iTunes U at CSU PDI 2008 Terry M. Gray, Chemistry Sally Hibbitt, CTSS iTunes U at CSU Outline MOSTLY DEMO • What is iTunes U? • iTunes at CSU for the User • iTunes at CSU for Instructor/Content Provider • Pros & Cons; Stats; Limitations; Other • Questions http://itunes.colostate.edu iTunes U at CSU What Is iTunes? • The media jukebox program from Apple, Inc comparable to Winamp, Windows Media Player, MusicMatch Jukebox, etc. • Originally developed for the Macintosh but now runs on Macs and recent versions of Windows (2000, XP, Vista) • Main user interface for Apple’s media “ecosystem” involving the iTunes on-line store, iPods & iPhones, AppleTV, etc. iTunes U at CSU History of iTunes 1-9-2001 Original release for Mac OS 9 based on Casady & Greene’s SoundJam MP 3-24-2001 Initial Mac OS X version (v1.1) 10-23-2001 iPod support (v2.0) 7-17-2002 2nd Gen iPod; Audible.com support (v3.0) 4-28-2003 iTunes Music Store; AAC audio codec (v4.0) 10-16-2003 Windows version released (v4.1) 5-9-2005 Video support (v4.8) 6-28-2005 Podcasting support (v4.9) 5-29-2007 iTunes U introduced (v7.2) 11-5-2007 Current version (v7.5) 1-15-2008 Video rental support (v7.6) ?????? See Wikipedia articles on iTunes version history, iTunes, iTunes Store, iPod; The Perfect Thing by Steven Levy (2007) iTunes U at CSU Podcasting • Nothing new — making audio and video files available on the internet • The new thing is the delivery method RSS (really simple syndication) that was originally developed in the blogging community • A “push” technology; the content is delivered to the user who has subscribed; they don’t have to revisit your website to see if there is anything new • A podcast is an RSS feed with an audio or video enclosure • You can listen to these on your iPod iTunes at CSU Getting Started • Create content!!!!!!! • Requires mp3 or aac for audio and mp4 or mov for video; iTunes can also deal with PDF • More info: http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu/ & http://www.apple.com/support/itunes_u/ • Contact the CTSS Help Desk at 1-7276 • Need your eID(s), department, course name and CRN Guest access or not? • An iTunes U administrator will create a course within 24-48 hours depending on demand • You can start adding your content as soon as your course shows up iTunes U at CSU Pros and Cons • Why iTunes and not other podcast clients or even generic web hosting? Cons: Requires iTunes Pros: iTunes market share/ubiquity, cross-platform, Apple hosts content (for free), hides the details of RSS • Legal issues/Privacy Content is “out there”; intellectual property issues; recording of students in the classroom iTunes U enables a restricted access model (eID required) iTunes U at CSU Pros and Cons • Time shifting For recorded lectures students can skip class and still get the lecture Students can listen to the lecture when it best suits them; they can listen again to sections they didn’t quite get the first time Think about TiVo, personal music playlists, cell phone call screening • Student 2.0 • Integration with RamCT • Check out Podcasting at CSU on iTunes U for more discussion of pros and cons iTunes U at CSU Stats from Summer/Fall 2007 Total Number of Browse Clicks - 5583 Total Number of Downloads - 3135 54.4% Windows; 44.9% Macs; 0.7% Unknown iTunes U at CSU RamCT Integration • Link to iTunes U content can be put in RamCT or any other web page • Right-click (Ctrl-click on a Mac) on the iTunes U item that you want to link to and use the “Copy iTunes Store URL” command • Then paste into RamCT as you would any other URL iTunes U at CSU Future Directions • Automation • Integration with Aries and RamCT • Integration with local hosting • • • iTunes U at CSU Questions.