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Education Can Flow As Easily As Music to Ears of iPod Users

Posted on: Thursday, 4 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

LINCOLN -- Along with the tunes, how about a little chemistry in that iPod?

University of Nebraska-Lincoln chemistry professor Bill McLaughlin, who already uses wireless electronic clickers to record student responses in his large lecture halls, wants to put the music devices to use outside the classroom.

McLaughlin joins a growing number of educators who see potential for learning in those white "earbuds" that deliver songs from cyberspace into the ears of young people. He would like to deliver short messages about chemistry in much the same way that young people now get music.

"They could listen at home, in the dorm, walking from one place to another on campus, or coming back from a basketball game -- times when professors are not directly available," McLaughlin said.

An iPod is a portable digital audio player small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and costing $275 and up. Marketed by Apple Inc., the devices have become the rage among young people who buy song files that first go to their computers and then are transferred to the iPod through a synchronization process.

Users can then listen to music on the go. Apple sold 6.1 million iPods last quarter, reporting a 343 percent increase in iPod- related revenue over the prior year's quarter.

Although competitors have similar digital audio players, iPods made up 87 percent of the market as of last October.

Progressive educators see the devices as a new tool, said Barnaby Wasson, director of digital media and instructional technology at Arizona State University.

"Where it really comes to shine is in enhanced podcasts," Wasson said. Podcasting is a technology that allows digital files containing sound, video and text to be made available to anyone who knows the Web address.

Students can subscribe to a professor's podcasting site. Their own computer will automatically retrieve any new files posted on the site.

Although songs can cost users as much as 99 cents apiece, the educational podcasting is free, according to an Apple spokesman.

McLaughlin said he will survey students this fall to get their opinions about the potential benefits of podcasting of chemistry- related files.

"Right now, it's just in the talking stage," he said.

Duke University in Durham, N.C., put the music devices to use last year, giving iPods to all 1,650 incoming freshmen and launching pilot projects in 50 courses on a total budget of $500,000.

In a 15-page report issued in June, Duke said that 75 percent of the students used the iPods for such things as recording lectures and interviews. The main benefits, according to faculty members, were convenience and portability.

Georgia College & State University of Milledgeville, Ga., started using iPods in 2001, shortly after they were introduced. This year, about 550 of the school's 4,000 undergraduate students will use them, compared to 150 last year.

The ongoing cost of using iPods is almost nil, said Jim Wolfgang, Georgia College's chief information officer, and the popularity is growing. "Every member of the president's Cabinet has an iPod," he said.

Source: Omaha World - Herald

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