iTunes U: Frugal Continuing Education
Hi! I'm Mrs. Micah and I blog about all things personal finance at Finance for a Freelance Life. I also run a small blog consulting business and blog on blogging at BlogCrafted.
If you're like me, you probably regret not taking certain courses in college, or you didn't go to college and you're feeling ready to learn more about topics that interest you. What you may not have heard is that now some colleges are making classes and lecture series available to the general public (for free!) via iTunes.
It's called "iTunes U" and offers a diverse selection of lectures from any institution which chooses to make them available. Most are audio, but it appears that some are videos. In general, these are full courses or lecture series, though there is the occasional solo lecture.
So far, every lecture I've looked at or downloaded is free. And you don't need an iPod or MP3 player of any kind, just a computer and a set of headphones or speakers.
How to Use to iTunes U
If you haven't already, download iTunes onto your computer. It's free!
Start it up and go to the iTunes store. Don't let the "store" part scare you, you can access all kinds of free podcasts and lectures. I don't remember if you're required to create a user...I already have one...but that's free as well.
On the left, you'll see options for Music, Music Videos, TV Episodes, and iTunes U. Click on iTunes U.
You'll see a list of categories below the iTunes store box, offering lectures in: Business, Engineering, Fine Arts, Health & Medicine, History, Humanities, Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Society, and Teaching & Education.
I found the categories the most useful way to navigate, but you can also check out featured lectures or use their Power Search option. For the purposes of this walk-through, I decided to choose "Humanities." Then I selected the options to "See all" of their featured lectures, 13 pages worth.
Now I can select lectures on a number of topics, from John Locke to Pauline Epistles to Journalism. If you're looking for religion, this is the place to be; Humanities is perhaps 90% religion-related with lectures from many different universities.
Because I really enjoyed meeting him back in college, I select a series of lectures on "The New Monastics" by Shane Claiborne. Price? Free! All I have to do is click on the "Get" button and I've downloaded them to my iTunes. Now I can listen at my computer or on my MP3 player, whenever I have the time.
These lectures (if it's Shane Claiborne one can hardly call them lectures, more like "discussions") are made available by American Public Media, but others come from Oxford, Cambridge, Fuller Theological Seminary, Yale, etc. Because my husband lectures on Locke, I ended up going back and getting the featured Locke lectures from the Oxford. Again, free!
If you're like me, the only downside of iTunes U is that I don't have enough time to listen to lectures. I try to put them on when I'm cooking or crafting, and they're a much better use of that time than watching tv would be. So why not give it a shot?
10 Responses to “iTunes U: Frugal Continuing Education”
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 am
Great tip. Thanks for sharing.
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
Yeah, I had heard of this. Mentioned it to college girl and thought it was a cool way of her getting other point of views with the course she is attending.
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 am
[...] morning, my post on Frugal Hacks is about iTunes U, a service through which a number of colleges and universities (including such big names as Oxford, [...]
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
I just heard about Itunes U Friday night from a friend of my son’s. Now if I could just find idiot directions to get my music right on my ipod!
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I love iTunes U and all the free podcasts. I never wanted an iPod until I discovered both of these iTunes offerings. I listen to them when I walk and, frequently, when I drive.
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Excellent tip! I’ve forwarded this to half a dozen friends.
My son, who does not bother with television, uses a fairly large flat-screen TV as his computer monitor, attached to a mini-Mac. Begins to make more and more and more sense, doesn’t it? Any evening I’d rather watch some of these than a mind-numbingly violent murder show or a mind-numbingly mind-numbing “reality” or game show or a mind-numbingly unfunny sitcom.
Mille grazie!
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
That’s a great tip. I’ve used iTunes for years but I never knew about that. Thanks!
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
[...] The editor’s tool Jump to Comments The ever-resourceful Mrs. Micah has a wonderful post at Frugal Hacks that is so nifty I had to forward it to all my hard-copy friends (those are the ones who live in [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Sweet! I’m definitely going to check this out. Now all I need is 20 cans of cheap beer and some loud, annoying people in my apartment to relive the college days…
November 11th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
FREE is awesome, I must admit! Podcasts are great for those of us who commute or otherwise have idle time. I’ve found that I simply CANNOT work while listening to the spoken word, but I CAN listen to music. Go figure!
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