In the highly anticipated education-related event at Big Apple, Apple has today announced the release of the iTunes U App for iPad. The iTunes U App has been around but this release for iPad comes with design re-haul as well as some new features. The app in itself is free and acts like a portal where teachers can post notes, tell students of the course material, direct them to a certain page on a textbook and also mark and grade assignments.
According to the presentation by Apple about this iTunes U app for iPad, students can now access the course material directly from within the app. Moreover, students can access the teacher’s info such as the teacher’s name as well as the office hours.
The major sections of this app are ‘Info’ , ‘Notes’, ‘Posts’ and ‘Materials.’
In the posts section, teachers may post any updates regarding the course, for instance any upcoming assignments. In fact, they may even provide students with a direct link to a specific section within a book.
Students, on the other hand, can access class notes in the ‘Notes’ section. What is very useful in this section is that students can modify the notes and highlight any areas they want to.
All the relevant course material, the textbooks and any audio-visual material comes under the tab of ‘Materials.’ The app in itself is free but the course material may cost money. For instance, a textbook that is not free may have to be paid for from within the app. Apple already has the app functional in a number of universities and this may be a defining moment for the future of digital education.
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