I think the best use of such technology is to encourage personal enterprise, exactly as you seem to have gone about it without prompting. Middle school and high school kids can be given a structure within which they can find topics that interest them, dive into the inquiry, and then produce something to show their learning. If a student wants to study books, or film, or audio lectures, he or she will gravitate to what makes sense to him or her. The trick will be providing a proper structure so students don't drown in information options, and agreeing to useful evaluation standards.

(Former high school English teacher, fwiw.)

I can do a point-by-point takedown of your post, if you want, but let's just say you oughtta stick to baseball.

"I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks." - Thomas Edison, 1922

He couldn't have been more wrong.

That said, there is one thing that self-learning really can't offer that classroom education does: feedback, clarification, and critical debating. Don't get me wrong, one can get a great deal from self-learning, in fact, that is the first step in most learning that is why we assign homework on something that we will cover more intensely the next day in class. But to really own the material requires a level on engagement and interaction.

We learn best by doing (and that is often why so much of what we many people learn in college is outside of the classroom). The education power users take what they learn in the classroom and put it into practice through peer discussion, extending the idea or tool into a different context, or practical application in the real world. So, I commend you not just on getting those free lectures off iTunes, but then engaging your readers.

And for those haters who say you should stick to baseball, in the immortal words of 50 cent and Kanye West, Go head and switch them styles up And if they hate then let them hate And watch the money pile up!

I would broaden it a bit first, though. What you are talking about is a single technology replacing a vast education business empire, and that simply will never happen. There are too many people, and too much money, vested in the current system for it to change. At the K12 level, the NEA and AFT will make sure of that, and both of these organizations put a lot of money in politicians' pockets to make sure that change doesn't occur.

At the higher ed level, the value added of a college degree is the degree itself, not necessarily the learning. Is it possible to get as good (or better) an education at U. of Phoenix or Rio Salado vs. Harvard or Yale? Of course. But H & Y have the networking opportunities, the branding, etc. They've built their brands for hundreds of years. That's why you won't see them get into the distance ed business very much. But back to where this paragraph started, what colleges are concerned with, on the student side--by and large--is students completing degree programs. Learning, per se, is secondary.

However, for folks who are done with college or really do want to learn about a topic--for the sake of the learning--then iTunes U is genius. But we're talking about learning something specific, not marking a checkbox towards a degree. These are very different goals.

Now, to take a more micro look at the issue, iTunes U is not really as you portray. You said, "The best teachers are a click away." Um, not exactly. The best speakers or lectures might be, but that is not the same thing as the best teacher. And what you listen to for 30 minutes or even two hours is a whole different thing that doing that 3x/week for 16 weeks...and office hours, and grading, etc. The lecture method is useful for some things (heck, that's why it's survived for 2500 years), but pointless for others. Think you could teach someone to hit a fastball by listening to a lecture? Examples are abundant. But what it boils down to is this: lectures are passive. iTunes U is merely porting an ancient instructional technology (the lecture method) to a new medium. The interactivity is lacking.

However, you do mention Skype discussions as being a possibility. So now you're getting more towards what is involved in education. But that isn't what these lecturers have necessarily signed on to. Again, giving a lecture once or even a dozen different ones is not teaching. It's just telling. Leading a discussion--a good one that engages everyone--is much harder to do.

Faculty-student interaction is key, as is student-student interaction. Prompt feedback. Emphasizing time on task. Etc. There is a lot of ghost that is not easy to put into the machine. And beyond that, you have to respect diverse talents and ways of learning. You have to shift learning modalities several times within a class period, let alone an elementary school day or for an entire unit or semester. This keeps interest but it also allows students to interact with content in different ways, which better increases their ability to encode and remember it.

So a one-size-fits-all model (e.g., one genius lecturer getting 99% pay while lackeys collect worksheets in class) just won't work. It's pretty much the antithesis to several generations of learning theories.

But I will certainly grant you this: for the adult learner who wishes to learn something specific, iTunes you can definitely be perfect...for certain kinds of learning.

Again, though, don't confuse a "world-class chemist" with a world-class teacher. The two are not the same thing at all. Ideally, a world class teacher (or instructional designer) could work with the world class chemist to design a course that would blow everyone away. Or the teacher could bring in his chemist buddy to lecture on a topic in his area of expertise...but then the teacher would need to facilitate discussion, assess the learning, etc. There is a lot to teaching--many events of learning--that must take place.

I could continue if need be.

I think my view is biased by my educational experience. I never had those engaging teachers. I ended up in giant classrooms or discussions led by bored TAs who only wanted to get back to their apartment with their undergrad girl of the week.

I'll also agree that it would only work for certain kinds of learning, but I'm not sure where that line is. The concept of 'telepresence' is very, very interesting to me. Current technology isn't enough and will never completely replace the current educational system. I just think we have to keep asking the question, especially when the system isn't working well, is costing too much, and there's no real competition.

I guess what I commented on earlier was iTunes lectures replacing teachers. What iTunes is, is content. A better comparison might be iTunes U replacing textbooks. In fact, textbook makers are finally getting wise and beginning to disaggregate texts into single e-chapters for sale. Just as print media have online media taking out a chunk, online content is replacing print content.

I see in your last post (#7), you seem to be speaking about online learning rather than just iTunes U. That is a different kettle of fish. Online learning can absolutely be as robust as face-to-face (f2f) learning. What some people will try to claim is that online learning is "better" or can improve learning. Unfortunately for them, media comparison studies have been conducted since at least as far back as 1928 (!), and the conclusion is that there is no significant difference in learning outcomes between residential and distance courses.

I think lower-tier schools are absolutely competing with Phoenix, et al. It's not that Phoenix is inferior somehow and is only gunning for lower-tier schools, though. It's more the situation that lower-tier schools, city schools, commuter schools, have lower barriers to entry, generally, and therefore attract many students who have a more mercenary view of their education. Such kids are ripe for a Phoenix.

So if your school is for navel-gazers who want to play frisbee on the quad and meander through small classes taught by PhDs only, you have nothing to worry about. Your value added is bringing students in and keeping them there. The schools mentioned in the previous paragraph, OTOH, are in the business of reaching outward and pushing out that content. The brand for such schools is not prestigious enough to have any worries about being watered down by offering online degrees.

[I know you said you didn't want me to continue this in comments. Sorry. It's easier for me to comment this way. This format allows me a lower threshold for writing about this stuff. If I were to write it somewhere more "official," I'd have to be way more coherent and it would take me too long. It would fall under the category of "work," too.]

I kept myself restricted to higher ed this time. K12 is something else. And there's plenty to talk about there.

I can continue.

Also google "no significant difference", if you're curious about that. FWIW, this last bit is not settled dogma within instructional technology circles. Check out "clark kozma debate" if you really want to geek out.