July 20, 2004
The cure to the world's problems
Someone at Apple must have done some pretty nice things for some people at Duke. Because now Duke is servicing Apple by purchasing more than 1650 ipods. In a move that will cost the University way more than $500,000, Duke's Center of Instructional Technology is touting the ipod program as a great way to encourage creative uses of technology.
I'm sorry, but it is under my impression that whenever a University forces their own to adopt purchase a new technology it should be practical and useful rather than just "creative." According to Duke, content is being developed so that lectures can be heard on the ipods, class schedules and notes can be made available for the ipod. What the administrators seem to be forgetting is, that in order to do all of this, their wonderboy, the ipod, needs to be hooked up to a computer to sync all of this information. As long as you're at a computer, why not read your notes a display that has more than 300 pixels and supports more than 2 colors. Plus do you need to be able to carry around audio recordings of lectures everywhere? Don't get me wrong, I own an ipod and I'm not saying that the ipod is a bad mp3 player, I'm just saying its a bad idea to force it down the throats of all incoming freshman as an "academic tool".
In the mean time, the Average Dukee graduates with $20,000 of debt, their tuition and "mandatory fees" rise every year, We still have no cure for aids, there are people starving in Africa, and literacy in America is down. At least Apple's stock is going up.
Posted by Bryant at July 20, 2004 10:19 AM