iTunes U – iTunes Dirty Little Secret

I don’t care what your opinions of Apple or iTunes are, one thing you can’t deny is that there is some pretty good content on iTunes. Whether that is music, podcasts,movies or iPhone/iPad apps. But one thing that gets so often over looked by iTunes users and others is the little promoted iTunes U.

iTunes U is a section on iTunes where education establishments from all over the world put up course materials that can be accessed by anyone. This content whether it is audio or video can be downloaded to a PC/Mac or iPod,iPhone,iPad, well you get the idea.

Apple describes it as “a powerful distribution system for everything from lectures to language lessons, films to labs, audiobooks to tours — is an innovative way to get educational content into the hands of students.”

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

I’m currently using iTunes U myself to do an iPhone development course by Stanford University in the US of A. In iTunes U Stanford have put up video of the lectures, and pdf files of the lecture slides. Then over on the course website at Stanford I can download the course assignments and any related source code.

I can then work through the course at my own pace, doing the assignments and at the end of it hopefully able to demonstrate my new knowledge to a prospective employer.

One draw back is that there is no or very little support for when you get stuck. However you might be able to find that online in a forum or website somewhere. You really do have to be self reliant with studying this way. Plus you are self marking your assignments (if you do them).

Another draw back is that once you have worked your way through the course there is no qualification to put on your c.v.. But for self improvement, or in a world where the Government is not interested in helping the unemployed update their skills to increase their chances of getting a job, at least mentioning that you have done a course will give a good impression to any prospective employer.

So how does this compare with say a paid for online training course? Well apart from the support side and maybe a bit of paper at the end (some just say that you have done the course), I think that they compare very well indeed. The quality of this Stanford iPhone course is really really good, especially compared to an online Java course my previous employer was using to train staff with.

But you don’t have to do that one, there are loads of different courses on there. Go into iTunes U and browse around to see what is on offer. There are even courses from our very own Open University on there.

Now you may you may not be an iTunes fan, and think that the software is a pile of poo (this is not my opinion I like iTunes, it’s not perfect I admit that, but then what software is?) Anyway I would argue that iTunes U is reason enough to install and put up with the iTunes software if you fall in to the iTunes Hater camp. If you already use and like iTunes then make that little side trip into the iTunes U world and have a look around.

Here have a browse online to see what they have. Click HERE