ACC’s eLearning has teamed up with iTunes to bring you iTunes U, a free web-based classroom.

iTunes U enables professors to upload coursework, and share recorded lectures via podcast or audio files. The ACC channel offers a variety of information pertaining to many different courses.

Lee Christopher, head of eLearning, says the iTunes U classroom can be used for many different reasons.

“It can be a place to preview courses or an instructor’s teaching style, or to review lectures from class,” she said.

In addition to lecture reviews, instructors also can use the online classroom to post more in-depth, expanded topics to help increase a student’s understanding of difficult concepts.

This free service is available to all. It can be an excellent tool for students who are enrolled in the ACC courses that have uploaded content, students who are looking to enroll in a certain ACC course or persons who are not enrolled at ACC but who are wanting to explore the course content for their own personal enjoyment.

Faculty can create podcasts for the iTunes U classroom with the help of eLearning where equipment and assistance are available. From there, the content will be curated into the online classroom.

Christopher and the staff at eLearning hope that the data analytics offered by iTunes U will encourage more faculty members to participate in curating content.

A wealth of information is already available on the ACC channel. Many courses that contain podcasts are offered as supplementary materials to courses in Philosophy, Religion and Accounting. These shorter podcasts also can serve as excellent teaser materials for prospective students.

Full course lectures are offered in courses such as Ken Smith’s Microbiology and Intro to Human Disease, and U.S. History to Reconstruction with Professor and History Department Chair Donald Walker. Jeff Broome, a long-tenured professor of ACC Littleton, has recorded full length lectures (approximately 1 hour or more) for the Philosophy of Religion course, as well as lectures that cover a variety of Ethics topics such as Kant, Plato and Mill’s Utilitarianism.

Another channel created by Broome called “History Talks” contains a series of lectures that pertain to the “Wild West” era historical events that occurred in Colorado, Kansas and surrounding areas. Topics pertaining to the Cheyenne War are covered in-depth by Broome who recently published a book on the same topic. Broome is a well-published author whose works cover subjects such as Wild Bill Hickok, Custer and more. This channel presents an opportunity to deepen one’s understanding of the troubled history of ACC’s home state without the burden or time constraints of taking an entire semester of classes.

The ACC iTunesU can be accessed in a few easy steps. If you do not already have iTunes downloaded to your computer, you will need to do that first. A link to the iTunes/QuickTime download site can be found on the ACC D2L home screen.

After the program installs, it is a cinch to access the ACC online classroom. Just type Arapahoe Community College in the search bar and enter the iTunes U channel. From here you can access course information by topic or view all to peruse everything the channel has to offer.