Duke University has terminated its pioneering iPod First-Year Experience, just a year after the program's start. Rather than giving new iPods to all incoming freshmen, Duke will only provide free iPods to students enrolled in certain courses.
Last year, Duke gave all arriving freshmen a new iPod pre-loaded with orientation information, contact phone numbers and two songs, Duke's alma mater and fight song. The university also created websites for the students to download both course content and songs.
The stated purpose of the program was to record both lectures and notes on a mobile digital storage system, and more generally to use the iPods as a starting point to integrate technology and learning across various fields. Duke spent $500,000 to not only distribute the 1,600 iPods, but also to train professors and help professionals in the use of iPods as educational tools.
This fall, however, only students enrolled in certain courses will receive free iPods. Participating students will be expected to keep and use the iPods for the rest of their undergraduate career. Students given iPods in last year's program are not be qualified for a new iPod and are expected to use the iPod they were already given.
Tracy Futhey, Duke's vice president for information technology, said that the iPod has been "ideal for digital audio applications." Futhey said she will continue to look for other technology to fill the gaps still left, even with the addition of the iPod.
Duke has approved 11 courses for iPod use this fall. Approximately 600 students are already enrolled in these courses, and 17 more courses will offer iPods in the spring. The variety of courses using iPods includes Fundamentals of Digital Signal Processing, Intensive Elementary Spanish, and Computational Methods in Engineering. Funds for the project will come from money put aside for initiatives in strategic technology.
Other universities appear to be following in Duke's footsteps. Drexel University in Philadelphia will give iPods to all incoming freshmen enrolled in its School of Education this fall, evidence of the high probability of more institutions considering similar programs in the future.
Ingrid Nelson '05 wondered whether the free iPods are actually educational tools or simply academically sanctioned and funded toys, and pooh-poohed the idea of iPods coming to Dartmouth.
"I think that it is a waste of our college tuition." Nelson said. "If not so long ago we were cutting the swim team and at present we can't give the ROTC enough scholarship money, and the Federal Government has just cut Perkins Loans for financial aid students from its budget, then I think we have far more serious spending concerns than keeping up with technological fads, which, let's be honest, no one would use for schoolwork."
The College has not been as receptive as Duke to the use of recording technology.
"I bought the Griffin iTalk to record lectures for a class where I thought there was a lot of information orated by the professor," Karenne Eng '05 said. "I asked the professor in office hours if I could record the lectures but he said no because the 'nature of the class' which is supposed to have some 'ephemeral' quality that cannot be captured by recording technology. Ultimately I learned why he had said recording the lectures would not have been helpful. I'm not sure what aspects of iPods would be helpful in classes, but I know that they wouldn't necessarily make classes better."
