Bravo for the Duke iPod Experiment
It was a daring experiment, and one that caught immediate criticism because
some saw the university as “giving away toys” to the incoming freshman
class. Well, iPods are ‘toys’ in a sense, and of course they were
mostly used for entertainment. But some pretty interesting lessons were learned.
And it was just the start. Next fall, incoming freshman at one university are
each getting their own personal gigabyte key fob drive and there are probably
many initiatives I haven’t learned of yet. There’s no doubt that
we’ll all be carrying everything we have access to with us, all of the
time, in the not-to-distant future. So, let’s take a look at what Duke
learned before we go off doing bigger and better things.
What did Duke get for the estimated $500k that the iPod project cost? Well,
if you read the entire report--Duke
iPod First-Year Experience,--it’s clear that the university really
got its money’s worth. Sure, some of the popular media characterized it
as an unwarranted waste of money, pandering to students’ addiction to
technology toys. But those same people probably don’t understand what
an “experiment” is in the first place. Much of what was learned
could have been predicted, but now we know. That’s worth a lot.
Useful despite inadequacies.
Experiments are learning tools. In my opinion, the most important thing learned
was that despite the fact that the iPod itself has limitations as a learning
tool, it was still successfully used in many ways. Sure, the only way to input
data was synchronization. And, there were no pre-existing tools for instructors
to load text and audio, together, into the device. And the iPod could use a
better microphone for academic recording quality, d’oh! Whatever the limitations,
seventy-five percent of first year students either used the iPod in class, for
academic purposes, or outside of class to support academic purposes.
Five major categories of academic usages.
What did the faculty do with the iPods?
· They used iPods as course content dissemination tools--basically, virtual
access to class content wherever students were.
· iPods were used in the classroom to record lectures, discussions, and
feedback: “It was great. I didn’t have to write down all the comments
my group said about my paper because I could just download it off my iPod onto
my iTunes and listen to it from there.” (Duke report, page 7)
· Likewise, they were used in ‘the field’ to take notes, record
interviews, even the sounds of various environments. (A major point: Needs a
better microphone!)
· They were also used as digital flash cards for repetitive listening
to audio content.
· And they were useful for backing up or carrying around large multimedia
files: “I love my iPod. I had a music seminar . . . and had to memorize
various symphonies and concertos for a listening final. My prof had no idea
what an iPod was but I used it every day until I learned all of the listed recordings.”
(Duke report, page 10)
Lack of pre-existing academic support resources.
One of the things Duke ran up against was that there were no pre-existing procedures
or sources where instructors could make bulk purchases of mp3 audio content
designed for academic instruction. That sounds to me like a market waiting to
happen. I wonder how many startups are starting right now to fill what will
be a growing demand for instructional content for handheld devices?
iPod use was greatest in music and foreign language courses.
No big surprise. After all, it is an audio record and play device, and such
devices – albeit larger (but over time, at least currently, better designed
for the purpose)--have been used for instructional purposes in music and language
classes since the wax cylinder. Those large and expensive in-classroom devices
are fast on their way to becoming dinosaurs, though, and if I had stock in a
company that made them I’d be selling it fast. Those kinds of classes
may well be the first on campus to redesign the learning process so that schools
take advantage of the technology that students bring, or are expected to bring,
with them, rather than fixed classroom devices.
Faculty interacted more with each other and with IT staff.
I remember that 10 years ago we were all taking about the “sage on the
stage” and the “guide by the side.” On many campuses, progress
has been made along those lines. But the barriers between faculty and various
support staff are still quite high in many places. The iPod experiment at Duke
inevitably weakened those barriers and is clearly a harbinger of more of that
to come. Use of these devices had the perhaps weak but ubiquitous effect of
focusing classroom resources on the learners.
Further, much of the increased interactivity between faculty, and between faculty
and IT folks, constituted a year-long, campus-wide “conversation”
about the best roles for technology in teaching. And the conversation included
some of the most technophobic faculty who previously had been able to ignore
these kinds of devices.
Visibility and recognition.
There’s no doubt that the Duke iPod experiment got more media play last
year than any other single on-campus higher education project. We heard about
it and heard about it and heard about it. And Duke, despite the drawbacks of
the occasional carping report, enhanced its reputation as an institution with
a commitment to appropriate information technology use for learning.
One unintended, presumably, side-effect was that bold thinkers at other campuses,
such as Stanford, Ohio State, Penn State, and the University of Missouri, took
notice of Duke and approached Duke with collaborative initiatives that are taking
root in all directions.
So, in the end: “What a deal!”
Duke spent a small bundle on a learning experiment using technology that got
it great publicity, enhanced interest among future potential incoming freshmen,
more inter-institutional and intra-institutional collaboration, brought uninterested
professors into the technology tool fold, pointed out what some enhancements
and features need to be added to such devices to make them better learning tools,
and probably catalyzed some startup companies.
Not bad for $500k.
