The GodPod

My friend, Catherine Claire, on how Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) just made all of its distance education courses available for free on iTunes:

Okay, you may be wondering what gem you would find on The Point today. Look no further. This is worth your visit. Perhaps worth ten visits. Drum roll please.... My alma mater, Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS), has made its entire distance education curriculum available online for free. That means courses that you'd have to pay to audit or drive long distances to hear, you can now listen to as you drive, as you jog, as you do whatever it is you do. A lot of the material is really excellent and helpful. In particular, you might want to check out the various lectures on church history. Here’s the link (it should open inside iTunes).

Catherine also quotes this from an RTS newsletter:

Apple’s iTunes U program allows educational institutions to make course and other materials available online in Apple’s music store. All course lectures of the RTS virtual campus courses were made available for free download on the iTune U program in June. Before this time, we were averaging about 7,000 downloads, but after June 1st, over 38,000 downloads were recorded. Since that time we have registered 15,000-20,000 downloads per week.

Another milestone occurred on Aug. 6th, when Apple selected RTS to be one of 20 institutions to be included on the main iTunes store page. This move put RTS materials alongside those from Berkeley, Stanford and Duke, to name a few. We are very excited about this program and the opportunity it provides for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be extended throughout the world through the use of the technology that Apple has made available to us.

Is it just me or would this not be a great way to try to supply theological training to pastors and layleaders overseas who might not be able to travel to get a seminary education? I can just see churches buying iPods and filling them up with a seminary education and sending them overseas.

For those working with the persecuted church, an iPod (or USB drive) full of theological training would be a snap to get into a country. Once inside, the data would be easy to duplicate. Combine that with a laptop pre-loaded with Logos Bible Software and you've got enough theological resources to last for a lifetime of learning.

Need to learn English to get started? Toss in a copy of the Rosetta Stone and English language podcasts to the mix and you are good to go.

Did I ever mention I love technology?