons to their students. And now, with the 3.0 software update for iPhone and iPod touch, iTunes U is directly accessible over both cellular and Wi-Fi networks through the iTunes Store.”
Educational content is delivered in the form of a podcast. Podcasts can contain both audio and video which means that a lecture that contains both spoke as well as slideshow content can be integrated into a single download and automatically pushed to a subscribing student via iTunes.
Much if not all of the content from institutions like Yale, Oxford, and Wharton are free, so not only can students take advantage of this resource, but so can adults already in the workforce looking for a refresher from categories like Mathematics to Social Science, Humanities and beyond!
You can check out iTunes U here. (iTunes is required)