Piazza to Help Stanford for Student iTunes U Users

Sanford University offers iPhone (News - Alert) and iPad owners students the ability to download complete courses with audio and video through iTunes U app. This app allowed educators to design courses for students, but only educators were able to send to students; students couldn’t interact back with the class or the educators.

With Piazza, a social learning platform, students will now be able to ask questions and get the answers they need from their peers, being monitored by educators as well.

Registrations for the new experiment, “Coding Together,” have started, running from June 25 through August 16.

Why is this initiative and experiment of value? 

Until now, if you were stuck in your study and had any questions, there was frankly no way of communication via iTunes U. During this new campaign, questions pertaining to current assignments will be answered as priority. This effort actually focuses on the remote student, who will be able to interact with other peers and get his or her questions answered.

The class in session between June 25 and August 16 will be the class of Professor Hegarty, with materials from fall of 2011. Students will be expected to complete assignments on schedule and answer their peers’ questions via Piazza. 

The emphasis will be on questions pertaining to week’s assignments. The assignments will be ungraded and there will be no credit for the class.

 “Our goal is to extend the educational experience already provided on iTunes U by adding facilitated peer learning,” Piazza officials said. Each student that will register and login at least one a week during the experimental class will see his or her project evaluated.

Piazza has also informed that any spammers will be banned from the program and course.

The collaboration between Stanford and Piazza will make the life of the remote student easier, and the near future will tell how this initiative worked to help the student and promote better communication between the educator and the student.

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