New enhanced Penn State iTunes U finds broader audience
By Sarah Stoolman, TLT communications Intern
Many universities around the world have pages and podcasts on iTunesU, the collegiate-focused section of iTunes.The Penn State section of iTunes U has recently undergone some changes that has allowed Penn State’s section to grow in popularity.
With the page’s new format, Penn State podcasts are gaining in popularity among iTunesU users. “Most of the major universities in the US and many in the world have an iTunes U presence," Justin Miller, media commons project manager for Education Technology Services (ETS), said. "Basically, it's a distribution hub where Penn State Faculty and Staff can share both course and non course related content.”
“Recently, we’ve had to change iTunesU on the external site. The internal coursework site is still the same. On the public face of iTunesU, there’s been a redesign of the page, in addition to a change in the management of the space," Miller added. "Before this recent change we had one site that mixed both internal and external media. Now it’s different. All the public spaces are managed via the Blogs at Penn State service and then they feed from there into iTunesU, so each collection or podcast would have its own blog, this allows discoverability both on the web and iTunes from a single feed."
Every College at Penn State has podcasts that are available on the public side of iTunesU. For example, the Smeal College of Business uses iTunesU to share their podcasts. “It makes the college’s programming available to a much broader audience, including our alumni, supporters, and the general public,” stated Wyatt DuBois, manager of media relations for Smeal College of Business. “You no longer need to be present in University Park to hear one of our guest speakers, for instance. Years after the actual lecture, you can download the podcast and listen to/view the presentation on your iPod or computer.”
In addition to the relevant podcasts for every college here at Penn State, students can access certain courses on iTunesU in order to obtain different lectures from their instructors.
The most of exposure we’ve gotten is from coursework that’s open on the public iTunesU site,” stated Miller. “There’s an art history collection that is one of our top downloads and also an Astronomy 001 class which has recently been featured on its own. It's also now one of the top downloads as well. Those two courses in addition to Art 010 and Art 020 were featured in an iTunes section called Academic Coursework 101 where they included courses from across the world, and Penn State had four courses in that feature,” Miller added.
Anna Divinsky, instructor of arts and architecture, teaches the Art 010 class. The course is one of the top ranked courses on iTunesU for Penn State. In courses such as Divinsky’s Art 010, the ease of obtaining classroom lectures and lessons is cultivated by iTunesU.
“Students and the general public are really the ones who benefit from the use of iTunes. By making some of the Art 010 tutorials available via iTunes, it allows the students to download basic tutorials to their phones or other mobile devices," Divinsky said. "This allows anyone to review the information anywhere and at any time. It also provides them with the freedom to leave their computer behind, while still receiving valuable information from the instructor.”
“It also allows for flexibility within the lectures. A student can download and play the lectures as many times as necessary for them to master the concept of being taught,” Divinsky added.
Although the Smeal College of Business podcasts and the Art 010 coursework depict two different aspects of iTunesU, both DuBois and Divinsky believe that the main appeal of putting their programs on iTunesU is that it greatly benefits the student. The ease at which one can listen to a guest speaker hosted by the Smeal College of Business or a lecture from an Art 010 class is what attracts both instructors and students to iTunesU.“It’s a convenience for our students. If they must miss the opportunity to attend programming at the college in person, they don’t have to miss the content,” noted DuBois.
