Itunes U

Apple announces 1 billion iTunes U downloads

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Feb 28, 2013 a 2:43 pm

Apple announced today that iTunes U, their podcast-like service that provides for educational content from universities, museums, libraries, and like-minded organizations on iTunes, has topped one billion downloads. According to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services:

Now anyone can create an iTunes U course to be viewed on student iPads

By Leanna Lofte, Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 a 2:27 pm

Alongside the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple also updated iTunes U to allow teachers (and virtually anyone) to create courses for the iPad. More specifically, the courses that are created can be shared and viewed in the iTunes U iPad app.

Best free educational apps for iPhone

By Leanna Lofte, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 a 1:42 am

Looking for great educational app for your iPhone or iPod touch? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. Some of the most beneficial free apps are free educational apps.

Stock Talk: Why Apple's textbook announcement matters

By Chris Umiastowski, Friday, Jan 20, 2012 a 3:25 pm

"If Apple relies on the existing $500 iPad to hit the education market, I think they may just accelerate the ownership of their products to students who were already going to own them … kids in well-to-do families."

Yesterday Apple made one of those cool little announcements that probably won’t affect too many of us in the short term. But I think their initiative with iBooks 2 and iBooks Author offers significant long term benefits to the company and its shareholders.

Teacher and educator reactions to Apple's iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jan 20, 2012 a 11:45 am

At Apple's education event they announced two initiatives: iBooks 2 and iBooks Author designed to bring textbooks into the digital age, and an all new iTunes U to create and share lesson plans, and follow and complete course work. As education initiatives from publicly traded companies go, they're big and bold -- but they're also just the beginning. There will be struggles and successes, breakthroughs and missteps. And while many of us here at iMore and Mobile Nations could speak about the implications from purely technical and business standpoints, we're lucky to have several teachers and educators, past and present, on staff. They were kind enough to share their thoughts on Apple's new initiatives, specifically and importantly where they impact most -- our kids in the classroom.

Hands on with iTunes U for iPad

By Leanna Lofte, Thursday, Jan 19, 2012 a 6:45 pm

One of the big announcements at Apple's Education event was iTunes U for the iPhone and iPad. I've done some poking around the iPad version and have been very impressed.

The Catalogue is laid out exactly like the App Store and iBookstore, so everyone is already familiar with how to browse it and subscribe to courses. The iTunes U library is where you'll find all the courses you are subscribed to and it looks similar to the bookshelf in iBooks.

Inside a course, you'll find all the info an instructor chooses to share about the class, including catalogue information and the course outline, structure, and syllabus. Instructors can also make posts to the course with more information about lectures as well as documents and videos. Additionally, students can take notes in a designated area of the course page and quickly access all course materials.

As a college instructor, I look forward to using iTunes U as a way to supplement content and materials for my classes.

So what did you think of Apple's education event?

By Georgia, Thursday, Jan 19, 2012 a 4:30 pm

So now Apple's education event is over and the dust has settled and we have iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U, and there seems to be a bit of a mixed reaction.

Some people think Apple is spearheading a new generation of in-depth, interactive, learning tools to bring textbooks and classrooms into the next generation. Others think Apple has once again created a proprietary platform to once again exert draconian control over and increase platform lock-in.

Some people think Apple has created an alternative to the expensive, outdated, antiquated books students used to have to lug around. Others think Apple sucks for not offering $12 iPads to go along with it.

We'll be back to give you our collective opinions later, but right now it's your turn, iMore Nation. What do you think of Apple's educational offerings?

Apple education event now available via streaming, iTunes download

By chrisoldroyd, Thursday, Jan 19, 2012 a 4:03 pm

Apple has posted the full education event keynote video on its website and placed it on iTunes for download.

iTunes U gets its own app, includes course syllabus, assignments, prof hours, and more

By Simon Sage, Thursday, Jan 19, 2012 a 10:59 am

Today, Apple has been making a bunch of education-related announcements, and one of them is a new app for iTunes U.

What do you expect from Apple's education event?

By Georgia, Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012 a 9:06 pm

Apple's New York education event is only half-a-day away, so there's no better time to ask you, smart and snappily dressed members of the iMore Nation, what you expect to see?

While the rumors suggest no hardware, which means no iPad 3, I think many of us are holding out at least a little secret hope that Apple pulls a fast one and decides to show off just how good educational material looks on a 2048x1536 resolution Retina display. What, a girl can dream, can't she?

Fine. Back to reality. Electronic textbooks (eTextbooks? iTextbooks?) are one of the biggest rumors, thanks to Steve Jobs mentioning how ripe they were for disruption. Will they be iBooks-style ePub books? A new format? A proprietary new format? Will they be sold in an iTextbookStore, or will they be handled the way Apple is handling TV and movie content, via apps collected in a special Newsstand-style folder?

Will iTextbooks be produced exclusively by Apple and for iOS? Will traditional textbook publishers be able to participate? Will you and me? If Apple makes a publishing tool as easy to use as iWork's Pages, that might just be possible.

iTunes U is a terrific resource and certainly education-focused. Could iTunes U play a roll in Apple's announcements?

We'll find out for sure tomorrow (and make sure you join us for a special edition of iPhone and iPad Live at 10am ET and follow along for the event!), but in the meantime, what do you think? Vote in the poll above and make your best guesses in the comments below!