Some of you are clearly unfamiliar with the mandatory use of 'clickers' in universities now....
Amen, but what happens when a student drops or somehow kills their iPhone?
I sense new grounds for expulsion.
If you forget/lose/break your clicker, or it doesn't work for some *preventable* reason like dead batteries or you're too stupid to figure out how to put in your student ID number or 'join' the current class session, then you get a 0 for the quiz/attendance/participation grade. If you make a good-faith effort and the clicker just doesn't work, then it's up to the professor how they handle it - some will let you retake, or let the next quiz count double for you, or they drop the 1 or 2 lowest grades anyway.
iPhone/iPod Touch would be no different in this case from how clickers are being used already.
seems more like a gimmick than anything to get increase enrollment rates . . . someone on their board said, "hey that iphone is something, how can we use it to attract students . . . ?" and then they came up with some web apps to "justify" the program. i mean, really, what could possibly necessitate an iphone for classes? and i do mean really necessitate. yes you "can" do class stuff on it but at what point do you "need" to? this seems a bit ridiculous to me . . .
Yes, it's marketing. Nothing wrong with that. But for your "necessitate" comment, see above regarding clickers. You already have to buy a clicker for many classes, it's already integrated into the method of instruction, and existing clickers are really a useless PITA compared to the unlimited features that they could supply through an iPhone or Touch.
It's gotta be a marketing ploy to boost enrollment. To actually profess that an iPhone will somehow aid in education is painting the incoming class as a bunch of dolts who can't otherwise find their way around campus, or have the ability to remember which homework is due.
Same went with the iPod, when it was given to the incoming classes so they could "listen to lectures". My butt!
See above. An iPhone or Touch would aid in education *more* than the crappy clickers that are already being used, so if you want to really make that argument, start by attacking the whole clicker concept, not the use of the iPhone/Touch.
What a massive gimmick. Why not give them free textbooks? Surely that would be more useful?
Still, when the freshers inevitably run out of cash they could sell the thing to buy drink/drugs/food/whatever.
Haven't bought a full load of textbooks recently? OMG it's expensive.... and clickers are already in the $60-$100 range, so a Touch isn't *that* much of a stretch in the big picture.
