Duke University welcomed its newest freshman class to campus in style this semester - the university bought each freshman a brand new Apple 20-gigabyte iPod.
The benefits of the iPods, part of a larger Duke initiative to incorporate technology into education and campus life, have yet to be determined.
According to Duke officials, the university will spend roughly half a million dollars on the yearlong experiment. The bulk of those funds went toward the purchase of 1,650 iPods for the incoming freshmen and an additional 150 for other academic and support needs. Apple gave the university an undisclosed discount on the iPods, which typically cost between $300 and $400 each.
The hand-held digital music devices became popular in the past year for their ability to store thousands of songs on their onboard hard drives. But Manager of News and Information Groups with Duke's Office of Information Technology David Menzies said Duke's iPods will be used for education and community enhancement.
Fostering community
The iPods were distributed to freshmen on Aug. 19 and came pre-loaded with orientation-related content, including salutations from Duke President Richard Broadhead and Provost Peter Lange, as well as advice from current Duke students on academics, social life and activities, according to Duke's Web site.
Duke freshman Amanda Goldenberg said she had seen a lot of people using the iPods during orientation but was still trying to figure out how to use it herself. She said since she isn't particularly technologically inclined, she had simply listened to the orientation audio on a compact disk distributed at the same time.
According to Menzies, faculty members at Duke initiated the iPod experiment by voicing a desire to add audio and video components to their class offerings.
In an attempt to foster creative uses of the digital devices, Duke's Center for Instructional Technology familiarized the faculty with the iPods' capabilities but left their specific uses up to the discretion of individual professors, he said.
Duke's Web site lists seven freshman courses as having found innovative uses for the iPod. Among those classes is "Berlin in the 20th Century." The freshman seminar will use the iPod to add an audio dimension to the course's "literary, artistic and cinematic treatment of Berlin's culture in the twentieth century," according to Duke's Web site.
Students in the course will be given access to historical recordings of music. The class will also listen to speeches both on iPods and through streaming media files on the Web. Students will then compare the two methods of accessing course material as part of the evaluation of the iPod experiment.
"Fundamentals of Digital Signal Processing," another iPod-oriented course, will take advantage of the iPod's recording capabilities. Students will use the iPod to record environmental sounds and collect pulse rate data. Students will then bring the recordings to the laboratory to be visualized, manipulated and analyzed.
Duke freshman Chiara McPhee said during orientation Duke officials explained that the iPod could be used to help in classes and for creating innovative ways to use technology.
Students react
McPhee said her Russian language professor suggested using the iPod to record lectures to practice listening skills outside of the classroom. But McPhee has only used her iPod to record one lecture since classes started three weeks ago.
McPhee said the iPods would probably be useful in language classes but could not see herself using it for anything else.
Duke freshman Jackson McClam said none of his professors had mentioned the iPods so far.
McClam said while he hasn't been using the iPod for class, he has been downloading music to it for entertainment purposes and expects this to be his primary use of the technology.
Goldenberg said also that though she liked her iPod and had used it to download and learn several Duke chants, it probably wouldn't enhance her educational experience.
Duke's Center for Instructional Technology is currently working on a cross-departmental method for evaluating the success of the iPod experiment, Menzies said.
Students and faculty have spent an enormous amount of time acquainting themselves with the iPod and integrating the technology into their studies, he said.
Duke will conduct a thorough review of the experiment at the end of the year to "make sure the project doesn't in any way distract from students' education," he said, adding, "It is by no means a sure thing the project will continue after this year."
Duke is not the only university closely monitoring the iPod experiment. According to Brown's Vice President for Computing and Information Services Ellen Waite-Franzen, Brown will be monitoring the project very carefully and is extremely interested in the outcomes.
"What I find interesting about this experiment is that they are targeting a whole class, rather than a smaller group of students, which increases the possible creative outcomes for the project," she said.
Waite-Franzen said Brown has never undertaken integrating technology and education on the massive level of Duke's iPod experiment. The most comparable project Brown has initiated was most likely the use of Tablet PCs by computer science students last year, she said.
While Brown does not have any specific plans to use technology to augment students' educational experiences, Waite-Franzen said the University's Advisory Council on Computing and Information Services has a sub-group of members interested in exploring the ways mass-market technologies - like the iPod, cell phones, camera phones and instant messaging - could be integrated into the academic environment to enhance Brown's learning or community experience in the future.
"I cannot predict the outcome of the deliberations, but I do think that we will be looking at many of these personal technologies in a different way in future years," Waite-Franzen said.
