Apple announced that iTunes supports iTunes U (iTunes University), which offers free audio and video content from universities, museums, public organizations, and other cultural institutions.

This treasure trove of digital content, which can be accessed from a link on the iTunes store includes more than a dozen categories of content (engineering, health & medicine, history, mathematics, science, society, teaching & education, as well links to content at specific universities & colleges, K-12 districts, and community organizations.  Here is a screen shot of featured sites when you click on science from the iTunes menu.

Screen shot of featured iTunes U Science

The challenge in teaching is knowing how to make use of this powerful resource.  The old model of using media would suggest that it is there for us to consume.  The new model of using media is that its personal, and that we can use it in creative ways, and that we can use it as a base to create new media, and to invent new ways of using this media.  In teaching the key is making use of the interactivity that is implicit in new forms of digital media.  Students who are assigned to simply listen to and watch a specific “piece” of digital content might impose a different attitude toward the assignment, in that they are already using digital media to create, not simply to consume.  And this is a real challenge for us as teachers.  The consumption model of teaching dominates; the creative model does not.

What do you think? How could the content in iTunes U be used to support a creative, constructivist model of teaching?