iTunes U is Pretty Awesome
Just a quick blog to bring people's attention to it. iTunes 9 has been released and Apple is trying to get people to check out the material in iTunes U. For those who don't know, these are lectures from various universities in "podcast" form. I put the word "podcast" in quotes since they seem to act more like plain mp3's than actual podcasts on the iPhone.
There are two courses on iTunes U that I'd like to recommend. Both come from Stanford University, and both really tie in to my love of history. The first is Colonial and Revolutionary America, a series of lectures by Jack Rackove, which examines the political and sociological environment in the colonies before, during, and shortly after the Revolution. The second, which I have only just started yesterday, is The Historical Jesus, by Thomas Sheehan, which takes a scholarly look at the life of Jesus the man, not the figure that the early Christians made him into.
It's nice to see Apple starting to publicize iTunes U. There's content from all sorts of educational institutions. I'd like to see some stuff from Princeton end up online.