“Many instructors tell us that having course materials on the iPod has transformed the way they use media during their classes.”
Samantha Earp, Head,
Instructional Media and Language Technology Services
Duke University: Campus Demand Drives Development of iTunes U
Durham, NC — Tracy Futhey probably wouldn’t describe herself as a psychic. But when Duke University’s vice president for information technology first looked at an iPod, she saw the future — of education. Thanks in large part to that vision, and Futhey’s leadership, Duke subsequently launched what was then the country’s biggest iPod initiative to date: In the fall of 2004, iPod players were distributed to all 1400 incoming freshmen. The results of that early deployment helped drive the development of iTunes U, with Duke’s faculty, staff, and students helping to shape this groundbreaking method of content distribution. Now, no one needs a crystal ball to predict that iPod, podcasting, and iTunes U will become a part of teaching and learning everywhere.
Soon after Apple’s iPod was introduced Futhey began a series of conversations with Apple, aimed at fostering innovation in curriculum technology integration. Futhey saw the device’s potential to introduce dynamic media into coursework, says Julian Lombardi, Duke’s assistant vice president of Academic Services and Technology.
“Tracy recognized that iPod would allow access to rich content anytime, anywhere, and do it extremely easily,” Lombardi notes. “She helped gain support at the highest levels of our administration for this notion of infusing a new and emerging technology throughout our campus. She also realized the value of partnering with Apple as they developed an entirely new way to distribute content. That unnamed technology evolved into what is now iTunes U; something that has fundamentally changed the way we — and many other universities — now work.”
Pilot iPod Program Demonstrates Benefits
Prior to the distribution of the first batch of 20GB iPod players, Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) began consultations with professors, helping them to incorporate new technologies and practices into their syllabi. At the same time, Duke’s back-end infrastructure was being evaluated by the Office of Information Technology, which was charged with improving and rolling out the new technical solutions. Working together, this collaborative team covered all aspects of Duke’s revolutionary classroom experiment.
Pioneering Instructors Selected
Staff members from the IT and CIT departments then worked with a select group of professors to create a curriculum roadmap for digital content integration. Jessica Mitchell, project manager for what became known as the Duke Digital Initiative (DDI), and Samantha Earp, head of Duke’s Instructional Media and Language Technology Services, say attitude and aptitude were equal selection criteria in the pioneering instructors chosen to launch what began as Duke’s “iPod First-Year Experience.”
“We chose professors who were courageous, and could pick up the ball and run with it pretty quickly,” Earp explains. “Also, we looked for people who would enjoy an immediate benefit in their courses. For example, an instructor who taught an intensive Spanish class required that her students do a lot of oral speaking assignments. The iPod gave everyone the mobility, the portability they lacked.“
However, at that time no central location existed to store content, or share it for coursework. This need led to the deployment of an in-house content server. “In the early stages of the program — during the spring and summer of 2005 — access to the content was limited to those who were enrolled in an iPod class, as well as the instructors and TAs,” says Mitchell.
Collaboration with Apple Shapes Product Development
In the fall of 2005, Apple began working with Duke and other pilot schools to implement iTunes U as a way of pushing content to students and the greater academic community. Input from Duke’s faculty, staff, students, and the other pilot schools helped to further define podcasting technology and iTunes U for all users. “We were extremely fortunate to partner with Apple in developing this tool. We gave Apple’s engineers tons of feedback,” says Mitchell.
Says Earp, “In some courses students only need to see a specific set of materials, depending on what section they’re in. Apple worked with us to determine how best to accommodate that very granular, specialized need. That was a huge benefit: Apple got an understanding of our use cases, and we learned how the product could be used to create the best-possible outcomes for our students.”
*The mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and represents neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.
