iTunes U Is Now An App… And A Whole Classroom On Your iPad [Apple Education Event]

This is a surprise: iTunes U has just moved on to its own app, and it’s a whole virtual classroom in app form. Why even go to class?

“We want to let teachers do more. We want them to do everything you need to take a class. The syllabus, everything. So we’re introducing a new iTunes U that lets teachers do everything on their iPad.”

iTunes U allows teachers to post messages to their class, assign work, give office hours and notes, post related materials and so on.

Students, on the other hand, can write their own class or lecture notes in iTunes U.

There’s also a Materials tab where you can see all the materials needed for a course collected in one spots. They can contain audio, video, books, documents (PDFs, Pages, Keynote), and even Apps. And if you don’t have any materials, you can easily buy them with iTunes U.

Professors can even download or stream their lectures for remote students.

According to Phillip Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing at Apple, at least six universities are already using iTunes U: UCLA, Berkeley, University of Paris, Tokyo, and the Harrisburg Area Community College. Between them, they’ve already created over 100 new online courses. Pilot programs are also underway at MIT, Duke, Yale and Stanford.

But even though iTunes U focuses on higher education, K-12 can now sign up too.

iTunes U is free today on the App Store.

• Via MacWorld

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