Transcript PPT - EDUCAUSE Library

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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Overview
Context for the Duke iPod project
iPod project activities so far
What we’ve learned so far
Next year’s Duke Digital Initiative
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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 plan
Relationships with Apple & other
technology companies
Experiments 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 engraving
 Duke Page on iTunes
 Project Web site
 Lab 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 innovation
Student life, campus community
New academic uses of technology
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Project Participants
Duke University Office of the Provost
Office of the Executive Vice President
Office of Information Technology
Division of Student Affairs
Center for Instructional Technology
Apple Computer, Inc.
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2004-05 Academic iPod projects
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Economics
Education
Engineering
German Literature
Environmental Studies
Foreign Languages
ISIS
Music
Writing
 Asian/African Language
& Literature
 Cultural Anthropology
 English
 Public Policy
 Religion
 Theater Studies
 Library 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 lists
Playlists of audio material for review
Portability 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 notes
Review of class content
Verbal 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 recording
Digital files can be edited for class projects
German 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” matters
Little device made big
ripple in technology
infrastructure
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More early, tentative conclusions
Faculty ideas and interest exceeded
expectations.
Innovation with iPods
prompted exploration
of 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 collaboration
Content issues made some academic
explorations difficult
Copyright complex, even for publishers
Multiple places for storing, moving accessing content
frustrates users
Academic interests vs what’s commercially available
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Assessment and Challenges
Dimensions of Evaluation-Academic
Uses…
Feasibility of iPod to support teaching & learning
Improving logistics of course delivery
Enhancing student learning and outcomes
…Amid Non-Trivial Challenges
No baseline info; students had iPod from day1
Instructors 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 CIT
Convened ad hoc faculty review group
Assumed 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 use
Add other technologies based on faculty
feedback:
Digital audio
Digital images
Digital video
Tablet/handheld PCs
Collaboration tools
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