The Daily Mining Gazette - Published: Saturday, June 23, 2007 Print Article | Close Window Tech lectures now on iTunes By Dan Schneider DMG Writer HOUGHTON — Download “Surfin’ Bird” by the Trashmen. Download “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen. Download Professor Faith Morrison’s “CM 4650 — Polymer Rheology”. Michigan Tech University is a prominent part of an iTunes shift toward academia. Last month, Apple publicly rolled out iTunes U, a section of its iTunes music store that offers free downloading of multimedia college lectures. There are about 200 colleges that provide lectures their students can gain access to through iTunes. But Tech is one of only 16 schools that provides its courses for free, worldwide. They’re listed on the iTunes U page right below Duke and just above MIT. “This is a short list of fairly prestigious universities and we’re on that short list,” Tech Director of Educational Technology and Online Learning Patty Lins said. Now people around the world can download courses using iTunes software and play them back on their computers or mp3 players. Available Tech courses include Environmental Engineering, Mammology and Mechanical Properties of Materials. Lins said Professor Robert Nemiroff’s Introductory Astronomy is the most popular Tech course on iTunes U. Production values vary from course to course. Some are video-recorded classroom lectures while others are more involved. “Some of them will do a full production of it with their Powerpoint slides and some slick narrations,” Tech Media Production Manager Jeff Toorongian said. Some courses include supplementary materials in PDF and video form, all available for free on the web site. Apple hosts all the content for iTunes U on its servers. Students at Tech can use the online lectures to review for their classes. Anyone in the world can learn by watching the courses, though they’d have to actually take the courses at Tech to get college credit for them. Lins said Tech’s presence on iTunes U is good exposure for the university. “The publicity that Michigan Tech gets from this is outstanding and it promotes Michigan Tech very well,” she said. Tech’s logo remains in the lower right corner of the screen throughout each lecture. Online learning is not a new thing at Tech. Professor Kurt Paterson, whose Environmental Engineering class is offered on iTunes U, has been using the Internet to augment his classes for years. “Years ago when the Internet first came into more public use I thought it might be a reasonable technology to integrate into learning and that probably was back in 1994 and ‘95,” Paterson said. In more recent years, Internet access tools have become user-friendly enough to make internet learning more practical. Paterson said students’ using Internet lectures can free up classroom time for more active, hands-on learning. Another advantage is the Internet allows professors to add content to their courses from far-flung experts in various fields. iTunes U can be found on the Web at www.apple.com/education/itunesu. Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider@mininggazette.com