More than 22,400 people browsed a new Ohio State iTunes U course “New Research Trends in Italian Screen Studies,” in just the first two and a half weeks it was available online. In that same time period, the course was downloaded more than 4,000 times and streamed more than 3,500 times. The iTunes course was the end-product from a campus course that 10 Ohio State students took as a group, participating in weekly video conferencing sessions with scholars from many institutions, according to Dana Renga, associate professor of Italian in the Department of French and Italian.

“There is a lot of interest in Italian screen studies, and I wanted to ‘bring in’ 10 different scholars from the U.S. and U.K. to do these video units with our students,” Renga said. “Each speaker chose a film and five articles to help contextualize the film; then the students interacted with the scholars through video conferencing.”

The course covered Italian cinema from 1942 to the present, concentrating on teen film, queer cinema, migration cinema, neorealism, fascist colonial cinema, post-feminism, the terrorist film, mafia cinema and more. Once the course was complete, all of the videos of the scholars and students became available, for free, on iTunes U, thanks to assistance from Ohio State’s Office of Distance Education and eLearning.

“The Ohio State students found the course really, really rewarding,” Renga said. “It was completely interactive, sparking engaged conversations each week with the different scholars. Plus, the students got to learn from experts from all over and experience their different teaching methods.”

Daniel Paul, a PhD student in Italian, took the course and also co-authored the iTunes U course. “This course really kept us on our toes,” he said. “We read the articles and watched the film to prepare for interacting with each guest. We wanted to get involved with the materials so we could really engage with the scholars and create a good dialogue.”

He added, “It was a lot of fun and a great opportunity to get to know new theories in Italian cinema and network with some of the leaders in the field.”

The course was featured by Apple in its top New Courses category after release. Ohio State’s iTunes U site is one of the largest course providers for the platform, reaching  thousands of learners around the globe every day.

(Image: Jacques Perrin and Maracello Mastrioanni in Cronaca Familiare.)