This kind of stuff brings tears to my eyes.
No, really.
Aaronson’s MIT lectures on theoretical computer science, MIT OpenCourseWare, OpenAccess journals, Apple’s iTunes U, the BBC’s In Our Time – all beautiful contradictions to recent history.
Today that illustrious group is joined by several illustrious UK institutions …
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | UK university lectures on iTunes
University College London, the Open University and Trinity College Dublin are putting lectures onto iTunes.
Educational content is already available in the United States through the non-charging "iTunes U" section of the music downloading service.
But European universities are now joining, providing video and audio material for students to use on iPods or computers.
The service will include recordings of lectures from leading academics…
… The initial offerings from UCL will include material about neuroscience, the university's "lunch time lectures" and an audio news round-up.
The Open University is promising to make available 300 audio and video files with material from current courses.
Trinity College Dublin is promising lectures from journalist Seymour Hersh, scientist Robert Winston, author Anita Desai and politician Alex Salmond.
This will be available from iTunes U, launched by Apple computers last summer as a free education area within the iTunes online music and video store.
It is intended to make lectures available to students at the institutions and to a wider public audience.
This has been used by leading US universities to provide lectures and research news, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley and MIT.
Many universities in the UK have been making their own podcasts of lectures, but this will be the first time they have been distributed on the iconic iTunes service.
Open University vice-chancellor Brenda Gourley said it was an exciting new opportunity for anyone, anywhere in the world to gain easy access to its courses.
"Our aim is to partner our established distance learning expertise with the power of the internet to provide as mobile, flexible and personalised learning as possible, whatever your current educational level, personal circumstances or technological abilities."…
One hundred years ago we thought radio would bring expertise to anyone able to listen, and, thanks in large part to the BBC, it had some success. Fifty years ago people thought television would contribute, but the twin barriers of time, reach, and limited bandwidth were too high for real progress. Twenty-five years ago Bill Gates father (William Henry Gates - "CD-ROM: The New Papyrus") and I thought the CD-ROM would do this, and it might have but for the net.
Now it’s happening, and almost nobody notices.
Sniffle.
[1] See also: The quiet demise of the CD
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