iTunes U is an outstanding way for educators to get digital content to their
students. Professors can post lectures, PDFs, presentations,
apps, really any digital content that they have into iTunes U and distribute to their
students. Private courses can be used locally, for just
Ohio State students, or a professor can publish it to the world, where not only can Ohio State
University students can access, but a global audience of life long learners has access
to the course. To get started with iTunes U, the first thing
I would recommend is going to apple.com/itunesu and reading over the information they have
on this page. This will give you a nice overview of how
iTunes U works and how you can utilize it as a professor.
The next thing you want to do, is to go into iTunes itself.
When you get to iTunes, make sure you are not logged into any existing Apple account
that you may have. You'll notice that in the upper right hand
corner where it is says sign in, that's where it would normally say your Apple ID if you
are logged in. If you are logged in, just log out, because
you need to have an Apple ID with your @osu.edu email address.
If you do not already have that, here are the steps to do so.
Open iTunes, go to the search store feature in the upper right hand corner and type in
a free app like Yelp! or dropbox and click enter.
You will notice that it displays an iPhone app and an iPad app, either one is fine.
Click on the word Free and this will pop up. Notice create Apple ID, if I click on that
it allows me to create a free Apple ID without using a credit card or using an iTunes gift
card. Just click continue, and agree to their terms
and services. And then make sure when you get to the next
page, for email that you use your @osu.edu email.
This will allow the system to know that you are affiliated with OSU when I enter you in
as a course contributor. After you have established an @osu.edu Apple
ID, email myself Cory Tressler with Digital First at Tressler.8@osu.edu.
I will then give you access to the course manager portion of iTunes U.
This is where you actually upload your content for your students.
One thing to know about the course manager is that you have to have Safari installed
on your computer. Safari is free web browser created by Apple
that runs on PC and MAC computers. To download Safari go to apple.com.
Click on Support. Click on Downloads.
Click on Internet. And it will display the options that you have
for downloading depending on what type of computer you have.
After you have created the @osu.edu Apple ID and downloaded Safari, then you are ready
to get started with the course manager portion. One tip before you get started with course
manager, is to organize all of your digital content that you have for your course into
one central folder. This folder could be located on your desktop
or located on a hard drive or anywhere you would like as long as you know where it is.
This folder should contain all the resources that you are going to use for your course.
In this example I have a PDF and a few movie
files that I'm going to use. Your syllabus, presentations, and any sort
of file that you want to distribute to your students should be in this folder.
It's just a helpful way to keep organized for when you start uploading and building
your course. And that's all it takes to get started with
iTunes U. In the next video we will look at actually
starting the course.