Top Tools: iTunes and iTunesU

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gives you free access to some of the world’s best thinking—lectures from MIT, labs from Stanford, films from the MOMA, lets you listen to music and podcasts as well as watch videos.

iTunesU gives you free access to some of the world’s best thinking—lectures from MIT, labs from Stanford, films from the MOMA,

• Website:  iTunes: www.apple.com/itunes/  iTunesU: http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/
• Cost: Free
• Availability:  Download/Online
• Top 100 Tools 2011: 66
• Top 100 Tools 2010: 51=
• Top 100 Tools 2009: 41=
• Top 100 Tools 2008: 28
• Top 100 Tools 2007: 26=

Comments from some of those who selected iTunes as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2009

• educational podcasts: I found a series of Spanish podcasts that have transformed my learning of the language, convincing me there has to be more value in this medium than I currently exploit more with my own students Jane Challinor
• being able to download and listen to work related podcasts during travelling time really helps me, and much better than the old days when I carried piles of journals around in the hope of getting time to read them! We will shortly start to use iTunesU as part of our UEL aim to make learning even more accessible. Sarah Frame
• Do I need to explain… Excellent podcast aggregating tool with a library of content waiting to be explored Neil Prior

Comments from those who selected iTunes as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2008

• “I’m addicted to podcasts and vodcasts and iTunes is a easy way to get access to them. Fast enough and a nice way of presenting the library. You can find so many educational podcast that only the timefactor is holding you back from learning all day long”. Marcel de Leeuwe
• “Great source for audio book and free podcasts / vodcasts” Heather Ross
• “there are always fifteen minutes at the end of the day to enjoy a podcast” Jochen Robes
• “Free audio and video podcasts on virtually any topic. Enough learning for a lifetime.” Jerome Martin
• “perfect for organising my increasing library of music. It’s also a great source for various downloads” Rebecca Jones
• “Podcasts through iTunes have become a rich source of personal education for me. ” Patrick Mayfield
• “easy to use, tons of stuff to download and learn from – books, podcasts, video” Janice Petosky
• “For all my music needs! I’m listening to my music right now in fact.” Adam Kosh
• “This is my gateway to podcasts. I subscribe to a variety of podcasts related to learning and coaching. With iTunes and my iPod, I can be learning even when I walk the dog.” Anastasia Prynikova
• “This one goes with GarageBand. Last year I explained: “We set up an iTunes account for the students to be able to download the podcasts. Search for EdTech@OSU.” John Curry
• “iTunes, in combination with my iPod, is the source for a lot of the content I listen to and view to when traveling.” Jeff Cobb

Comments from those who selected iTunes as one of their Top 10 Tools in 2007

• “I don’t like following the crowd. So I resisted iTunes as long as possible. Until I got a Mac. Until then I’d been using a podcast catcher that sat on my mp3 player. But I’m afraid Apple’s design team won again. The whole way the software integrates with the iTunes webservice is just great. I’m still not an iPod user, so I had to get an additional (free) tool – SyncTunes to pull stuff out of iTunes onto the mp3 player. I rely on podcasts alongside Google Reader to engage with the learning community. It means driving time is not wasted.” Mark Barthelemy
• “for me podcasts are the perfect way to learn on the move – on the Tube, waiting for planes, driving – and iTunes is easily the best way of finding and organising them. Favourite broadcasters are the BBC’s Melvyn Bragg and Peter Day, but I’ve recently got into poetry, general business, language and general science broadcasts, too” Don Taylor
• “Podcasting (video and audio) has replaced broadcast television in my life. Its also a MAJOR component of my personal lifelong learning toolkit. My favorite music, podcasts, movies, TV episodes, all in one place and syncable, and playable on my iPhone…that’s a beautiful thing.” Brent Schlenker
• “Audio has been a component of many online learning spaces, but iTunes has greatly simplified the process by which professors can provide audio (and now video) content for offline review” Britt Watwood