Abilene Christian University students will get iPhones, iPod touches this fall
- February 27th, 2008
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- 2 Comments
Incoming freshman at Texas’ Abilene Christian University this fall will each receive either an iPhone or iPod touch to help speed along their education. The school hopes students will use the devices in any number of academic pursuits, such as getting on-the-go homework updates, checking meal plan activity and answer in-class quizzes. That’s what the school hopes; the reality is that the kids will use them for their own pursuits as soon as they’re out of earshot of the dean or their professor.
But, I will not hate on the project, which sounds like something Bill O’Reilly would do (”Students and iPhones? In my day we had pens and paper and were thankful for that!). Anytime a school embraces new technology students benefit. My school didn’t even have Wi-Fi in the library when I was a freshman (it did, but only on like two floors out of 12). You’re paying X amount to attend, the least you should expect is for your school to “get” technology.
ACU first university in nation to provide iPhone or iPod touch to all incoming freshmen [Abilene Christian University via MacDailyNews]
Grumpy Camper (Who am I?)
4 months ago
So, I went out and watched their video… http://www.acu.edu/connected and I think they are ok with students using them for all kinds of things - both in and out of classroom. And you know what — that actually is a brilliant idea. If students live with these things, they will bring them to class and that is a lot more than can be said for “clickers” and other so called educational technologies the text book companies and software giants like Blackboard want to shove into every backpack.
Bill (Who am I?)
4 months ago
Grumpy Camper, that’s exactly what we were thinking. If these are part of the social fabric as well, it actually makes the education part easier since it insures that students have them and that they’re ready to use. The biggest problem with most mobile learning programs is that you can’t really count on ubiquity because there’s too often not a reason for students to keep up the devices…
Thanks for your comments…