iTunesU: Broadening Horizons

(Updated) Reader Gregory (if you've missed it) posted a comment yesterday on "Real World: I'm a PC, I'm a Mac". He pointed to this: Bill Gates' Harvard (Class of 2007) commencement speech (requires registration) and he quoted these inspirational lines:

For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them. Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Interesting isn't it?

updated: eweek has an article on Gates Champions Creative Capitalism to End Inequity.

Speaking of breaking down barriers, is the iTunes Music Store just a one stop shop for music and video? Education is a powder-keg topic and many talk about education as way to break down barriers, so whoever came up with iTunesU should be commended.

Some of the world's leading universities have posted content content online--- which you can download via iTunesU, for example. Topics range from "Modern Theoretical Physics" to "Geography of World Cultures" to "What is Existentialism?" just to name a few of the hottest downloads (as i write this).

here's (above) a screenshot from my mac of the current content of iTunesU

It's a bigger, broader world out there. Initiatives like iTunesU can broaden horizons in an engaging and meaningful way.