Online education gets serious as iTunes U sees 300 million downloads
By Wilson • Aug 25th, 2010 • Category: Industry News
- Photo: Stock.Xchng
The Internet’s greatest achievement is without doubt how it has democratised information and learning. Knowledge one previously could not acquire without spending hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds is now available ‘for free’ with a simple Google Search.
University-type
But this unstructured approach to online education and knowledge acquisition was a bit hit-and-miss, particularly if you wanted to delve deeply into a specific knowledge vertical. This spurred on services like Academic Earth and iTunes U, which provide full online education video courses recorded at the most prestigious universities in the world for free. And the latter of the two, iTunes U, has just announced that it has crossed the 300 million downloads threshold – a quite remarkable feat in any way you spin it.
Heavyweights in support, too
To add legitimacy to the future of online education, Bill Gates, now in his full time role as a philanthropist through his Bill & Melinda Gates foundation believes that the future of education, in general, is through the Internet. He argues that five years from now, the absolute best education will be accessible through the dissemination of online courses and lectures online – education vastly superior to that any single institution can offer.
Traditional software solutions
- Photo: Apple
Though college-level lessons and classes offered as download-only online solutions have become popular, the quality of CD-based education software has also improved significantly in recent years. Ranging from the ubiquitous Focus Multimeda education software packages, to tutorial-esque applications developed by companies like Adobe and Steinberg, the process of ‘interactive or rich’ education has circumvented the classroom.
From college to the classroom
Of course we don’t believe college institutions will suddenly go away – on the contrary, the quality of the education will only get better once every professor and lecturer around the world sees the genius their counterparts at other universities bear. What will happen, though, through online education and education software is improved accessibility to those who never could – or believed they never could – get comparable education to those who are better off financially.
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