Drexel U. Will Give Free iPods to Students in School of Education

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Drexel University will be handing out iPods to freshmen in its School of Education this fall in a move that it hopes will spark innovative teaching uses of the popular digital music players.

The giveaway program is much smaller in scale than Duke University's, in which all 1,650 freshmen got iPods last fall (The Chronicle, July 30, 2004). About 30 students are expected to join Drexel's education program in September, and each will be given the latest version of the iPod Photo players, which can display digital pictures and play music.

University officials declined on Tuesday to say how much they were paying for the iPods, but William Lynch, the education school's dean, described the project as a "reasonable but significant investment." The devices normally cost $349 each, though Mr. Lynch said that Apple had offered the university a discount on hardware and had pledged to provide technical support. Apple officials could not be reached for comment.

Free-iPod programs like those at Duke and Drexel offer colleges a chance to dabble in high-tech teaching without paying to hand out a laptop computer to every student, or forcing students to buy laptops on their own, according to some campus technology experts. But some students and faculty members have criticized Duke's iPod giveaway as an unnecessary gimmick, arguing that students will use the devices to listen to music, not to study.

Officials at Drexel say their iPod experiment has a dual purpose. They plan to use the devices to capture the interest of students -- and then to ask those students to develop their own ideas for incorporating the technology into teaching, according to Mr. Lynch.

"This is a technology that is ubiquitous on a lot of college campuses, and has a lot of cachet with the audience we're working with," Mr. Lynch said. "Because students have been using it primarily as an entertainment technology, it's natural for us to see if we can use it as an educational technology as well."

Drexel officials say they will not simply ask students to listen to tunes and lectures on the devices. Rather, students will be given microphones with their iPods so they can record study-group sessions and interviews. And the university, which requires undergraduates in its education program to spend a semester working off the campus, will ask them to record "audio Web logs" to connect with administrators and peers during their time away.

The university also plans to experiment with "podcasting" -- an increasingly popular technology that allows iPod owners to download audio files automatically, then listen to those files at their leisure. On Friday Drexel's "PodPage," a Web site devoted to campus podcasts, will make its debut with, fittingly, an audio announcement of the iPod program that can be downloaded to an iPod.

Mr. Lynch said the podcasting Web page will compile lectures and interviews recorded by professors, messages from the university's president, and samples of music from MAD Dragon Records, a university-run record label. The site will also allow students to download to their iPods audio versions of much of the material that typically shows up in freshman-orientation packets, like information on campus services and advice on choosing courses.

"Seeking out creative ways to use technology is an integral part of our mission," said Daniel W. Hanson, director of marketing and recruitment for the education school. "What better way to be creative than to take a piece of technology that isn't traditional, but that has a lot of potential?"

Robert Viau, a professor of English at Georgia College & State University who is involved in a project at that university that lends iPods to students in some courses, said that iPods can be academically useful -- as long as professors carefully structure any courses that use the machines.

"You can't just give students an iPod and a playlist and say, 'Listen and enjoy,'" he said. "Then it's a toy."

• With This Enrollment, a Toy Surprise (9/17/2004)

• Duke U. Will Give iPod Music Players to All Freshmen (7/30/2004)