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iPods Valuable in the College Classroom?
Infonaut writes "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article called When iPod goes collegiate, examining the iPods for students program at Duke University. It seems that while many students and professors find them valuable for classwork, this is America, so questions about intellectual property rear their ugly head: "Do they have permission from the person who wrote the lectures to share it?" asks one IP attorney, referring to lectures recorded on iPods."
It's easier to zone out with a little music.
The means to record and share recordings of lectures have been around for quite a while. I know back in the dark ages when I was in school, most profs already had policies in regards to this. Why would doing this with an ipod as opposed to a tape recorder be any different?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I have the right to make a copy to listen to it later (or to share with other students).
How about the Neuros Audio Computer? Now that's one slick piece of tech... and it records audio, unlike the iPod which needs third-party hardware.
could be applied to those cheesy handheld recorders that have been in classrooms for eons. People are just jumping on this because it's IPOD. Nothing to see here...
Some of the most popular student uses included recording lectures, taking oral notes, and even using the devices to create electronic flash cards.
Professors reported that students seemed more engaged in classes where they could use the iPods. They also cited strong student use of the audio capabilities of the iPod in their presentations, and more accuracy in quoting from interviews they did using the iPods.
How long will this last? If a new device comes out, an iPod-killer so to speak, will students require those to succeed in school? If so, this says more about students and the education system than about iPods and their perceived educational benefits.
that my school gets a grant for those Playboy iPods..
... from handwritten lecture notes?
Granted, you could accomplish the same thing with anything that plays recordable media, but I absolutely love having the ability to listen to French lessons during my walk to and from campus, as well as I'm walking around the apartment (roommates don't like boring language tapes). Sure, the people around me get freaked out from time to time when I occasionally repeat "je voudrais de fromage" or something like that slip, but I really have found it a great tool for improving my pronunciation and comprehension.
iPods, without a $30 add-on, can't record. What else are non-music students doing academically with the iPods?
From TFA: "Do they have permission from the person who wrote the lectures to share it..."
Why would this be any different than taping a lecture and passing the tape around to those who didn't go to the class. Okay, so you can e-mail or post to a website instead of pass physical media. But this is nothing (conceptually) different than posting class notes on-line.
Oh, and FP.
#include "humorous_pop_culture_reference.h"
"Do they have permission from the person who wrote the lectures to share it?" asks one IP attorney, referring to lectures recorded on iPods
Doesn't this apply just as well to ANY recordable media? Is it so hard to share something recorded on tape?
Record on tape, rip to mp3 and upload to illegalcollegelecturetorrents.com.
I really, really hate when IP lawyers get all busted out of shape by something like an iPod when audio recording has been around in classrooms for ages.
Maybe it's because now they will be able to make high quality digital versions of the lectures that won't degrade with repeated copying! Oh no!
Sometimes my arms bend back.
For $10,000 a year in tuition, yes, I do own the lectures!
That Duke is modifiying heavily? I'll tell you were iPods are valuable... urban areas. People are being mugged and killed for them, and the muggers leave the wallets behind!
Infonaut writes "Blah blah blah..."
Huh? Sorry, I was listening to my iPod while you were talking...
They are iValuable.
"Hey, Taco, let's post yet another story about something that's been done for decades with tape recorders...only now it's with IPODS!!!!!"
Yeah, amazing. How is using a modded iPod (they can't record out of the box) different from using a tape recorder? The hard disk? Whoop-dee-fuckin'-do.
Although laws do good things for society, could someone please tell this attorney to STFU? This bloated DRM crap is getting to me.
Substitute pocket tape recorder for iPod and many of the concerns are the same.
I stikes me that this is the result of, "hey, I have a great idea... let's give all the frosh iPods!"
"Uh, what will they do with them?"
"I dunno, we'll figure something out."
It sure seems like the Duke program could have been better thought out, though sometimes the best ideas for a device are not envisioned by its creators, so something good may come from this.
Wht I really want to know is why the fvck does Duke, a school that costs a gazillion dollars a year, need to get a grant to give its students iPods?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
How is it different from bringing any other type of voice recorder, digital or analog, into a lecture and recording it and then sharing THAT recording? Does the fact that it's digital make a difference? That it's being done on an iPod? Is it ease
If Duke students were given tape recorders or any other brand of MP3 player with voice recording, would it STILL be an issue/article?
R(k)
Who owns the IP on the lecture? The professor, or maybe it's the university who paid for it... Seems that a simple university policy could deal with this...
They're the best way to keep someone awake during class. Well, that and the NES emulator on my cell phone =P
João Pinheiro
Copyright applies to works "fixed in a tangible medium."
Lectures, by and large, are NOT fixed in a tangible medium... unless the professor is literally reading word-for-word from his notes, the lecture has not been fixed into a tangible medium and is therefore not subject to copyright.
In fact, it only becomes subject to copyright when it is recorded on the iPod (and is fixed in a tangible medium).
Depending on whether a classroom is considered a "public area" this could mean that the student, not the professor, holds the copyright to the recording so produced. If it is not a "public area" I'm not sure what the statute is, though, and whether or not you would need permission of the professor to do so.
Which brings up the issue of permission; most professors I knew were more than happy to let you record their lectures in college for a classmate provided you asked first. If the professor's lecture is his own work (and one presumes it is), he has the right to allow you to make copies (he holds the copyright) and the problem is solved.
Simply put, lawyer is being an asshat and looking to stir up more controversy. Oh, and our IP laws are f*cking broken.
IANAL, TINLA.
I learned in college that iPods are better for math than calculators. If calculators were important they would hand them out. I also learned in college that iPods are more important than textbooks... If only they would hand out tuition or is that included in tution costs already. I need to turn this music off. It is geting distracting.
really bored? My blog
Dr. AC's 10 step plan:
1. Listen to iPod during class
2. Ignore professor
3. Cheat on the homeworks
4. Freak out b/c you don understand
5. Cheat on the exam
6. Make an A
7. Cheat in all other classes
8. ???
9. Live a fraudulent lifestyle
10. Profit!!!
iPods Valuable in the College Classroom?
Uhh, yeah. iPods are about $300, and they don't lose their value when they go into college classrooms...
Christian.. blah... that says it all...
My God its better then theirs, for one simple reason:
- If you pray correctly, you will get real answers
And yeah, it's called google
Until the P2P-sharing of the lecture recordings begin to hurt the education industry and the NEA begins to sue us and have us arrested.
Being the Mac, iPod, and gadget in general fan that I am it pains me to say this, but I don't see the point in this. It's cool, but that's all.
I was in college in the early 90's and recorded my lectures on a $30 tape recorder--and it did me no good. Recording lectures doesn't help everyone. I also didn't have a computer. I had a 3.5gpa though so I did something right.
Neat gadgets do not make you a good student.
No. At my college I have yet to see anyone use an iPod for anything applicable to education. In regards to intellectual property, in some classes or majors professors force students to sign papers disallowing them from replicating lectures publically. This is done to ensure that students couldn't have just watched some video or listened to the lectures for free on the net. The rules were also added to some classes because there were groups forming that would take notes for certain classes for a price, and as a result a lot of students were not attending lectures when they could buy the "cliff notes". The result as far as I know was a lot more students passing the classes and the professors worried less about grad students trying to help out slackers for a profit.
Goddammit I hate IP attorneys.
...and all of you have full rights to use that whereever you want.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
No.
iPods might all be cool & everything, but then uni is a place forf getting education. How much of use are these ipods are going to be? What about going to the library & reading some schoalrly book or papers for once?
These hi-tech stunts only heighten the perception that going to college is not much use. Education in america is all about hi-tech, but without substance. Remeber the hoopla about computers in every classroom in 90s? Theye were supposed to make kids smartre & brighter. What have they produced? Wouldn't students benefit by a lower cost of tution rather than these fancy ipods?
Education still is about a dedicated teacher challeging & inciting in young minds a fire to learn about the world around them & try to make things better. I'll take an inspiring teacher over an ipod anyday.
Sadly, a very tragic way American education is taking. All shine & no substance. Look how stundents from India & China are crowding the engineering & science schools in America while American students go to vocational schools.
The guy comments on IP (I hate that phrase) that somehow the fact that an iPod is digital makes it *any different* than a tape recorder.
Why do people think that making something digital is magic?
The issue has always been there.
Moron.
In the discussion of making copies of lectures, it's something that's widely available, and in some cases provided to students by the school. That gives everyone the means and ability to do it. So more people are more likely to do it than before.
You would think the $30,000+/year I'm paying in tuition gives me a "license" to share a lecture with my classmates.
Also, how many people outside of those in the class are interested in it anyway?
that, while iPod's are certainly valuable in college, it ain't in the classroom.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
>this is America
No it's frigging not. I'm not in America.
Please repeat after me: "Other countries than America exist."
Here at Middlebury College we are working on projects to use iPods as study aids in foreign-language courses:
http://segue.middlebury.edu/sites/achapin-ipod
The two uses are as follows:
1. Give students mobile access to our databases of tens of thousands of vocabulary audio files while using the rating system to sort known versus unknown vocabulary.
2. Allow students to record and hear themselves speaking vocabulary and other exercises.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
"Listen up or I'll take away your ipod"
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just record audiobooks, and buy some cheaper iPod so the school can afford it. 20GB version of the iPod is obviously a bit too expensive, and the people at Duke who took the initiative to buy those iPods should have thought of cheaper models... even the iPod Mini.
:-/
I highly doubt one lecture will take more than 200MB? Unless... nah, no professor can be THAT boring...
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Something that irritates me, is that whenever someone thinks up something to do with an iPod, even if it can be done with anything else that plays or records sound, its something really fucking special about the iPod...
I blame Hitler.
Seeing that iPods cost so much it's a shame Apple has seen fit to limit their recording ability so they sound like scratchy tin-cans on the best of days. I've heard them and it's not pretty. I recommend a non-limited recorder with a *real* pre-amped mic.
Da Blog
I've worked as a contract lecturer at an Australian University. Not only did I record my lectures, I made them available on the subject website with my lecture notes (including the world's worst powerpoint slides). My department also keeps an audio library where any student can drop by the office and, in exchange for their student card, borrow the cassette for any of the last semester's lectures.
Who cares about recorded lessons? The real issue is, does a student have a right to remember or use, let alone share any information gained from a lecture (or a book or whatever) without written permission from the lecturer (or the author or whatever)? After all, isn't that protected IP?
I mean, just think about it... The student might some day be a lecturer himself, so what right does he have to distribute the IP he may have memorized?
I wonder why for example NSTA hasn't taken such a firm stand on IP issues, like MPAA and RIAA have. Such lackluster attitude towards these serious issues will undermine the future of modern society!
A: "Apple is providing project management expertise and technical and functional resources."
the lecturers threw blackboard erasers at people who didn't listen. I guess throwing an ipod is new.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"After all, isn't that protected IP?"
I'd argue that a student paying money to a professor lecturing...the professor is giving his permission to share his thoughts and words.
Further, I would fire any professor who thought otherwise on the basis of his being too poorly thought-out to teach teenagers.
when i took business law back in the day, the lecturer was a former chief prosecutor and had lots of experience. but if there was one policy he enforced, it was that we were NOT allowed to record his lectures. that sucked, since most of the test material was from his lectures. his stated reason was that because he will (and did) say controversial stuff, as well as mentioning specifics of certain cases (without naming names), if there was a recording of what he said out there, it *could* be used against him. it was his way of protecting himself. so i imagine in this day and age of mp3's and decentralized distribution, i can see how a) some professors could have a problem with their lectures free floating out there or b) see devices such as an iPod as the greatest invention since the typewriter in helping them teach...
omle du fromage... Omle Du Fromage... OMLE DU FROMAGE (Kabooom!) :(
appologies for the abysmal spelling of omlette in french, but I failzor at french
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
There are no copyright issues whatsoever in recording someone speaking. The spoken word does not qualify for copyright protection. Period.
Title 17, 102(1):
(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression
The spoken word is not a tangible medium of expression.
When it is recorded, the recording can qualify for copyright protection (if it's original enough, and meets all the other requirements), but that copyright belongs to the person making the recording, not the person being recorded.
There can be other issues regarding the use of someone's voice, but those are not copyright issues.
The professors quoted in this article desperately need a remedial course in copyright law.
Duke either has an IP lawyer with too much time on his/her hands (probably) or a few professors who took way too many drugs as undergraduates and forget the nuances of the experience (probably)
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
duh.... don't rtfa - don't read the summary-- just post.
...in exchange for vast amounts of advertising. Works for everyone.
For example, it's permissable by default to take notes in any class unless they tell you otherwise, including voice recorders.
...]
I used to get a lot of my notes from the projector notes at the library all the time, and listen to the tapes of the lectures, as a study aide. That way I could really LISTEN to the lecture, and take key notes, but not get hung up writing things down otherwise.
This is also why most universities have exemptions for copying materials - frequently a paper may be in an out of print book, or the prof ran out of copies, or there weren't enough books for the course.
Of course, I'm sure a lawyer or RIAA agent wearing black raybans will try to scare you otherwise, but let's get real, people.
[this is just my personal opinion, IANAL but I have slept with a number of female ones
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... you stick the recording through some voice recognition program afterwards ... ... you'll still have great difficulty in understanding what was written.
Update Watch - Automatic software update notification
How are quotes any diffrent? Does the newspaper have to ask permission to publish something that someone said? How is it diffrent... seriously I want to know.
But do they have permission to record the person speaking?
In Massachusetts, where I live, it's against the law to record someone speaking without their permission.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
- They've got lots of middle-to-upper-middle class students with parents that are paying for college. The students often have a large part of the decision power.
- Duke offers the students iPods to buy their vote of approval, then simply tacks on a few hundred to the bill. (and don't give me any crap about it not adding to the bill. It's someones money spent on something that could have been spent somewhere else. That's that)
- Students go to Duke
- Profit
Being a high school, senior fresh out (almost) of the application process, I see that this fits Duke's reputation among high school students extremely well. Duke is very popular among the jock/suburban/upper middle class kid kinda person. People who've got life going pretty easily and all that really matters is the schools good sports teams and the "cool" factor.It still amazes me how people fail to think globally. It may be one of the reasons for the trouble and strife in this world. People need to consider that other places, other beliefs, other politics, other laws, exist and no-one has a monopoly on being right.
Hmm... I think it is because it is in a digital format that potentially can be distributed to millions of people.
A tape cassette doesn't inherently share that property.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Since the professor gave the lecture while being paid by the University, and it is prob safe to assume he/she wrote it while being paid by the Univ, wouldn't the Univ have the rights on the lecture?
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't
Do lawyers actually have the right to make work by stirring up trouble and finding reasons to sue people? Isn't that a bit like an auto body shop that covers the streets in nails & broken glass?
that's all I care to say about that, thanks for listening to my binary.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
In my day students got a 300k quota on a timeshared UNIX system that was so slow that during finals week it wasn't unknown for your login to time out while getty was trying to load login to display the login prompt. Running CPU-intensive programs like NROFF was enough to get your account suspended.
An iPod has more computing power and storage than the entire undergraduate computing center did back then.
In my opinion, students should buy their own iPods, if they want them.
Do they have permission from the person who wrote the lectures to share it?" asks one IP attorney, referring to lectures recorded on iPods.
This is almost funny, I thought that sharing knowledge is what learning is all about! Is there no limit to what these slimebag IP lawyers will try to profit from? What will these intrepid legal eagles tackle next? After all one might actually argue that the process of learning is coping, or downloading somebody elses IP into ones brain. Will students still have permission to record lectures with their brains or do his concerns with IP theft end with iPods and tape recorders?
One thing I am sure of, I wish digital voice recording had been this easy back when I was at Uni. If I was a Uni student today I would definetly record all key lectures with my iPod and store them on my Linux boxen and I could care less about IP.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
"Hey, Taco, let's post yet another story about something that's been done for decades with tape recorders...only now it's with IPODS!!!!!"
Yeah, amazing. How is using a modded iPod (they can't record out of the box) different from using a tape recorder? The hard disk? Whoop-dee-fuckin'-do.
Yeah, I don't know what all this technology buzz is about. Sheesh, I still use my abacus and slide rule and they work just fine.
Arn't the lectures a work products of the prof while employed by the school? Doesn't that mean that the prof doesn't get a vote and rather the school owns the lectures and thus holds the rights to deciede who can copy what. If I don't get to own my source code at work why do professors get to own the lectures? Now the school may just defer to the professor but then shouldn't we just ask the schools to put down a good policy. As a student you pay the school, not the teachers so the school should listen as students are their customers.
While the iPod is probably being used to get headlines and generate column inches for the Uni, the iPod simply isn't a great tool for kids at college.
How about a Palm? Pocket PC? Treo? Creative Nomad, Olympus dictaphone for Pete's sake? Lots more features designed to assist you plan, organise and take notes, moreso than an iPod. Even cheaper Flash players have built in dictaphones, radios and suchlike. Probably cheaper too - a Palm has Bluetooth a camera, voice recording. See what students can do with that.
So while I think iPods are great as MP3 players, I'm pretty sure that the real value here is probably why we're discussing it; publicity.
And if that's the motive then sorry, but it's a misuse of funds.
Collegiate students have so many ipods that they are using them to record lectures?
I'm to poor to even afford one to listen to music.
Damn College kids anyway
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Lectures are public domain just like free and open speech in a public arena.
Lectures held in a classroom at a university are not public domain. Your professor owns the copyright on them. The lectures of high-profile profs are in some cases recorded and broadcast or sold on tape for lots of money. Just because your prof isn't a celebrity doesn't mean his rights are reduced. Although the copyright resides with your professor, most universities also automatically have some claims to distribution rights. (This would be set by your prof's contract with the unversity.)
At my university, the official policy is that you may record lecture for your own personal use if the prof permits it. *Most* profs have no problem with this, but some do not permit it, and that is perfectly within their rights. (Note that "fair use" as applied to recordings means that, if the prof were to make a recording available to you, then you could copy it for personal use. It does not give you the right to make a recording of the lecture in the first place.) If the prof does not allow you record the lecture, you should take notes during the class. If you have a disability which makes it difficult for you to take notes, you can have a note-taker assigned from disability services. (My sister made use of that once instead of trying to record the lecture. She finds notes more useful than a verbatim recording.) In practice, though, even the profs who have a "no-record" policy will relent in that circumstance.
This is more than likely repetitive. But I don't believe the audio of a college lecture should belong to anyone. Not the professor, not the student who recorded it, no one. For the purpose of education, it should be completely liable to recording and replay...barring commercial use, of course. Which kind of puts a nail in the whole "nobody owns it" thing.
Although there are advantages with using iPods in this manner, there are many difficulties as well. For one, as they stated in the article, the iPod is so large. Students use 90% of the space for music. Downsize that to a smaller product (such as a Rio Carbon-5GB), and it is much more compact, and people will use it less for music. However, it could be argued that when students use it for music as well, they are encouraged to bring it with them everywhere.
The other thing that I am personally interested in, is how do they record lectures to the iPod? Do they hook up large microphones to them? That isn't practical. It would be much better to have an integrated microphone.
As well, they mentioned an inability to swap files from iPod to iPod. This could be easily alleviated using the same technology that the iPod Photos use to swap photos from a camera without the use of a computer.
All in all, I really think that the iPod is nothing special, as many of the things listed can be done on other players. Sure some software may not exist for purposes such as PodCasting, but it can surely be programmed as a clone very inexpensively. It is time for a company to pick this article up, and make something out of it. There is obviously a huge market for this sort of thing. These digital music player manufacturers need to start getting creative!
Even if we ignored the copyright issues, what's the point of recording lectures? This year I recorded 2 weeks worth of my Graduate-level classes before I realized, "Hey, when am I going to have time to listen to this?" It's much better and easier to take NOTES, catch the important tidbits, write it down... that way you can skim through your notes later and refresh your memory...
Listening to a 3 hour lecture 1x is more than enough!
their website and associated paper are located here
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sued Jack Murthy of Winnetka, IL over alleged copyright violations related to Mr. Murthy's memory-enhancing brain implants.
Full story here.
It's gonna happen...don't say you weren't warned.
Was it in Real Genius that people left their tape decks in the classroom to record the lecture, and in the end the teacher left his own tape there
I can say that I have never seen a student use an iPod to record a lecture. I've seen a few use them to listen to music on, but I've never seen one with a microphone. I have seen a few hook them up to computers to move files around and/or steel software off of the Macs in computer labs though, especially the grad students. I know when I'm giving a presentation that's where I keep my files.
My grad advisor did that. Guess he didn't want to spend time on a class anymore, so he taped it and showed that during successive years. A TA had all interaction with students.
It makes you think about what is happening to education, and if this is a good or bad thing.
I don't think it's good. Makes you wonder why kids would go to a "good" school if they get taught by TAs - I could go to a small state school and get actually get taught by profs.
Even though you can't see me, my erect penis is still pointing right at you
A durable unipod anal dildo
We're no longer allowed to record our classes with cameras or audio gear. They claim it's because the material they're teaching in the classrooms is actually licensed from someone else.
These are Cisco cert classes, but still... it's not like they do more than recite the slides that are printed in our books, anyway.
There far more suitable alternatives that would cost far less for recording lectures. Why the hell does it always have to be some trendy device? I'd be pissed if they were spending a portion of my tuition on iPods.
Let's see, Intellectual Property Of Duke School (IPODS).
seems that this was mentioned quite awhile ago.. months even... Kinda shy to call dupe, but definately not new news...
in the Chronicle of Higher Ed a few weeks back they covered this issue. In that article, it seemed that the main opposition to the ipod giveaway were the upper classpeople who didn't get one:-).
Steve Sloan has some nice podcasts about the use of ipods in education from a prof's POV here:
http://www.edupodder.com/session_detail.html
palmpilots would make more sense with sd cards for sound. The IP "issues" is assanine though. Bunch of hype over a nonexistant problem.
In a case like this, was it wise to link the Christian Science Monitor's main page? I feel like that wasted a click for me, and it's trivial to get from the article itself to the CS Monitor's main page. What do others think? Should the poster have linked "iPod" to Apple's website? I think linking to a higher level of a domain linked elsewhere in the post is useless.
Should've known... you never can trust a writer who talks to his TACO.
Now his burrito and quesadilla, on the other hand...
i have a solution to the question posed by this IP lawyer - lets burn all IP lawyers at the stake, so they STFU and stop popping up with kind of drivel
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
...or the institution, and they choose to deliver the content this way, then the lawyers can get bent!
Rogerson says that as far as his lectures are concerned, his students are free to record anything that comes out of his mouth and use it for their own purposes, so long as they don't profit from it.
That's a sad comment on the usefulness of his lectures! :-)
FYI: Duke students got Belkin microphone attachment with the iPod, so you could record lectures from the get go with the attachment. I know because I was one of the 1600 students that got one.
Let's face it, Duke is using the IPod to lure students to their school by waving a shiny toy in front of them. They're justifying it by saying people can listen to lectures on them. The student's thing its a great idea, because it doesn't affect them whether they're paying an assload of money, or a slightly larger assload of money for tuition. But really, people who don't care to go to class aren't going to care to listen the the lecture anyway; not that there's anything wrong with not going to class. I infact prefer to study from the book rather than be yapped at for two hours while zoning in and out. Also, consider that listening to audio recordings of lectures in math, science, or engineering is pretty useless without being able to see the equations and diagrams that are so essential to those subjects. The phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words" seems quite aplicable to this situation. Can you imagine trying to learn differential equations without seeing the manipulation of equations first hand by the professor? Audio lectures could be useful for more concept based courses, like history or philosophy.
I'm in an expensive school similar to Duke, and they "gave" us a laptop with all the latest stuff on it. It of course cost us extra in each semester bill, so I sometimes wonder if they instead had a grant so we could buy our own laptop and pay a lot less than the high amount they charged us. Ipods seem like an even bigger waste of money - maybe Tablet PCs or quite possibly laptops...but iPods?
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
I lecture three times a week to a room full
of sleeping students. I would be thrilled
if someone taped (ipodded?) a lecture to listen
to it.
iPod Experiment
Duke iPod program to continue next year
Also, you can go to The Chronicle and search the archives for "iPod" and get any number of negative student editorials on the topic. Basically, all of us at Duke agreed that the project was a marketing campaign, plain and simple; on the other hand, you won't see us complaining. We got free (as in, paid for by a fund accumulated from previous years) iPods, and next year's freshmen will get them if they take the appropriate classes.
In addition, Carolina can go to hell. Go Devils :-P
Apple never intended for them to be used as audio recorders, and they have no control over the quality of third party dongles.
Your analogy is flawed or, rather, you are too passive. These are not "third party dongles", these are licensed and manufactured in partnership with Apple (that provides the firmware support and allows access to the iPod's innards). You don't get Apple's blessing, you don't get very far. Look at the incredibly slow progress the iPod Linux has made relative to, say, RockBox. This is because Apple actively works to lock out unauthorised development.
The iPod's hardware seems well capable of supporting high-fidelity recording, both analog and digital. The PortalPlayer PP5002B chipset (and derivatives on current models) used in all the big iPods since the early days is capable, according to PortalPlayer itself, of encoding MP3, WAV, AIFF, WMA, and ATRAC3 at up to 320Kbit/s.
A little over a year ago iPods switched to the Wolfson WM8731L ADC/DAC ($5 each in small lots!), which can sample at 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz. I haven't kept up with current iPod offerings because they are of little interest to me but I would assume Apple has not regressed on the ADC capabilities. It's hard these days to spend more than $3 on a signal chip and *not* get high-quality ADC. I note that most of the other players based on a similar PortalPlayer/Wolfson platform (eg Samsung, Philips, iRiver) offer high-fidelity recording.
So you see you are wrong. The iPod's lack of high-fidelity sound recording is not the fault of "third party dongles", it is not a limitation of iPod hardware, it is simply that Apple has chosen to intentionally limit the available quality of the recording function. As to why Apple would choose to cripple the iPod this way, many people probably have different opinions on that. personally, I feel that it's Apple's way of making nice with the RIAA.
Da Blog
So if you pay for a ticket to a movie you can bring in a cam and record it to watch it at home? I think the MPAA would have an argument with you there.
This is a false dichotomy with no basis in law. There is no distinction between "creative work" and "free and open speech" in any legal sense. A lecture is both of these things, and the lecturer owns the copyright to the work he or she produces.
and not just because slashdotters don't have girlfriends. I teach at a university too, and I think your imaginary girlfriend is wrong. I mean, sure, perhaps you should be able to do these things, but the fact is if you did that you would be violating copyright, and a professor could sue you for infringement.
When Bob Dole was a law student at Washburn he had to tape the lectures. He was unable to take notes in class because of the injuries to his arm.
That would be a major waste of time.
OK I was as confused as everyone else as to how an ipod could improve the educational experience over, say, a tape recorder or whatever. Now I get it. An ipod will hurt a lot more than an eraser if thrown correctly. My students would definitely pay closer attention to lectures if they thought they'd get hit on the head with an ipod.
Have you ever eaten a cookie baked with a PS2? They really do suck!!
Back during my undergrad years before we had ipods i would listen to a "walkman" and take a test. I would finish before everyone else in the class and they would give me strange looks. Good times.
Unless they're getting kickbacks from Apple as some other /.ers have suggested.
Who am I to blow against the wind? -- Paul Simon
people wouldn't ask questions like that if it wasn't something like an ipod. People have been recording lectures for years on tapes, and yes probably sharing them - just because it's an ipod doesn't mean that everyone is eagerly waiting to go home and upload it to the internet. Ipods aren't nerds only. They're mainstream - half the people using them have no idea what's going on or how the magic box works Also - Newton's work doesn't have a copyright on it. Neither did the death of Julius Caesar. Teachers giving such information out to their students (while doing a good job and working hard to make it teachable) aren't putting out new ideas (usually - that's what dissertations and the like are for) and therefore shouldn't get quite the same IP rights. I think that the industry just needs to back off and realize that this is good - they're sharing for EDUCATION! yeesh
The ipod is bassed on digital not taping, so it's more piracy.
Obvously the lawyers have fancy language and correct spelling for the above statement, but that's what it boils down to.
The lack of a built in voice recorder is precisely one of the reasons why I did not buy an iPod.
Most other MP3 players (like my iRiver) have excellent sound recorders on board without needing attachments.
My GF records all her lectures on her Clie (the only thing we still use it for, the recording qualitity is great) and then puts them up for download for her school friends. The easy of sharing is what makes the real difference.
Since the iPod is a very popular tech gadget, and it is being extended beyond its original function, the merits (or lack thereof) of this new use seems to be worth discussion in a geek forum.
Also, the impact of computer technology in classrooms has been a hotly debated topic for some time, so it seems to me worth discussing this latest round in that debate.
Yeah, amazing. How is using a modded iPod (they can't record out of the box) different from using a tape recorder? The hard disk?
Not having used an iPod in a classroom, I don't have an opinion one way or the other about the issue. But I am curious to read what other people think about it, and I'm guessing you fall into the "iPods are of limited utility in a classroom environment" camp.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I go to a school that provides laptops as part of the tuition.
I'm not sure if it's an actual law or just college policy, but they've been very clear in informing us that, before recording a class, we must obtain explicit permission from the professor.
Of course, I don't know anyone who routinely records classes.
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suwain_2
I know the generally-accepted rule is that, in public, you can take photos of people. (Of course, "homeland security" trumps this right. The commercial use of photos is also generally not permitted: I can't take a picture of someone and use them in advertising.)
In most cases, if you're in public, you can't complain that I took a picture of you without permission. Why isn't audio the same? Or is it?
I can understand a private institution making its own rules that one must abide by, but what's the general law? Can I record you while you and I are walking down the street?
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suwain_2
Um, ya. Ok. And I thought Hunter was dead.
Playing back lectures while in bed just before sleep probably saved me failing my degree.
For consealment put the recording device in the leg of your boot; hence the phrase.
You shouldn't have to ask for permission, that seems strange because it is. It's already in your head. But I do understand the territorial pissings of the modern word, yes.
A blog I run for the wealth
All it takes is a couple of kids on the witness stand or a signed affidavit.
What kind of lawyer thinks he can get away with saying shit that he is liable for to a bunch of kids who can take notes or repeat what he said later?
At last the attourneys get involved with something useful.
Sheesh, back in my day, I used a little dictaphone device to record the audio and a Polaroid camera (remember them???) to take photos of the blackboard at stages during the lecture... and that was back in the 1970's
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
And mini tape recorders *aren't* widely available? C'mon, they're a fraction of the price and can be bought in most stationary/office supplies shop!
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I'm currently running a forum for people who do maths at my uni (and any others if you wanna drop by). One of the things that we want to do with it is start putting up lecture notes. The problem is the same one: at what point do said notes cease to be property of the lecturer?
If we recorded the lectures and posted the audio files, that would definitely be copyright breach. As would a complete transcript of whatever the lecturer wrote on the board. If we abstract it, does that mean it's a new work or is it still derivative? What if we need to stick a proof up? Without putting appreciable time into finding a new proof (not likely to happen) we're stuck with using whatever the lecturer put up on the board.
The fundamental problem is that copyright is a very hazy concept in academia. Works tend to be on the very limit of what is copyrightable - you can't copyright truth. Students copy from postgrads who copy from PhDs who copy from Professors who copied from other students when they were undergrads.
You can't copyright truth, but you can copyright layout. If we put lecture notes up online which, due to the fact that they were written down in the Statistics lecture course, are identical in layout to the lecturing Professor's new book, is that plagiarism? It's very hard to draw the line, and I know that our university maths society has taken down its lecture notes due to just these issues.
So, to summarise, the uncertainty is screwing us over.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
So students are recording classes, why is this slashdot news? Because they use an iPod. It's just another mp3 playing toy, plus, it's white, nothing more.
DON'T PANIC
$40,000 a year? That's nothing!
When I were a kid, we sold ourselves into slavery, paid one of our own kidneys every year for four years, it were uphill both ways and we were glad of it.
Kids today, don't know they're born...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
"Christian Science Monitor (hah, what an oxymoron)"
... like Isaac Newton, Planck and Faraday for starters (just off the top of my head).
... isn't agnosticism the only really scientific viewpoint. Anything else requires faith. My personal faith experience is as real to me as any other sense data - that's why I believe. How about you?
Hmm, yeah, all Christians are unscientific
I'll assume you're an atheist
Am I the only person here who understood that any educational use is allowed as 'Fair Use'? So, as long as they aren't selling it, can't students use and share recordings of lectures (assuming they were given permission to record in the first place)?
It's no different than photocopied lecture notes. Digital means of delivery doesn't change any of the fundamentals of "intellectual property." Copying without the copyright owner's permission is illegal, no matter the means.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I don't think that most professors are concerned about IP. As an example I've had quite a few of my professors record their lectures and then turn around and post them as an MP3 on their websites. I think it is an ingenious idea on the part of Duke to be that far ahead of the curve. But I guess that does make it easier for someone to take your notes OR in this case your MP3 of the class that he / she missed. I am actually an advocate of this program b/c it just makes to much sense and I think in the long run will be more productive for the students at Duke.
That's missing the point entirely.
It's the *presentation* of the information which is the professor's intellectual property.
Happily telling the world all the facts he told you isa legal.
Selling recordings of the lecture is not.
hawk
The university lecturing practice comes from times of ancient greece, Socrates, Plato etc. Listening to lectures was an useful way of distributing knowledge back then, when printed books didn't exist.
The main concern here seems to be to support this ancient practice because it enforces students to enroll to schools and pay for their tuition.
Spreading knowledge does not require physical buildings dedicated solely for this purpose anymore. It does not require people to sit inside theese buildings listening to someone speak.
You actually can p2p ALL books you would read for your Ph.D. degree studies for many diciplines. (math, cs, chemistry, biochemistry, physics to name a few).
Great proportion of theese uploads go to Russia, India and other relatively poor countries.
Now in my opinion everything that helps to spread knowledge is good from whole planet's point of view. It eventually will cause new discoveries and be beneficial. For all, even for the authors and the people working for publishers. Or their grand-grand children.
ps. I have a library of 7000 ebooks.
That's not the issue at all.
:)
You have an *absolute* right to use that information. The information isn't IP *at all*.
It's the lecture presentation and content that's protected.
You can even write your own book explaining every last thing you learned to the world, and earn billions in sales without owing a dime to your prof (though a thanks would certainly be in line--and maybe even a nice bottle of single malt
hawk
There's not even a weak case.
If the university specified how and what to do, perhaps. In the typical university, however, the faculty receives, at most, a paragraph from the course catalog listing topics. We take it from there, designing from the ground up.
The situation may well be different in those web-based mills. They generally *do* specify what is to happen, and how it is to happen.
Consider a typical trip to a children's photographer. The parents exert about as much creative control as a real college or university does with its professors. "Make nice picture of kids" is the charge and the photographer keeps the copyright (which is why more copies are so expensive). The university says, "Teach these topics," exercising no more creative control than the kids' parents.
hawk
Some years ago, Penn State filmed the lectures of a popular engineering professor.
.
After he died, they negotiated with his widow, and a dead man taught courses . .
hawk, who wishes that he was making this up
http://www.stickybuffalo.com/comment.php?postid=76 5
My mom recently told me of a project going on at her school that involves classsroom use of iPods and a nice little microphones to record the goings on of a class of special needs students. All assignments, and study aids are stored in audio format on the iPod so the parents are up-to-speed on what needs to get done each night. The grant that bought the equipment for the trial run also paid for a training session with the parents. Most of the class time audio is also recorded so things can be reviewed. This sort of behavior in the college classroom is far from new, but the above example is something only made possible by large capacity, easy to use recording devices like the iPod.
Jeff Jones at cuesta college in Ca. I use his name freely because he is proud of his techinque. For his classes you buy a copy of his notes at the book store or print them from his website yourotherteacher.com he has all of his lectures recorded there. If you are taking a class from him he gives you a free pass to the site. But when you take a lecture from him he expects that you have already watched the pre-recorded aspect, and are ready with questions. It works pretty well for his subject matters;
He teaches, statics, strength of materials, Autocad, and smoe other basic engineering courses.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared