Duke University iPod Deal?

Neat idea but do you really think education money should be spent on this? Why bring up the price of college up more?

This sounds bogus. What "educational purposes" are there for an iPod. I mean, really... what's a college student going to honestly do with one but listen to music?

This sounds bogus. What "educational purposes" are there for an iPod. I mean, really... what's a college student going to honestly do with one but listen to music?

Quoted for truth.

Neat idea but do you really think education money should be spent on this? Why bring up the price of college up more?

This needs to be thought of as a marketing technique. Or better yet, think of it as giving a free computer to an incoming student. If it is OK for public schools in Maine to do it, why not a major University? If Duke can find a way to record lectures and distribute them to the students in mp3 or aac format, then an iPod would be a great thing - listen to last week's lecture on the way to this week's lecture.

Plus, if you are sitting on the fence about which school to go to and one offers you a free iPod and the other doesn't, which would you pick?

-- Ben

This may simply be marketing... for Duke and/or Apple... but don't just assume that.

iPods have been used before in education, there have been stories on it. Audio (lectures, music, guided tours, whatever) is one educational medium.

Don't forget that iPods can be programmed (via Notes) to have custom interfaces for audio (and text) content. Museums use that for instance.

heck

I recall picking Occidental College over Emerson, partially because Occidental gave me a free t-shirt, whereas Emerson showed little evidence that they wanted me

an iPod though???

damn --- I would've loved that.......

instead of saving files to a campus server's hardrive, students can simply plug in their ipod and use it as a hard drive that can go anywhere there is a computer, on or off campus. it sounds educational, but we all know that the students would love it for the tunes.

"Educational content and orientation"....riiiiiiiiiight. :D

Even in high school, I find my iPod to be a very good part of my education. Sure, I love the music, but it's great to have those bio notes I typed up last night on my iPod for review that day. Plus, while I had a tech class, I could transfer anything I wanted from the school's Macs to my G5 at home. I think of my iPod as a very important tool in my education. And my fun life too :D.
–Chase

I would be very, very surprised if there were any sort of educational value planned for giving every freshman an iPod. One of the main ways colleges and universities compete with each other is by providing student life perks that extend the idea of attending the school as a status symbol. They can't really find ways to differentiate their educational offerings, so they pitch the school as representing this or the other socioeconomic identity. This is why so many schools invested in things like climbing walls, large saunas, and celebrity professors, because it's a lot easier than actually investing in having high quality teaching.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has done a pretty good job of reporting on these trends and college-perks like this over the past two years.