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iTunes U - Braingasm
Feral
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So, I've started to use iTunes U for personal enrichment. Basically, it's podcasts for college students - course lectures are downloadable through iTunes, for free, straight into your iPod. I heard about the service a while ago but I didn't start using it until I downloaded iTunes 7.2 (it may not have actually been available in prior versions, but I'm not sure about that).
I love the idea. I've always been intrigued by audiobooks, but I don't read fiction much - 99% of what I read is nonfiction, and audiobooks tend to be lacking in that area. Being able to listen to a lecture on neuroscience or cognitive psychology in my car, though, makes my pants tight. MIT OpenCourseWare is up there, as is a bunch of stuff from Stanford and Berkeley. (Yes, this does mean that I listen to college lectures for fun. Yes, I am a big fat nerd.)
One nice thing about it is if you're allergic to giving corporations your personal info, you don't need to sign up for an Apple ID. All you do is install iTunes and go - no Apple Store account is needed.
The biggest drawback is that, as far as I can tell, courses are organized by university. There's no way to search for, for example, "Introductory Psychology" - you have to click on a uni first.
Of course, not everybody is enamored with the notion as I am. With any new medium, somebody in the old guard is going to feel threatened, and predictably the launch of iTunes U was met with teachers and students alike extolling the virtues of classroom learning and complaining that this will just cause kids to skip class (oh, the horror!). I've never done well with one-size-fits-all teaching styles; most classes go way too slow for me and I can't count the number of times I wished I could fast-forward my professor... or skip past the inane questions asked other students who obviously didn't bother with the introductory reading. Lest I come across too arrogant, there are also subjects in which I've had difficulty and being able to rewind/replay a bit of a lecture would have been a godsend.
What do you guys think? Have you utilized this service? If so, are you using it for personal enrichment or for actual college credit? Have you found any particular gems you want to share? Or do you think that this is just an excuse for slackers to skip class?
I love the idea. I've always been intrigued by audiobooks, but I don't read fiction much - 99% of what I read is nonfiction, and audiobooks tend to be lacking in that area. Being able to listen to a lecture on neuroscience or cognitive psychology in my car, though, makes my pants tight. MIT OpenCourseWare is up there, as is a bunch of stuff from Stanford and Berkeley. (Yes, this does mean that I listen to college lectures for fun. Yes, I am a big fat nerd.)
One nice thing about it is if you're allergic to giving corporations your personal info, you don't need to sign up for an Apple ID. All you do is install iTunes and go - no Apple Store account is needed.
The biggest drawback is that, as far as I can tell, courses are organized by university. There's no way to search for, for example, "Introductory Psychology" - you have to click on a uni first.
Of course, not everybody is enamored with the notion as I am. With any new medium, somebody in the old guard is going to feel threatened, and predictably the launch of iTunes U was met with teachers and students alike extolling the virtues of classroom learning and complaining that this will just cause kids to skip class (oh, the horror!). I've never done well with one-size-fits-all teaching styles; most classes go way too slow for me and I can't count the number of times I wished I could fast-forward my professor... or skip past the inane questions asked other students who obviously didn't bother with the introductory reading. Lest I come across too arrogant, there are also subjects in which I've had difficulty and being able to rewind/replay a bit of a lecture would have been a godsend.
What do you guys think? Have you utilized this service? If so, are you using it for personal enrichment or for actual college credit? Have you found any particular gems you want to share? Or do you think that this is just an excuse for slackers to skip class?
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Feral on
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And to the teachers that are saying people will skip due to these...WAKE-UP!! Students skip when they have 2pm classes, changing the style of the lecture will not cause this massive drop-out of students. I can't believe teachers are that naive to think college kids don't know their limits by now. For the first semester of college, I was scheduled in for 8am Calc 2 classes, I attended half my lectures, as my lectures were all recorded online, so I would go back in the afternoon and watch them, constantly going back and having the Professor repeat what he just said. After my first semester, my earliest class was at 10am, and that was easy for my to make. Students should know what their limits are by now, and if they still don't, then skipping classes would be the least of their worries.
I'm downloading one on the Aeneid. So excited.
It auto-creates Playlists, so you don't have to worry about finding it later.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Excellent choice. :^:
Browsing this is a pain, though.
I love the idea, but it would be great if some of these were video, particularly anything with math. But MIT's lectures are available in written form with notes, too, so I'm not complaining very hard here.
edit: Oh, hey, there are movies. Nevermind.
Why did I not know this existed?
So? College isn't like high school, students pay for their individual classes, and if they want to waste their money by not attending it's their decision. And yeah, sometimes I would prefer to sleep in and watch my lectures from the comfort of my own room instead of sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs surrounded by hundreds of other students for a couple hours; does that make me a bad student? I didn't realize that discomfort was essential to the learning experience and that the lecture halls served the same purpose as the hard wooden pews in old Catholic Churches, because apparently my understanding of academic topics increases in direct proportion to the state of discomfort I am in.
Extra. As in 'in addition to and apart from the course material.' As in additional material not covered in class.
Maybe people who, unlike you apparently, actually enjoy learning and would like to learn more about the subject they are currently enrolled in and passionate about. Or maybe those of us who can't afford to go to an Ivy League College but who would still like to learn about subjects that interest us.
Hmm, maybe the professors didn't have time to cover all the material they wanted to in a few 50-minute classes a week for 10 weeks. And maybe the information they wanted to include wasn't important from a strict Utilitarian standpoint, so instead of covering it in class they provide it online to those of their students who are interested. Nope, I guess this must be a sign of failure on the prof's part because they weren't capable of condensing the entirety of their subject which they had to spend years studying into a ten week course for people with limited credentials.
Woh, since when did iTunes U state that that was its goal? I'm pretty sure if it was there would be a lot less cooperation on the part of professors, many of whom earn a living by lecturing in person, and on the part of universities who make millions by convincing students to come to their university and attend lectures. iTunes U is simply a tool for professors to extend the learning experience beyond the classroom; if used properly it can't detract from lectures, it can only add to them.
[/rant]
Anyways, people who are interested in this might want to check out the podcasting sites other universities provide for their students already. MIT's and UC Berkeley's sites are particularly well done imo.
Videos would have been better, obviously...maybe some time in the future.
I found a handful on education I'm going to check out. Thanks for the heads up, Feral.
Oh to answer the OP questions: I'm doing this for personal and professional enrichment. I'll probably branch out to something I'm a novice at, like psychology, based upon my experience with the service.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
Good learning fun!
This is great for someone like me who went to a non-traditional college and missed out on taking classes outside of my major just because they sounded interesting.
This may keep me busy...
I really like this idea, think I'll give it a go once I'm not so flat out learning all this other stuff. As an additional point, I think it'll come in really handy as a refresher for former students. I know I've forgotten a hell of a lot of stuff from early in my degree just because I didn't use it regularly after semester was over. Plus, it takes a few go-overs before I really get a given piece of material. This is made of win.
Especially since, in a lecture-style setting, even in hs, where the only notes are what you write down, I have a hard time picking out the important info and writing it down. Something like this would let me listen to it a few times, and avoid the "write it down" part.
Also, GaTech needs to get on top of this.
*drool*
P.S. So far I've listened to a speaker at Duke Law talk about the legalities surrounding Pregnancy Discrimination and a speaker at the ASU's business school tlak about major airline mergers. My backlog has more business stuff and some art disertations from Otis University I think it is... Thus far I'm planning on getting in at least one a day, but It'll probably wind up being more.
Would you be so kind as to save me some trouble of looking for this episode? Searches for Aeneid turned up futile
I am a much better audio learner, anyways. Standford history lectures, fuck yes.
*Edit*
Oh god, I am downloading a dozen of these at a time.
when will it end, man
Thanks
will get back to this after I actually listen to a few.
edit - ugh I hate how itunes sorts this shit, but that's a separate issue.
I'd imagine if there are other people like us, downloading voraciously, that we can expect more universities to jump on board and it to become a standard university tool for advertising, if nothing else.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
this is really excellent, I hope it expands!
Why do I think that's cool?
Decent lecture once he gets going though. I shall persist.
the beauty is that while I know I won't really focus on it hard, I don't have to.
I wonder how far this can really expand, how much colleges will be willing to essentially give away. anyone see that being a problem?
No.
This won't give you a degree.
Of course not, and I doubt it ever gets far past 100-level courses. However, learning about the topics ahead of time can only help you when you actually go to college.
Yes.
Not a problem.
I don't think I'll be using that one. In the Introduction, the professor tells his students that they should spend between four and eight hours a day studying Greek outside of class (but more than ten is probably counter-productive). Eeek! I can only assume that the people at Concordia Seminary do not take many classes at the same time.
I've downloaded the course on the Aeneid (yay, the Aeneid!) and a Biology 1A course. I need to decide whether I want to take biology classes in the fall, so this may help.