I just purchased an art history class from the Teaching Company and I can see how to log in to the Great Courses Web site to watch the lectures, but I’m wondering: is there a way to watch the lectures on my Apple iPad Mini?
Glad to hear from another fan of The Great Courses. We’re huge fans here at AskDaveTaylor and have been listening to the audio versions of their courses for years, courses ranging from philosophy to literature, science and psychology. I mean, when you’re stuck in a commute or puttering away at the gym, why not learn something while you listen rather than just sing along to the same old songs you’ve listened to for years?
Audio-only format is easy to work with in iTunes, of course, but the videos aren’t something you can just download and copy onto your iPad Mini as if it were a TV series (alas). Instead, you need to download and install The Great Courses iPad app.
So let’s start there. Click here to get it: Download The Great Courses for iPad.
With that installed, simply launch it on your iPad.
The result will look something like this:
Log in with your account credentials and all the courses you’ve purchased will show up:
You can see my interests generally run towards history and art history: The World’s Greatest Paintings, How to Look at and Understand Great Art, The Skeptic’s Guide to American History, but I’m also trying out a new style of course from The Teaching Company too: The Everyday Gourmet: Making Holiday Food Taste Great.
Turns out that “How to Look at and Understand Great Art” is the course I’m in the middle of — I watch the lectures while at the gym — so I’ll tap on that particular course cover image to proceed.
Doing so produces a detailed listing of the individual lectures:
Let’s just jump ito the first lecture by tapping on “Play” on the right side of “The Importance of First Impressions”.
A video player appears and you’re ready to tap play and go:
This particular course is taught by Sharon Hirsh, PhD, the President of Rosemont College. She really knows her stuff and I’m quite enjoying the concise 30min lecture format, just long enough for when I’m on a piece of exercise equipment.
Note the opposing arrows icon on the lower right too: A tap on that and the video expands to full screen, something I’d say is a must-tap if you want to enjoy the best possible viewing experience.
Hope this helps get you started. Dig through the Great Courses catalog, it’s quite remarkable the range of offerings they have…
Disclaimer: The Teaching Company gave us a credit against purchasing courses to help offset the cost of these first few classes. Even though I’ve already got a shelf of Great Courses in the basement office. Darn nice of them, actually, and much appreciated.