1 iPods and Academia: The Duke First-Year Experience Tracy Futhey, Chief Information Officer Lynne O’Brien, Director, Center for Instructional Technology.

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iPods and Academia: The Duke First-Year

Experience

Tracy Futhey, Chief Information Officer

Lynne O’Brien, Director, Center for Instructional Technology

Educause Live May 17, 2005

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Context for the Duke iPod projectiPod project activities so farWhat we’ve learned so farNext year’s Duke Digital Initiative

Overview

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The Duke iPod Project

How (why) did we did we do this?

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Context: Before the iPod project

Tech goals in University’s strategic planRelationships with Apple & other

technology companiesExperiments with laptops,

PDA’s, course management systems, streaming media, videoconferencing

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Context: Timeline for Committing

Feb04 Apple visit to Duke- explore project ideas w/ EVP, Provost, VP Stu Affairs, CIO, faculty

Mar04 brainstorming on campus - students, faculty, tech staff

Apr04 Duke visit to Apple - Provost, CIO, CS prof, student govt pres, senior technology architect

May04 - decision to move forward

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Context: Pre-launch activities

Pre-loaded content Custom engravingDuke Page on iTunesProject Web siteLab environment for

students who don’t own computers

Identification of possible academic pilot projects

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Context: Distribution to Freshmen

Distributed 1,599 20 GB iPod devices to first-year students on Aug. 19, 2004

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Context: Content Delivery Sources

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The Duke iPod Project

What have we done so far?

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iPod Project goals

Mostly an experiment, “scattering seeds”Technology innovationStudent life, campus communityNew academic uses of technology

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Project Participants

Duke University Office of the ProvostOffice of the Executive Vice PresidentOffice of Information TechnologyDivision of Student AffairsCenter for Instructional TechnologyApple Computer, Inc.

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2004-05 Academic iPod projects

EconomicsEducation EngineeringGerman LiteratureEnvironmental Studies Foreign Languages ISISMusic Writing

Asian/African Language & Literature

Cultural AnthropologyEnglishPublic PolicyReligionTheater StudiesLibrary experiments

Website describes each project

http://cit.duke.edu/about/ipod.do

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Ipod as study tool

Listening, practice and repetition in performance-based subjects

Specialized vocabulary listsPlaylists of audio material for reviewPortability increases use

Music – Students listened to professional performances of Bach chorales, then removed one vocal line from MIDI files, sang the missing part and re-recorded the chorales with their voice.

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iPod recording in the classroom

Attachment makes iPod an unobtrusive, every-ready digital recorder

Replace or supplement written notesReview of class contentVerbal feedback

Education course: Students recorded their tutoring sessions to review and evaluate strategies they used.

Intro Economics: Prof. made course lectures available for review before exams.

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iPod recording outside classroom

Recording interviews, personal field notes, environmental sounds

iPod holds many hours of recordingDigital files can be edited for class

projectsGerman Lit – Students recorded interviews with Americans to see how key events in Berlin’s history are perceived in U.S. and included audio clips in presentations.

Electrical Engineering – Students recorded pulse rates during physical activities and environmental sounds and used files to study digital signal processing concepts.

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iPods for disseminating course materials

Audio materials (original or commercial) on iPods allow portable use of course content

Content distributed via Duke server, iTunes and Podcasting

Spanish – Instructors recorded Spanish novellas, vocabulary for student download. Students purchased Spanish songs via iTunes & submitted their recorded audio exercises to teacher.

Theater – Students analyzed digital recordings of early radio shows then shared radio plays they created through course podcast.

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iPods for storing and transferring files

Portability and fast transfer rate Back up or transfer large multimedia files

Information Science & Information Studies – Students used iPods to transfer multimedia files from assignments. They also discussed intellectual property policies and the ethics of new forms of information gathering, processing and transmission.

Music – Students brought music from their personal collections to play and analyze in class.

Engineering – Students brought MP3 files to the lab to analyze waveforms, compression, sample rate and other parameters.

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The Duke iPod Project

What have we learned so far?

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Some early, tentative conclusions

Digital audio useful in varied disciplines

Recording devices = key tool

“Fun factor” mattersLittle device made big

ripple in technology infrastructure

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More early, tentative conclusions

Faculty ideas and interest exceeded expectations.

Innovation with iPodsprompted explorationof other new technologies.

Project increased collaboration among campus IT groups and other departments.

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Unanticipated outcomes

Extensive global publicity New opportunities for collaborationContent issues made some academic

explorations difficultCopyright complex, even for publishers Multiple places for storing, moving accessing content

frustrates usersAcademic interests vs what’s commercially available

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Assessment and Challenges

Dimensions of Evaluation-Academic Uses…Feasibility of iPod to support teaching & learningImproving logistics of course deliveryEnhancing student learning and outcomes

…Amid Non-Trivial ChallengesNo baseline info; students had iPod from day1Instructors changing plans along the way; no

strategy for unknown/unsupported projects Correlating iPod use with any improvement (some

using audio for first time)

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Next year’s assessment

Have more structured, common evaluation strategies across projects with similar goals and activities

Resolve some technical issues that confounded evaluation results this year

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The Duke iPod Project

What’s next?

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What’s next: Review process

Initially planned to review at end of academic year

Overwhelming interest in earlier decision from faculty & students for planning

Relied on fall evaluation results from CITConvened ad hoc faculty review groupAssumed options going in where continue,

extend 1 more year (to more fully evaluate), or discontinue

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What’s next: Why not repeat exactly?

iPods were perfect for most digital audio uses and some others

Not enough courses had such needs to justify giving them to every first year

But for those courses that did, restricting based on class was too limiting

Once we move from class-based to course-based technologies, other useful technologies need to be considered

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What’s next: Duke Digital Initiative

Build on iPod project; focus on course useAdd other technologies based on faculty

feedback:Digital audio Digital imagesDigital videoTablet/handheld PCsCollaboration tools