Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59185
Technology D ATA B I T i.P.O.C. ('iPods on Campus') This year at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, iPods and other brands of MP3 players will play more than music. Students in all disciplines will be using the devices to replay class lectures via "podcasting," in which audio files are delivered over the Internet. Apple's iPod joins other portable technologies such as cell phones and PDAs in the effort to make education more accessible in a world where students often expect information to be available 24/7. Purdue students also can sign up for another popular technology, RSS feeds, which allow them to subscribe to have information sent directly to their computers. "Once students have this set up, they don't have to revisit the Web site to get the con- tent," says Michael Gay, manager of Broadcast Networks & Services for Information Tech - nology at Purdue. "The most recent lectures of the courses they've subscribed to will be down- loaded to their com- puters— and possi- bly to their media players—auto- matically." A play on the word "broadcasts," podcasts are popping up all over the Internet. While schools are using pod- casts to deliver course content, many amateur podcasters are creating their own audio pro- 46 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006 grams using the technol- ogy. Apple now allows users to download favorite podcasts directly to their iPods for free, via its iTunes Web site. The fact that the term "podcasting" is catching hold in the public ver- nacular, despite the fact that other MP3 players are on the market, has not gone unnoticed at Microsoft's Seattle headquarters, the New York Times recently reported. The term "pod- cast" is verboten among Microsoft employees, who prefer using the more generic term "blogcast" instead. In the last year, many colleges In the quarter ending Sep - tember 24, Apple sold 6.45 million iPods—three times the number sold during the same quarter last year. Still, that's only 5 percent more than the number sold in the previous quarter, indicating that sales of the popular device may be slowing down. create content for the devices. Butte College, a community college in Oroville, California, recently launched the "Butte College Chronicles," a weekly podcast hosted by full- time philosophy profes- sor Dan Barnett. The school uses the podcast to circulate information about new courses, faculty and administrators, career services, and other student programs. Peter Fader, professor of market- have begun experimenting with the technology. In addition to Purdue, Duke University distributed iPods to its freshmen class last year and encouraged its professors to ing at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, believes podcasting is a natural fit for higher education. "From an educational perspective, podcasting represents distance educa- tion taken to the next step. Not only do we 'place shift' the learning process to make it more convenient for the student, but we allow the ultimate degree of 'time shifting' as well," says Fader. Students are so devoted to the iPod, Fader adds, that, in the future, busi- ness schools may be pushed toward podcast- ing because of student demand. Although Fader him- self is not an iPod user, he admits that the tech- nology, as a conduit for educational content, is compelling. Using an iPod, students would theoretically be able to tap into an information stream just by turning on the device and choosing a file. The