Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Todd's Tips - iTunes: Learn Anything, the Digital Way

I think it's time we take a slight digression from media-related posts and take a broader view of the world.

When I was last applying for jobs I was asked in an interview how I learned so many programming languages. (I am fluent in Action Script 3.0, Java, C, C++, Objective C, Python, PHP, HTML, CSS and XML). The answer is iTunes. Between podcasts and iTunes U a body can learn anything and everything on iTunes. There are literally millions of educational podcasts and free courses from a vast range of universities.

Here are just a few examples (click on the links to open iTunes right to the courses):

Don't have iTunes, don't worry. Download it here for free.

A full course from Stanford's Department of Computer Science on Development for the iPhone.

A set of all the tutorials you'll ever need for iMovie HD from the University of Houston. Btw, iMovie HD is the version that we in Media Services recommend non-media students use.

A podcast with more than 40 episodes on how to program in Action Script, Flash's Object Oriented programming language used to add interactivity to your Flash projects.

But it's not just media stuff you can find on iTunes. Just about everything else too...

A full course from Yale university on Ancient Greek History.

A full course from UC Berkeley on General Anatomy.

A full course on single-variable calculus from MIT.

There is almost nothing you cannot learn from iTunes. Just navigate to the iTunes store and type in your search terms. Scroll down on the results page to find iTunes U and Podcasts. Take advantage of it because the best part is, it's free!


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