The iPod widens its audience in school

Michael E. Ross Reporter • Profile • E-mail

When they aren't dancing, those familiar iPod silhouettes are probably hunkered down in the classroom, where the devices have become a common learning tool.

More than 70 million iPods have been sold since they were introduced by Apple more than five years ago. Now, with the MP3 player's foothold in academia,  universities and companies are quickly expanding the amount of study materials students can use with them.

Duke on the cutting edge
In 2004, Duke University gave all freshmen iPods as part of a one-year program to determine how iPods could help students learn.

The pilot program gave way to the Duke Digital Initiative, in which faculty encourage students to use hand-held technology such as iPods, tablet PCs and video cameras to collaborate on projects and in other coursework.

“You've got students creating podcasts as assignments,” said Jessica Mitchell, a project manager for the initiative. “Instead of writing a two- or three-page paper, they're doing a video exclusively in French. It requires you to use different skills than if you're just sitting in class. It has the potential for major changes in the way we're teaching and learning.”

Other colleges involved
This year, Stanford University launched Stanford on iTunes, which provides alumni and the public with Stanford-specific audio content, including lectures, campus events, book readings, and even podcasts of Cardinal football games.

Students at the University of Washington can download lectures. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, school President Mary Sue Coleman invites students to “think of the university as your intellectual iPod.”

And Mansfield (Pa.) University uses the iPod as a recruiting tool by offering podcasts that show off the campus.

Learning by graphic novel
As schools embrace the iPod, companies are jumping in to provide content.

IPREPpress offers a range of downloadable documents, including travel guides, a 40,000-word version of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, the Encyclopedia Britannica and biographies.

The bios are designed like graphic novels or comic books, with text hyperlinked to full-color images on subjects, from sports figures to scientists.

The cost is something even the financially strapped student can manage: Some dictionaries and encyclopedias cost less than $4, and graphic biographies sell for between $10 and $15.

Pearson Education, a business and educational publisher, and Audible, which makes spoken audio entertainment, recently launched VangoNotes study guides.

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