I have been trying to find a good K-12 topic to share about iTunesU so the topic of this blog entry is going to be Teacher's TV. It is based out of London. Teacher's TV is funded by the Department of Education but is operated by an independent media consortuim Education Digital. It provides videos, resources, and an online community for teachers to learn new things, practice teaching skills, and connect with others in the field. The iTunesU page offers links to Teacher's TV's homepage, contact information, about page, and terms of use. Its site is divided into 4 sections; subjects, whole school, featured programmes, and focus on. Each section then has a primary and secondary subset where tracks are listed according to topic. I was very puzzled when I noticed that there have not been any updates to any of the sections since March of 2010. I visited the homepage and clicked on the help button. There I learned that Teacher's TV was an actual television channel in the UK. It was recently turned off in favor of an online only format where teachers can just search for the content they want. Users are encouraged to register with the site so that videos and resources can be saved for future use. I am guessing that the transition from television to Internet only is what is causing the delay in new content.
So I have a hard time suggesting that Teacher's TV is a good resource for K-12 teachers here in the United States. Major differences in the curricula of the two countries is a cause for the lack of faith in the site. I also am not understanding what the hold up could be with adding new content. Isn't summer vacation supposed to be used for something?
Unless you live in Australia, New Jersey, or one of the other 14 states that have iTunesU pages linked under the K-12 tab, there isn't going to be much value for iTunesU to the K-12 teacher. It appears that the U in its name really makes it more appealing to colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning. I would still only use it if I was taking a course that specifically required me to access content from it. At least most of the content is free with an iTunes account.
Maybe some of you have used it in the past of can identify other uses for it for K-12 teachers. If so post in the comments section. Thanks.
Hi Greg:
ReplyDeleteThank you for this posting about the UK's Teacher TV, which seemingly is turning into Teacher Online Resources when the content updates finally takes hold. In terms of iTunesU, it sounds like further development of their K-12 resources and referrals are needed.