Dear Colleagues,

We spend a lot of time implementing ways to deliver and organize copyrighted audio and video materials to and for our students. We make password protected web pages, we post files to course management systems. Students have to get on to our networks and behind firewalls in order to access them. We have to write for permissions, worry about what we are doing is legal, etc. All of this takes time and energy away from teaching and learning.

I would like to offer an open suggestion to Publishers.

iTunes is a wonderful media management system, it organizes, it is searchable, it is cross platform, and it is FREE! Publishers should make their audio and video available through an iTunes Educational Media Store. A keycode, along the lines of the Quia, Inc. or Pepsi bottle cap model, could be included with the textbook to allow for the downloading of the material. Alternately, a reasonable fee could be charged for used text books.

If IALLT, AATSP, AATF, CALICO, etc. all approached the publishers and Apple, this could happen. The advantage to the publishers is great. They would not have to publish and package CD's or DVD's, saving them lots of money, hopefully passing along the savings to the students.

Students and teachers alike would have their own copies of the materials to play when and where needed. The built-in copyright protection of the iTunes store limits the unauthorized distribution of the materials. Students are familiar with the interface. If EMINEM and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES can be distributed so easily to so many people, why can't the Lesson 5 listening comprehension or the fourth video episode be done as well?

I hoping that there are publishers who read this list and that they will consider this option. I imagine that there are individuals in IALLT who will know how to best approach the people who make such decisions.

Imagine all students having easy access to all the audio and video that a textbook has to offer without the institution having to do anything and without the publisher having to do any shrink wrapping.

ceL

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Charles E. Long, Head
International Learning Center
   -International Study Programs
   -The Language lab
Choate Rosemary Hall    333 Christian Street     Wallingford, CT 06492

"Ask not what you can do for technology, but what technology can do for you."
"Most people in the world are foreigners."
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