iTunes U?

iTunes U has been a part of the iTunes experience for quite some time now. I have downloaded lectures on botany, courses on computer programming, and Mars Rover videos to share with my students. Universities and community colleges from across the country are involved with “opening their doors” to the public through their work within iTunes U. Also, it was only this past summer when iTunes U for K-12 was announced. Below is Apple’s description of iTunes U…

Apple – Education – Guided Tour – An Introduction to iTunes U

“iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 100,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world.”

(Via Apple.)

If you click on the “Guided Tour” link above, you can see a video that introduces the core features of iTunes U.

Here comes YouTube…

While reading through my subscribed feeds this evening I came across an article from Techcrunch that discusses the launch of YouTube EDU…

YouTube EDU Launches, So Go Learn Something

“YouTube EDU launched today, an educational hub ‘volunteer project sparked by a group of employees who wanted to find a better way to collect and highlight all the great educational content being uploaded to YouTube by colleges and universities’ according to a short blurb on the YouTube blog. The official announcement is apparently tomorrow.

The site is aggregating videos from dozens of colleges and universities, ranging from lectures to student films to athletic events. Some of this stuff is solid gold (the Stanford and MIT lectures are really good). Other content, not so interesting.”

(Via TechCrunch)

Could this be a competitor to iTunes U?

I think not… and I do not think that there is any competition to be had here at all. Each serve different purposes and I look forward to continuing my own usage of iTunes U as well monitoring the progress of YouTubeEDU.

Regarding the content that Techcrunch thought was “not so interesting”… I found something that is quite interesting!

One of the first items that I spotted on the front page of YoutubeEDU was this excellent video of Stanford’s Mobile Phone Orchestra and iPhone Ocarina.

How about those speaker gloves! I need a pair of those…

Who wants to join me in creating our own school teacher mobile orchestra? (looking at you Scott)