My mom said, "We're touch screen people...if we touch a screen and nothing happens, it's weird."
I noticed she was right; it felt weird when I was maneuvering with the Kindle keyboard. All of this recounting to say that iTunes U is designed perfectly for this culture and generation. If I were in middle or high school and offered the option of iTunes textbooks, I would choose it immediately. Even though some people are old school and believe in the power of words written on paper, the reality is that our world is moving away from this traditional way of learning.
Sometimes I find this shift discouraging because I am not always a fan of change, but after exploring some of the iTunes U, I found that you can highlight, add notes, and place bookmarks - just like you can in a physical book. Another encouraging aspect of iTunes U is that a student can explore material more so that it is a hands-on experience. Students can click on links and view videos to explain difficult material or show something that one might need to visualize in order to understand.
One iTunes U series that I found interesting was the "What is Religion?" series. When I was in high school, we had a World Contemporary Affairs class, but we focused a lot on different religions of the world and how they have affected countries, people, and cultures today. One aspect of "What is Religion?" is the videos and pictures of artifacts and architecture reflecting or symbolizing major world religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism. Looking back at that CWA class in high school, I would have loved get a more "hands-on" experience with these religions to better understand the people and groups involved. Another neat facet of this series is the music (specifically Sikhism music) that students can listen to in order to learn more.
Although I can be reluctant to change, I believe that iTunes U is great for this coming age. Students can have a better learning experience while taking ownership over their learning and even having more power to customize their learning!
Virginia I can definitely see your point in regards to people today learning through touch technology and wanting to be more hands on. If students could work with iTunesU on an ipad or ipod where touch technology is used it could definitely enable learning in numerous ways. I really enjoyed reading about your discoveries when it came to reading a novel or textbook on iTunesU...I had no idea you could do all those things! The great thing I like about iTunesU is its accessibility, reliability, and versatility. It's nice as teachers to provide students with dependable resources that they can easily access and is guaranteed to provide them with some topic that interests them. In allowing students to interact with someone else's work we can hopefully encourage active learning inside and outside the classroom.
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