Apple releases iTunes U iOS app: "
Another major announcement today from Apple’s education-based media event is the release of iTunes U—formerly only an educational podcast section within the iTunes Store—as an official iOS app. According to Apple’s Eddy Cue, who made the announcement on behalf of the company, over 1,000 universities currently make use of iTunes U, which has seen over 700,000,000 total downloads since its launch.
The popularity of iTunes U among educators and students alike has prompted Apple to bring the platform onto iDevices as a universal iOS app, allowing access to all of iTunes U’s free content—consisting mostly of audio and video lectures—to everyone with an iDevice. However, beyond just the traditional iTunes U content, this new iOS app expands the service even further by allowing teachers to create and manage courses right from within the app. This gives teachers the ability to distribute lectures, assignments, handouts, quizzes, etc. to their students, all through this new iTunes U app.
Teachers create their courses through a web-based tool called the “iTunes U Course Manager,” and have a great deal of control over their course’s content, who has access to the content, and much more. Apple hosts all of the course components and makes it available to the general public, although teachers have the option of restricting access to their students only.
iTunes U for iOS has kicked off to a great start with 100+ iOS-optimized courses already available within the new app, and a lot more is definitely on the way. This app is certainly revolutionizing how students are able to complete their university courses and keep up with all of their digital contents. From being able to keep track of assignments, watch video lectures, read course-related literature and more all within an iOS app is truly amazing, and to make it all that much better, everything from the app to the content is free of charge.
You can download the iTunes U iOS app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on the App Store.