14 DAY TRIAL // An all-new iTunes U application is now available for teachers and students, to teach and take entire courses on their iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
iTunes U allows teachers to create and manage courses, including lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses, and offer them not just to their students, but to students around the world.
Users everywhere will gain access to an immense pool of free educational content from top universities including Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, Apple said. Any K-12 school district can now offer full courses through the iTunes U app.
Following yesterday’s announcements, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said “The all-new iTunes U app enables students anywhere to tap into entire courses from the world's most prestigious universities.”
“Never before have educators been able to offer their full courses in such an innovative way, allowing anyone who’s interested in a particular topic to learn from anywhere in the world, not just the classroom.”
With the iTunes U app, students will be able to access new books right from within the app, which means they will no longer have to carry around a heavy backpack. They can take their notes on the tablet computer via iBooks, and they will receive push notifications with the latest class information.
As for educators, the iTunes U app will let them create, manage and share their courses, quizzes and handouts through a web-based tool.
Content and links from the iTunes U app, the Internet, iBookstore or the App Store can be used as part of their curriculum, and they can upload and distribute their own documents created in iWork, and even books made with iBooks Author from the Mac App Store.
iTunes U is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and requires iOS 5.0 or later.
