by Rich Garcia
Can the Apple iPod -- the symbol of a generation of students plugged in to
downloaded music -- serve as a delivery system for serious education? Experiments at several universities are exploring the iPod's value as an educational technology.
- An experiment that began in 2002 at Georgia College and State University
has led to several iPod-enhanced honors courses. Most involve music in some
way--ethical issues as reflected in song lyrics, for example, or how musicians
have protested or commemorated war. However, instructors leading classes in
travel abroad have recorded lectures, language lessons, and cultural information
as well, to make the most of the time spent on buses and trains.
- At Duke University, every incoming freshman in 2004 was
given an iPod, and faculty have been devising interesting ways to use them.
The university's Center for Instructional Technology lists eleven examples,
and most don't involve music. For instance, students in the Fundamentals
of Digital Signal Processing use the iPod with a microphone attachment to
record ambient sounds, then bring them to the lab for analysis. For a large
lecture class in Economics, lectures are made available for students to review
before exams. An intensive class in Spanish distributes examples of authentic
speech as an aid to comprehension and speaking exercises, and a writing class
asks students to use their iPods to record three individuals' memories of
important events, then compare these interviews to official accounts, to look
for similarities and differences in the way collective memories are formed.
- A professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania
has established a library of digital recordings of comtemporary poets reading
their own works.
Are MIT faculty and students finding innovative academic uses for iPods? If
you know of any examples, please comment below or send email to et-consult@mit.edu
and we'll investigate and report on these uses in future Ed Tech Times articles.
References:
The iPod at GC&SU: A Pocketful of Learning.(n.d). Retrieved January
28, 2005 from http://ipod.gcsu.edu/project.html.
Duke Academic and Course iPod Projects. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28
from http://cit.duke.edu/about/ipod_faculty_projects.do.
