Teachers may actually start tolerating their students who listen to their iPods in the classroom, even when it is the teacher they are supposed to be listening to in the first place.

UTM has been accepted into the iTunesU Learning Initiative program to be one of the first universities in Tennessee to start using iTunesU, a free and hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to educational content, including lectures and interviews 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

iTunesU would give students the ability to take lectures and other content that professors provide and listen to them on their own time. Professors would be able to access more information and other resources such as videos and audio content easily and students would be able to download this material quickly to their iPod.

Podcasting, as this method is called, has grown exceedingly over the past few years. Educational materials may not only be downloaded to a student’s iPod but also to a laptop or desktop computer. Students also have the ability to burn the material onto CDs for future references.

Apple will provide this service free of charge to UTM so that students would not have to expect a hike in any of their fees. Since iTunesU is a free service, it would not effect any of the other technology projects on campus that need funding. At Stanford University, where iTunesU has been used by faculty members since 2005, iTunesU is particularly popular in larger classes, where lecture notes on Powerpoint slides are the most common way to reinforce learning.

“Faculty have free resources available to them on campus that would allow them to create the audio and video content for iTunesU,” said Steve Holt, Assistant Director of Information Technology Services and UTM Webmaster. “UT Martin has always been on the edge of cutting technology, so we had no hesitation in accepting participation in the iTunesU Initiative.” said Holt.