The ideal course at Duke has acquired a new characteristic—meets in the afternoon, grades on a curve and gives out a free iPod.
In the first week of August, the Center for Instructional Technology released a comprehensive online list of courses that will give students iPods this semester.
After last year’s pilot program—which it gave iPods to each incoming freshman—the University has slightly changed the program and will distribute iPods according to specific courses.
Twenty-four classes so far have been approved to utilize the devices this semester—the University expects to give out anywhere between 650 and 850 iPods, depending on student enrollment.
In addition to the 1,600 iPods Duke handed out to the Class of 2008 last year, the University loaned several to upperclassmen taking courses that used iPods.
Unlike last year, however, students who finish the course are allowed to keep them, courtesy of Duke, if they have not received one in the past.
Professors have used iPods for a variety of functions.
Language professors have been quickest to jump at the opportunity of integrating iPods into their classes. Thirteen of the 24 classes that utilize the iPods are in language classes, including ones in Hindi, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, German and English for International graduate students.
Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Romance Studies Lisa Merschel, who is teaching the Intensive Elementary Spanish course, said they are useful because of the efficiency and interactive qualities the devices provide.
“[iPods allow for students] not to revolve their schedules around the language lab,” Merschel said, noting her plan to have students visit the Nasher Museum of Art and record their experiences on their iPod. “It makes the language learning more efficient and flexible. They don’t have to go to a brick-and-mortar place to get their work done.”
Like many of the introductory language classes using iPods, the enrollment for Merschel’s Spanish 14 class is full.
Plenty of other iPod classes, however, still have open seats.
The new Information Science + Information Studies department, which has advertised to students by raffling off iPod Shuffles and PlayStation Portables, offers an introductory class, which still has five open seats.
Rahul Kak, a biomedical and electric engineering senior, admitted the free iPod drew him to the course.
“It’s an iPod class, and kind of a big deal. And they did stress you keep the iPod,” he said. “So, I checked the class and it fit perfectly in my schedule.”
Since most of the classes that used iPods in the pilot year were geared at freshmen, many of the classes offered this year are also introductory, lower-level courses.
The FOCUS seminar, “Living Downstream,” will use iPods again this fall as a field research tool, which Sally Schauman, Nicholas School of the Environment and Ocean Sciences instructor, found helpful in her own work.
“In previous years, I’d send students out with clipboards, but this way, it’s more engaging to them,” Schauman said. “[The iPod] has been invaluable to me as a researcher, so I couldn’t see how it could miss. Research in social and natural science is exciting.”
“If students don’t find it exciting, they’ll do it, but they will do it with much more elan if they are made not so tedious,” she added.
As the iPod program has evolved, the different uses for the device have also changed.
Although many courses are using iPods mostly for recording and as a portable hard drive, CIT Director Lynne O’Brien said the faculty who have been approved by CIT to use the iPods will use them in several ways.
The innovative ways professors and students alike have used the mp3 device have continued to make the program worthwhile, O’Brien added.
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