Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.
The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria menu.
While schools emphasize its usefulness ”” online research in class and instant polling of students, for example ”” a big part of the attraction is, undoubtedly, that the iPhone is cool and a hit with students. Basking in the aura of a cutting-edge product could just help a university foster a cutting-edge reputation.
Apple stands to win as well, hooking more young consumers with decades of technology purchases ahead of them. The lone losers, some fear, could be professors.
Students already have laptops and cellphones, of course, but the newest devices can take class distractions to a new level. They practically beg a user to ignore the long-suffering professor struggling to pass on accumulated wisdom from the front of the room ”” a prospect that teachers find galling and students view as, well, inevitable.
“When it gets a little boring, I might pull it out,” acknowledged Naomi J. Pugh, a first-year student at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., referring to her new iPod Touch, which can connect to the Internet over a campus wireless network. She speculated that professors might try harder to make classes interesting if they were competing with the devices.
Yet another distraction from learning.
“She speculated that professors might try harder to make classes interesting if they were competing with the devices. ”
Kids these days. It’s all about entertainment. Wah I’m bored! Entertain me! A good guarantee that she and her peers will never develop the discipline and self-control to acquire more than a superficial level of understanding of anything they’re taught, and that they will remain perpetual children for the rest of their lives.
Start throwing them out of classes and giving popquizzes.
Working on a college campus, I find it the great irony of our time that the current generation of incoming students (this year’s college freshman were born in 1990 folks!) are all about “being green” while at the same time they are so addicted to electronics of all kinds.
Try asking them where the power is coming from to run all these IPods and Cell Phones and other assorted gadgetry, i.e. if said power really fits into a “green” lifestyle.
Talk about blank stares and crickets churping.
Since many (dare I say most) professors have a goal of erasing Christ centered thought and morals from their students, isn’t this a good thing?
http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo5/5london.php
I remember when 4 function calculators were banned from classes. Of course, I also remember when academic tournaments included a slide-rule competition.
sigh…heavy sigh… I feel so very old. 🙂
[i] “The experience at Duke University may ease some concerns. A few years ago, Duke began giving iPods to students with the idea that they might use them to record lectures (these older models could not access the Internet).
“We had assumed that the biggest focus of these devices would be consuming the content,†said Tracy Futhey, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Duke.
But that is not all that the students did. They began using the iPods to create their own “content,†making audio recordings of themselves and presenting them. The students turned what could have been a passive interaction into an active one, Ms. Futhey said.” [/i]
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The sense this parent of a Duke rising senior got: Students created their own content alright … extensive playlists of iTunes. Engineering majors, at least, had little other use for the device.
If ONLY I had an iPod in college…… to think that I might actually have been able to understand Shakespeare!
But I did learn to love the ideas contained in books – I have over 1,000 books that challenge my world no crutches allowed.
Don
I live in Abilene and was surprised when our local news showed Abilene Christian University freshmen selecting their new gadget. It’s a small but very well-regarded school run by the Church of Christ and I think their goal is to familiarize the students with technology and teach its most proper and beneficial uses. Not a bad idea, really, as opposed to kids simply buying the latest gadgets on their own and using them only for entertainment and perhaps devilment.