Miami Hurricane

Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Chelsea Matiash // Hurricane Staff NEW SCHOOL SUPPLIES: University of Miami signed a contract with Apple for their iTunes U service.

Whether listening to weekly podcasts from anatomy class or downloading Virgil's Aeneid, students at 28 different universities are taking advantage of an education-oriented Apple service.

iTunes U, a feature on the iTunes store web site, provides students with presentations, performances, lectures, demonstrations, debates, tours and archival footage in the form of MP3 downloads.

Although the University of Miami does not currently offer the service, the university signed an agreement on Jan. 2 to launch iTunes U later this semester, in part due to active pursuit by Student Government.

"We're taking the classroom experience outside of the four walls of the class," Student Government President Danny Carvajal said. "I personally see this as the wave of the future. This is one more way to engage students, faculty, and alumni in the school."

UM's iTunes U link will consist of two sections - public and private -that each school can personalize.

The private section of UM's site will include educational content. Students, faculty and alumni will be granted access with their CaneID.

Campus tours, interviews and other promotional information will be posted on the public part of the site, which will be administered by the university's communications office.

Some universities, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have launched an entirely public site granting access to all of their courses.

UM will keep part of its content private, so only people associated with the university can have total access.

"If someone can get a UM education by using podcasts, that means the education at UM is a failure," said Bill Vilberg, director of the Instructional Advancement Center. "The experience of being on this campus and interacting with other students truly creates that UM experience."

Junior Babs Kupe agrees that there should be limitations on what the public has access to.

"I'm paying tuition to learn here. I should be the one to benefit from my professors," Kupe said.  "If you want to learn on the Internet, there [are] plenty of online colleges."

Faculty members have mixed feelings about the new program and its effect on the classroom experience.

Diane Millette, associate professor and program director of Communication Studies, currently uploads podcast videos on Blackboard.

"I think it could change the face of the classroom if students feel they don't need to come in and participate in discussion," she said. "But I'm excited about the possibilities of having more options to exposing the materials to students."

Chairman and associate professor in the Economics Department David Kelly, is skeptical of the real benefits of iTunes U.

"The temptation with these sorts of things is to wait until the last minute to absorb everything," Kelly said. "At the end of the day, going to class twice a week, interacting with other students and the professor, helps [the material] sink in much better."

Still, Vilberg is optimistic about the new program.

"Instead of students coming to class and acting like stenographers, students can be more hands-on," he said. "It is crucial to active learning."

Nene Kamate may be contacted at n.kamate@umiami.edu.

-Students may access iTunes U by clicking on the iTunes store tab in iTunes and then following the link to iTunes U.

-Content on iTunes U can be converted to MP3 format, so that students who do not have iPods can still download files to any portable media device.

-The current top download is, "What holds our world together? Electric charges (historical); Polarization; Electric Force; Coulomb's Law" from a professor at MIT

-The only Florida colleges with iTunes U are University of South Florida and Miami-Dade College.

-With iTunes U, professors can upload course content, such as lectures and presentations, without depending on the IT department. ?-Unlike music on iTunes, which costs 99 cents per song, everything on iTunes U is available free of charge.

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