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Hardware Devices >> iPods at the Gate

10/29/2004

By Mikael Blaisdell

Like little armies dragging their downloadable ammunition behind them, Apple’s iPods are poised at the juncture of teenworld and your campus,just waiting to invade. Can this be a good thing?

On a warm August evening in Durham, North Carolina, Duke University’s entire incoming freshman class celebrated the beginning of the 2004 fall term by stampeding the Distribution Center to receive what was described by Duke’s administration as a hot new item of pedagogical technology. Preloaded with welcoming speeches (by various Duke officials) plus assorted information about the campus, and slated for use in four course offerings, the fourth-generation iPod (www.apple.com) giveaways represented a Duke investment in equipment and supporting infrastructure of about $500K. Of course, the euphoric reaction of Duke’s freshmen may have had more to do with the prospect of endlessly downloadable rock than with the device’s promised contribution to a first-year learning experience.

“It was just a zoo,” reports David Menzies, News and Information Manager for Duke’s Office of Instructional Technology. “We had five local television stations here, and an AP reporter covering the story. Everybody was friendly, though it was pretty intense. The actual distribution went flawlessly, but we’re talking about 1,650 students.” Indeed, campus staff had set up staggered schedules for the handouts, with a little corral that was roped off like the rides at an amusement park. The planned orderliness didn’t last long, however,” Menzies acknowledges. “As soon as they got their tickets, they literally ran to the distribution center. The line went all the way down East Campus Quad.”

In addition to the free iPod, the incoming freshman class members were alsogiven a free voice-recorder accessory to increase the capabilities of the unit. But while the students were clearly delighted with their new acquisitions—as was the university with the
initial reaction to its program—in the distance, groans of “Oh, no—not another technology lure,” could be detected in some quarters of the higher education community.

iControversy

One of the more pointed criticisms has come from the CIO of another university. “I see Duke’s actions mostly as a publicity stunt,” notes Thomas Skill, of the University of Dayton (CH). “They’re moving forward with widespread adoption without first clearly and effectively articulating the educational applications, outcomes, and assessment mechanisms.

Do you have a Dr. 'iRob' at your school?

What do songs like Tori Amos’s Crucify, or The Perfect Drug Medley by Nine Inch Nails have in common with JS Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, and/or Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.1?

According to Georgia College and State University Professor “iRob” Viau, all are examples of Gothic-themed music, and so he includes them in an iPod playlist he created for his honors classes on Utopian/Dystopian Studies and The Gothic Imagination. The institution’s catalog declares the primary purpose of such courses is to “engage the students in lively and intelligent conversation on a wide variety of subjects that find expression in the texts and films selected each fall by the facilitators. The course intent,” it g'es on, “is to promote reason, respect, and responsibility, and to deepen students’ understanding of ways that societies might nurture what is essential to human life.”



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