[csg fall 2004] iPods at Duke

Tracy Futhey, the CIO of Duke University, is talking about their experiment where they are giving iPods to all incoming freshmen this year.

One thing I hadn't realized is that they are handing out a recording device with each iPod, so it can be used to gather audio information as well as just playing the content. This plays out in courses like an introductory engineering course, where the students have to gather audio as data for signal processing experiments.

One thing the Duke folks are already noticing is the iPods have elicited interest in use from faculty who have not previously been involved with using technology in their courses.

I had a "d'oh!" dope-slap sort of moment (is that an epiphany?) listening to Tracy - while much of our talk in higher ed about
multimedia and pervasive computing devices has been about text devices (Palm, PocketPC, Blackberry) and video, the actual technology that is currently pervasive is the mp3 player. We could realize some tremendously effective educational enhancements by concentrating on providing audio content and making that widely available. Note to self: see what campuses are doing with audio content and whether there are any large scale sites for university audio content.