Thursday, March 16, 2006

iTunes offers lectures from major universities: with so many educational choices, who will help us decipher good from not-so-good?

For those of you who don’t know, iTunes now has lectures available from Stanford and MIT. How popular are these downloads? IP & Democracy reports that:

Through the end of the Fall semester in December, Stanford’s content was getting 15,000 tracks a week accessed at iTunes. The university plans to expand the coverage to include sports, with Stanford’s athletic matches slated to be available in video podcast form at iTunes.
Thought of the day: With so many forms of education available to all humans of all ages, i.e. public school, private school, charter school, tutoring, e-learning, cyber-learning, podcasting, I think (and remember, you heard it here first) a new type of service will become necessary – that of an education broker / consultant. The job of this person will be to assess students (of any age) and put them in touch with the type of learning program that most fits their needs.

For example, “alright, I’ve looked over your portfolio, spoken to your teachers, examined your test scores, and here is what I recommend: one year of home-schooling, supplemented by weekly podcasts and participation in this online educational game.”

Who coordinates all these activities? The educational consultant, paid on a monthly retainer.

Related links:
  • ITunes University
  • A wireless device to help those w/ ADHD. This device uses a token economy system to reward users with points for positive behaviors. Points can be converted to pay-per-view time. One idea might be to allow users to “cash in” points for downloads of music, podcasts and videos at the iTunes music store.

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