"Dude, I just got a free iPod!"

That's likely what many of the 1,650 new students at Duke University were thinking when the college distributed new 20GB Apple iPods to its incoming freshman class during orientation. The unique one-year experiment, which cost the school more than half a million dollars to fund, is the latest attempt to inject new technology into college classrooms.

"People were eager to see whether such a popular device could be used in an academic setting," said Tracy Futhey, Duke's vice president of information technology. "We thought about different technologies, but really saw the iPod as the ideal one because it was so popular with students. We knew there would be no challenge in getting them to use it. The [real] question was what other creative academic uses we could put it to." The groundbreaking initiative is part of a pilot-program joint venture between Duke and Apple.

The portable digital devices come preloaded with content from the university, including an academic calendar, orientation information and faculty-provided course content through a special Duke Web site modeled on the Apple iTunes Web site.

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Posted by Lawren at April 5, 2005 07:11 AM

You Said

I'm a Mac-user from way back and I've got an iPod and love it. It goes where I go. Although I'm not an iDork and wear it whilst shopping, like I saw yesterday. WTF????

Says: Kevvy the Unnamed Source at April 5, 2005 10:56 PM

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