Inside GIA Education

In this Bonus episode - Inside GIA Education . . .

Eureka - “I found it!" The original “Inside GIA Education” CD our team at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) produced for its Alumni celebration at the Tucson Gem Shows for 2006 (and it contains some fun gems).

This MP3 file was the first episode of our podcast series, launched in 2006, and introduced our bi-monthly education updates. As the Director of Education Training, I had the privilege of visiting Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, CA, and participating in the beta testing phase of iTunes U. This platform was instrumental in helping GIA take the first steps towards transitioning from print to digital delivery.

In 2007, Apple launched iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store that offered free educational content from prestigious universities such as Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). Initially, GIA was the platform's only "trade school" hosted. The content included course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights, and campus tours in audio, video, or eBook format.

Many universities worldwide embraced this opportunity to share their content, and hundreds of thousands of courses were uploaded and downloaded by millions of users. One of the most popular courses was Stanford University's iPhone Application Programming course, which was downloaded one million times in under seven weeks in 2009.

In 2012, Apple introduced a separate iTunes U app with new features that enabled instructors to offer full courses to students, complete with homework assignments and quizzes. The app aimed to provide a new learning experience for students with iPhones, iPads, or iPod Touches, primarily in K-12.

For many years, iTunes U content was accessible on desktop computers through iTunes. However, in 2017, Apple removed the iTunes U section, making full courses available only through the iTunes U app on Apple mobile devices. At the same time, Apple moved standalone lectures and content in iTunes U that didn’t make up full courses, known as collections, to the Apple Podcasts app.

In June 2019, Apple announced that it would be discontinuing its iconic iTunes music platform and replacing it with separate music, podcasts, and video apps in response to changing user preferences.

I'm excited to share this exclusive podcast episode. Although the email addresses, phone numbers, and website links mentioned in the episode are no longer available, you can still listen to this audio episode and get the flavor of what our "on-demand radio" program, Inside GIA Education, was like. I hope you enjoy it!

I'm Patrick Ball; thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.

Comments

The Gopher Problem and the High Powered Solution

Vacationing in Maine this week, just a short drive down the coast from Freeport, it is hard not to think about the outsized impact one frustrated outdoorsman had on the gear we all use today. Bad equipment can ruin a perfectly good day on the water or the trail, but it takes a special kind of vision to turn cold feet into a century-old empire. This is the story of the company we now know as L.L.Bean, but more importantly, it is a masterclass in integrity, learning from failure, and standing behind your work. In 1912, Leon Leonwood Bean faced a persistent problem: returning from expeditions in the Maine woods with cold, wet feet. Instead of complaining, he got creative. He had a local shoemaker stitch waterproof rubber soles onto the flexible leather uppers of a hunting boot. He called it the Maine Hunting Shoe and mailed a flyer promising perfect satisfaction. Then reality arrived. Ninety of his first 100 pairs failed when the rubber separated from the leather. Not an effective product...

On Becoming Real

Some things get better with wear: old shoes, old friendships, and old books. Especially old books. A new volume arrives with crisp corners and a spine that hasn’t yet learned to bend. An old one has been somewhere. It has traveled through time in the hands of people who may no longer be around to tell us what they found inside. The copy of The Velveteen Rabbit (first published in 1922) on my desk is one of those books. My friend Don Hanley gave it to me. This late-1950s Doubleday edition features William Nicholson’s original illustrations and cream paper boards softened by age. Worn corners, a split spine, and colored tabs mark passages worth revisiting. Don didn’t hand me a keepsake. He gave me homework. When we talked about the book recently, he pointed me straight to the nursery conversation between a young rabbit and an old Skin Horse. The rabbit had noticed the mechanical toys around him—the ones with internal gears, bright paint, and stick-out handles that seem terribly impressiv...

A Dog, a Beer . . . and the Ghost of 1912

Whenever you step into an American cathedral of our National Pastime built before modern ergonomics, municipal zoning, or crowd-flow dynamics, an unspoken understanding forms, creating a welcoming, timeless atmosphere. You trade legroom, sensible corridors, and personal space for the privilege of communing with ghosts. Last week, Lori and I made our pilgrimage to Fenway Park to watch our Chicago Cubs take on the Boston Red Sox (a taut 0–2 contest that felt spiritually tied to their 1918 World Series meeting). Staying just across the Charles River at the Courtyard Marriott in Cambridge gave us one immeasurable tactical advantage: we walked. While the automotive gridlock around Kenmore Square took on the character of the Siege of Yorktown—horns echoing across the asphalt like musket fire—we simply strolled across the Boston University Bridge, enjoying the river breeze and feeling smugly superior to everyone trapped behind a steering wheel. Fenway, built in the spring of 1912, holds rough...

Engineering Beef Stew

On July 2nd—Day Two of what I call The Great Un-Working —I sat down with my morning notebook to map out this new chapter of my life. One goal made the list in bold ink: Learn to Cook. At seventy, I was adding a skill most people master before they’re old enough to drive. Before you judge me, understand our household ecosystem. Lori is a phenomenal cook. For decades, she’s made meals so effortless and delicious that restaurants seem unsatisfying . My contribution to the culinary arts during my bachelor years–tuna mixed into Kraft Mac & Cheese. Let’s just say I wasn’t threatening her spot on the Food Network. But retirement changed the equation. I’m officially off the clock while Lori is still working. And I had a lovely thought: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she came home after a long day to find dinner waiting? She loved the idea. Then came the question that haunted me for weeks: “What do you want to make?” I had no idea. Apparently, the first step in learning to cook is deciding wh...

On The Fly

Search This Blog