I was just sitting around tonight and was thinking about how people are bent out of shape about iTunes U and its so-called walled gardens.  I personally agree to some extent, but I then started to think about reality a bit.  In higher education very few faculty are willing or are (legally) able to post their materials in the open.  It is one of the big reasons many Universities have large learner or course management systems (LMS/CMS) in place.

These tools give us the ability to maintain content, upload stuff, protect materials at a class level, customize the learning space to a degree, and collaborate — all behind protected spaces.  Sounds a hell of a lot like iTunes U (without the RSS, pod catcher, slick interface, or integrated commerce).  Lots of people complain about how restrictive our LMS/CMS tools are … these environments are designed to be unsearchable and closed … that is what we require in higher ed.

No argument here, podcasting is real and we have to deal with it.  My question is, should our existing tools wake up or do we go to a new approach?  Interesting times …