As we reported in the summer, every one of the 1,650 freshmen at Duke University was given a personal iPod this autumn. The iPods were intended as learning aids, allowing students to record lectures, download scientific data etc. The media immediately questioned the university’s intentions, suspecting the move to be a marketing gimmick designed to attract potential students. The charge was denied by Lynne O’Brien, director of Duke’s Centre for Instructional Technology: “We think [the students] will rise to the challenge of working with their professors and others to develop new ways of learning".
A semester has now passed since iPod’s admission to Duke, and the scepticism would appear to have been vindicated. Contrary to what O’Brien might have hoped, the iPods were not used by students to ‘develop new ways of learning’. Responses from Duke students would suggest that the iPods were mostly regarded as a form of entertainment and not as a means to supplement their studies.
For a school at which financial aid, campus security, and cheaper textbooks are at a premium, the $500,000 invested in the iPods would arguably have been better invested elsewhere.