When students return for the spring semester, many will receive a late holiday gift from the University.
As part of the continuing Duke Digital Initiative, at least 1,200 undergraduates will use iPods in 42 Spring 2006 courses-the largest number since the project began as the Duke iPod First-Year Experience in Fall 2004.
"There is a lot of interest in the academic uses of iPods," said Lynne O'Brien, director of the Center for Instructional Technology. "We felt this was true based on last year, but it's interesting to see how much things have grown."
Undergraduates who have yet to receive an iPod from the University and enroll in classes that are part of the program will receive a voice recorder and either a fourth-generation photo iPod or fifth-generation video iPod free of cost.
O'Brien estimates that only 500 students will receive the video iPods, because the the fifth-generation devices are not yet compatible with a recording tool, a feature several faculty wish to use in their classes.
She added that by the end of the semester 2,700 undergraduates will have received an iPod from Duke-approximately 44 percent of the student body.
Students who have already been given an iPod by the University will not receive a new one but may be able to trade their old model for the newer devices.
The initiative will utilize the money set aside by administrators in the last strategic plan, Building on Excellence, and funds from both CIT and the Office of Information Technology.
Both the number of students and classes involved in the Initiative has markedly increased since last spring, when only 280 students in 19 courses participated in the program.
"Last year, everything was new. Not everybody wants to be a pioneer," O'Brien said. "Faculty saw what worked and what didn't work, and learned from that."
Students have used their iPods in a range of ways, including recording interviews, taping professors' critiques and listening to source recordings.
"All of the iPod projects involve students being much more active in their learning," O'Brien said.
Of the 42 classes offered next semester, at least 12 are in a language department. O'Brien noted that these classes might benefit most from both the visual and auditory cues provided by source material. Another group of classes where iPods are popular is Writing 20.
Christina Grimes, adjunct assistant professor in the psychology department, is using the devices in her course Psychology 170LS: Intervention with Adolescents.
Students will participate in a program with children in Durham schools, she said. The iPod and recorder will be used as a substitute for long written journal entries, she added, helping undergraduates to evaluate their own performance with the Durham students and to prepare for a final project.
"I'm looking forward to the chance to see what the possibilities are with this technology," Grimes said, noting that this was her first time teaching a class with an iPod component.
Satendra Khanna, associate professor of the practice in the Department of Asian and African Languages and Literature, is teaching two courses next semester that utilize iPods-AALL 170: Indian Cinema and Hindi 126: Advanced Hindi.
Khanna asked CIT to provide fifth-generation devices for his students in the cinema course.
"We would study the idea of stream of cinema broken up so we can see not only how it is put together, but how we would go to the next step," Khanna said.
He said he has been trying to find a way to mix elementary editing and digital videos for a while and that this device might be the answer.
"I think that it's possible to use the buzz and energy of any apparatus, which makes us activists in the classroom," he said. "I am very excited."
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