Australia
August 29, 2012

First year subject ‘Plant Science’ has been launched as an iTunes U Course, offering lectures and readings every week while being taught during the second semester.

‘Plant Science is an introduction to the amazing world of plants,’ says lecturer Michael Emmerling. ‘They enable and support life as we know it on our planet. It will look at the interaction of soil and plant roots, coordination of plantdevelopment, leaf structure and photosynthesis, and the important role of stems. There’s also a look at plant biotechnology.’

The subject is taught at the Bundoora campus of La Trobe University, with a live video link to students studying at the Albury-Wodonga campus.

iTunes U Courses is a new delivery method from Apple Corporation which allows a worldwide audience to access freely available course teaching material through iTunes at the same time as students, regardless of location or enrolment.

La Trobe University is the first Australian university to provide content on iTunes U courses, having launched the initiative in February 2012. Other universities contributing include Stanford, Oxford University and Yale University.

In semester one, six La Trobe University subjects provided content for iTunes U. Combined they had over 100,000 subscribers to the courses, more than 2.3 million downloads of lectures and material, received national media coverage and were widely promoted by Apple to its vast audience on the iTunes U platform.

The course will also be featured on the website of the Agribio, Centre for Agribioscience, a $288 million joint venture between La Trobe University and the Victorian Government Department of Primary Industries.

‘I am excited to see the teaching of Plant Science made so accessible worldwide, since research in this area is a corepart of our work in Agribio that is addressing the key challenges facing global crop and food production, says Professor Terry Spithill, co Director of Agribio.

‘I’m delighted that La Trobe University continues to be at the forefront of developments in online digital education,’ says Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor John Rosenberg. ‘iTunes U courses bring all relevant material together to make it simple for anyone who wants to study a subject, however complex or challenging it might be.‘

Plant Science course on iTunes U
http://itunes.apple.com/course/plant-science/id557078923
 

Website: http://www.latrobe.edu.au

Published: August 29, 2012