Blog Post #4 - iTunesU

iTunes U has great potential as evidenced by The Columbia Teachers College page as compared to UB on iTunesU.  At first glance on UB's page, I got rather excited when I saw that the Graduate School of Education was a category and my anticipation rose when I saw that Science Education itself was its own section.  I watched the one podcast that was included, and though it was an interesting story about a success story of a teacher using technology in her science class, I soon became disappointed that there were no other podcasts.  I decided to go back to the home page and found in interesting that some classes post podcasts by course number and decided to check out any of the chemistry courses I have taken here.  I was disappointed again that most classes did not have any podcasts linked to the course title.

On the flipside, the Columbia Teachers College had a multitude of resources, including podcasts of lectures and presentations in various areas of interest.  There were far more categories than UB's site and these categories had great depth. For these reasons, I believe the Columbia Teachers College on iTunesU appeals to a much broader audience, for people on and off campus.  Check out the images below of the two colleges' opening page.  Which one seems more appealing to you?

Images found on iTunesU

In order to improve UB's iTunesU site to better serve the community, I would use the Columbia Teachers College site as a guide.  Providing categories that appeal to the community would be first and foremost, such as Health and Medicine, Society, Humanities, and more.  I would like to see a page to illustrate the plans for UB in the future (i.e. the downtown medical campus) and how they will impact the local economy, job market, etc.  Another inclusion would be to describe the programs that UB is involved in and how it impacts the community, such as educational outreach programs.  I would like to see podcasts on what people are doing to improve the community and how people can get involved for the betterment of their neighborhoods.  For instance, the revitalization of the waterfront, the recent movement of fixing up old houses in the city, etc.  This area has a lot of history and I think it would be interesting to create episodes of podcasts highlighting various historical locations.  Additionally, this community has a strong liking of the arts and so the iTunesU page could be used to highlight this aspect of human interest.    These are a small number of items that people in Buffalo have an interest in and that is what UB should capture on its iTunesU page.