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iTunes U Reaches 250 Million Downloads

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The Loop reports that Apple's iTunes U channel for distributing educational content via the iTunes Store has surpassed 250 million downloads since its inception.
Everyone knows about the success of the iTunes Store and the amount of of music, video and apps that are downloaded, but there is a lesser known part of iTunes that is equally successful in its market.

Apple told me on Tuesday that iTunes U, the part of iTunes dedicated to educational content, has just surpassed 250 million downloads from users around the world.
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The milestone appears to represent a significant acceleration in usage for iTunes U, as it was only six months ago that the service passed 100 million downloads.

iTunes U debuted in October 2005 as a partnership with Stanford University before officially launching in an expanded form in mid-2007. A number of prominent colleges and universities have joined the program to offer content over the years, with Harvard University notably coming on board in March of this year.

Article Link: iTunes U Reaches 250 Million Downloads
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/29/itunes-u-reaches-250-million-downloads/
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If only they had my university on there. ;)
 
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I think iTunes U is great. I would love to see the Android Market or M$ Marketplace even come close to replicating this.
 
iTim314 said:
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If only they had my university on there. ;)
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Talk to your university! They have to post their content on there, it isn't Apple that does it. As far as I'm concerned if there are any schools that are NOT on iTunes U, Podcasting, and making apps they really need to get it in gear!
 
My university only uses there page for stuff relating to the College of Education. They added "Lit2Go," which is a collection of free, (mostly)classic literature audio books back in February. While the majority of the collection does not interest me there are some great classics (Shakespeare, Common Sence, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Little Women, just to name a few) as well as a couple Jane Austen books and many short stories and historical speaches and essays.

I highly suggest you check it out for yourself on iTunes or the web (which offers a free PDF or webview of the book as well)
 
I'm sure us iPhone/iPad/Mac developers delivered a spike in this download count since all of the WWDC session videos are stored in iTunes U (added shortly after WWDC). 100 session videos downloadable for free for any iOS/Mac developer.
 
While I don't use it a LOT, when I do I think it's fantastic, this is a real revolutionary service.
 
spillproof said:
My university only uses their page for stuff relating to the College of Education. They added "Lit2Go," which is a collection of free, (mostly)classic literature audio books back in February. While the majority of the collection does not interest me there are some great classics (Shakespeare, Common Sence, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Little Women, just to name a few) as well as a couple Jane Austen books and many short stories and historical speaches and essays.

I highly suggest you check it out for yourself on iTunes or the web (which offers a free PDF or webview of the book as well)
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Lit2Go is great. However, it's not just the College of Ed. I've posted to iTunesU (when I was a GA) for a College of Arts and Sciences course. A lot of material is locked behind needing a NetID. Plus - I needed to post the podcast to the CoED section b/c CAS isn't really involved.

itunes.usf.edu is the URL.

The podcasts I made still aren't available to the general public. They require a student to follow a link through Blackboard. This wasn't my decision. The Instructor didn't want them public. I argued and advised against this.

The USF Health does put a copy of each and every lecture onto iTunesU. Again, you have to be a student from that college to access the material. I just think it is awesome that they set up classrooms to support that amount of recording.
 
A little insight on iTunesU - not many universities use it correctly or actively.

I helped put together (as a part of a large team) an iTunesU site for a university done from a gov't grant. Grant was for two years (1 year planning, 2nd after up and running) and we had some great ideas. Sad part is they all died at the prof level. I'm talking about tons of money spent on equipping classrooms with live audio and video recordings with systems to put them up on iTunesU seemlessly. Studios created and special gear bought so profs could create podcasts and vodcasts - again died at the prof level.

There are some great examples out there and certainly Stanford is one. Unfortunately, many tenured profs don't get technology or are very resistant to using it in the classroom. This is not unique to iTunesU, rather sad considering how many millions of tax payers dollars (for state funded U's) went to companies like Blackboard where profs don't use often half of the features available. Again, no knock on BB or iTunesU - just need to kick out some of the technophobe tenured profs who refuse to move forward and sit back on their tenured protected job. And for those GOOD profs who DO try and are GOOD - I am NOT talking about you.
 
macnews said:
A little insight on iTunesU - not many universities use it correctly or actively.

I helped put together (as a part of a large team) an iTunesU site for a university done from a gov't grant. Grant was for two years (1 year planning, 2nd after up and running) and we had some great ideas. Sad part is they all died at the prof level. I'm talking about tons of money spent on equipping classrooms with live audio and video recordings with systems to put them up on iTunesU seemlessly. Studios created and special gear bought so profs could create podcasts and vodcasts - again died at the prof level.

There are some great examples out there and certainly Stanford is one. Unfortunately, many tenured profs don't get technology or are very resistant to using it in the classroom. This is not unique to iTunesU, rather sad considering how many millions of tax payers dollars (for state funded U's) went to companies like Blackboard where profs don't use often half of the features available. Again, no knock on BB or iTunesU - just need to kick out some of the technophobe tenured profs who refuse to move forward and sit back on their tenured protected job. And for those GOOD profs who DO try and are GOOD - I am NOT talking about you.
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There are some outstanding iTunesU courses by Stanford and MIT profs. It is great if you want to watch a course on Fourier Analysis. What surprises me is that there are so few courses on History, or, Humanities/Social Studies in general. I could really use an engaging class in World History, for example, but, I have not been able to find it. Anyone know of an interesting course suitable for HS seniors/college freshmen?
 
I honestly have never know about this untill now. This is great. I think apple should rename iTunes. I mean they came up with iOS, but iTunes is so much more than music now. I mean its video's, photos, eBooks, syncing, backup, etc. Maybe they should call it iSync or something. In fact maybe they should let go of their fascination of "i" and name it like "SuperSync" and they can combine it with MobileMe.
 
"with Harvard University notably coming on board..."

Actually there is nothing notable about Harvard here. Their response to iTunes U (and podcasting in general) is utterly shameful, especially considering how wealthy they are.
While other universities (Stanford, Yale, many of the UCs, even dinky community colleges like St Scholastica) are doing a magnificent job of putting courses on podcast, through iTunes U or otherwise, Harvard provides a crappy selection consisting mainly of a few courses, rah rah rah Harvard stuff that no non-alum cares about, and speeches given by the various ambassadors, congresspeople and so on who pass through the college.

Look, I understand Harvard is under no obligation to provide me or anyone else with anything for free. However when plenty of other colleges are acting like they take their mission to really be to educate the entire world as best they can, I think we are all justified in pointing out that (tax-free) Harvard is intent on acting like its ONLY mission is to increase its already insanely large endowment, and to act as the private club for the future plutocracy of America.

If we're going to give publicity, in articles like this, to colleges that recently came on board, a much better choice would have been Yale, which offers a much wider selection of courses on iTunes U.
 
"What surprises me is that there are so few courses on History, or, Humanities/Social Studies in general. I could really use an engaging class in World History, for example, but, I have not been able to find it."

Not even CLOSE to true!
UCB, UCLA, UCDavis, UCSD all provide a number of freshmen courses in social sciences and history, to name just a few.
* Thomas Laqueur's European History class (UCB) is just magnificent.
* John Merriman (Yale) has a similar course.
* Even Christopher Gennari of Camden County College, a place you might want to sneer at, has a course in Ancient History which, from the little I've heard of it so far, is pretty damn good.
(Matching Doc C of the College of St Scholastica who provides the BEST bar none set of physiology lectures in the world --- sneer all you like, but if physiology interests you, this is the guy to listen to, not someone at MIT or UCLA or suchlike.)
*UCSD have their entire basic history corpus (HIS 1,2,3,4,5) available.
etc etc

* Hubert Dreyfus' Philosophy 6 course is a great overview of different theories of religion through history.
* Gabriel Rossman's Sociology of Mass Communication (UCLA) cannot be praised enough.

And so on and so on.

Many of these courses are in the podcast section rather than the iTunes U section, but they are available and very good --- just search.
 
Nice, I need to go check this out. I never knew iTunes U existed until I heard about this!
 
I wish my school was on itunes U. It would make studying much easier. I learn better by audio and video than i do by reading notes and text books.
 
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