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University Tries "One iPhone Per Student"
alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When students at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."
Now do the students have to pay the extra surcharge that offsets the cost of the phones, or does the University pick up that tab as well?
...to ebay in 3...2...
AT&ROFLMAO
When we wanted to waste time and not study back in my day, all we had were fraternities and sororities. Kids today with their new-fangled distractions and time-wasters don't know how lucky they have it. They've got hundreds of reasons not to go to class right there at their fingertips. We had to *WORK* at it when we goofed off! We didn't even have pagers or MUD's back then!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Awful idea.
If I wanted one, I would buy one myself. Decrease tuition, let people buy whatever type of cellphone they want.
Doesn't sound like this is going to do much for "mobile learning". Nice gimmick though....
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for.
...that keeps pushing up the cost of a college education.
iPhone plans are bloody expensive... the plans start at over double what even a very robust normal cell phone plan would cost. Unless you need one for work and your company can pick up the tab, I'm inclined to think that they are just a money sink.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How much is Apple (or AT&T) paying said university to distribute these little profit-machines to these gullible students? Not that I wouldn't fall for it too, but honestly! I guess on the surface it's a win-win-win situation, but I can't help but think that someone is being taken advantage of.
When I first heard about this idea a few months ago, I knew that there would be some interesting consequences. Being that I graduated from ACU in December of '06, I know many of the people involved and have heard stories about what it takes to accomplish such a task.
ACU had to re-implement much of it's wireless structure in order to accommodate all of the new devices and ensure that students would have wireless coverage at every conceivable place on campus.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out and whether or not it works as well as the faculty and staff have envisioned.
Got a problem? Call a monkey!
The length some universities will go to justify their ridiculously high tuition fees...
At least then the students would have a general-purpose computer to do work on.
The Cathedral versus the Bazaar.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Not really. As a percentage tuition comes in as the number one expense with dorm being number two and the rest falling behind that.
The school is conducting a trial with a piece of hardware, maybe students will find interesting new ways to use it.
Sure the majority will use it to goof off, but it's possible a couple resourceful students come up with something useful and everybody gains. Is it the absolute best way to use resources, maybe not; but it's quite a neat capable platform and only time will tell what interesting things students can come up with.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
...that I was previously unaware of.
How's this for a headline: "University gets kickback from AT&T for getting students hooked on iPones good and early".
No sig today...
Do universities even know what they exist for these days? Certainly those thousands of dollars would have been better spent by providing students with better classrooms, attracting better professors, or more scholarships for families with financial trouble. Parents and students alike should be outraged that their tuition (and it was their money) that was meant to fund their child's education was instead spent on something so asinine.
I hope the bribe doesn't work and these kids recognize how poorly their tuition is being managed (although I suspect the reaction was more "OOOHHH SHINEY")
Don't worry, they'll make it up in "lab fees".
because every time the cost goes up, the politicians go all "rising costs of education!!!" and give them more money. My econ prof called it the "cookie monster" effect. Colleges go "Me want cookie!!!!" and spend $$$ on this, and super-fancy new buildings with HD video projectors in every classroom, and clubhouses for their sports teams, and what-not... om nom nom nom.... and, when they're done, there's another cookie there waiting for them! Rinse and repeat. Wonderful incentive structure there, no? Mmmmhmm....
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
It would be much more productive to give them a lightweight PC and free, Campus-wide WiFi so they can call people via VOIP.
No sig today...
I think ESR would be more on the side of the Bazaar. If only the G1s were available a few weeks earlier...
Then again, the Apple Cathedral does have a kind of Bazaar in their developer program. Although really, it's more like a tightly-supervised Mall.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
is getting some sort of "benefit" from AT&T?
Now students, pull out your iPhones or iPods and serf the net "researching" this term.
In the meantime, the kids rack up HUGE AT&T charges that mommy and daddy pay.
When it learned of the schoolâ(TM)s plans, AT&T, the iPhone's sole U.S. carrier, upgraded the campus area with 3G base stations.
Isn't that special. AT&T is just soooo nice! Aren't they? They just spent all that money out of the love of higher education. I DON'T THINK SO! This has to be one of the most brilliant marketing ideas I have ever seen by a cellphone company.
And remember kids, the cell industry is THE MOST complained about industry in America and they got that position for a very good reason.
ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan.
Students, parents, and taxpayers pay for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan.
There, fixed it for ya!
I'm also glad to see my tax dollars hard at work buying kids iPhones, when I don't even have one.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Hello. I am a friendly neighborhood Christian. The earth is round, it resolves around the sun, evolution is real, and the fundamentalist nonsense that they call "intelligent design" is, in fact, garbage, and not Science. Now will you let me get back to my SNMPv2c-walking performance testing investigation? I think my simulator is in a bogus state; it's a pity I don't have more transparency into it...
In the meantime, Atheists like you should not be allowed to attack Christians for being stupid until they acknowledge that:
there's more than one type of Christian faith, from hardcore Fundamentalist to Unitarian Universalist
the loud type you hear about aren't the most representative
many are happy to acknowledge Science and such
most of them are tolerant enough not to go off spouting garbage generalisations like this post
Or do you prefer to be gaudy with baud to God?
Maybe they can brand this thing as The GodiPod, hehehehe.
Parishners/donors might want to think about their charitable donations.... OTOH, Apple *could* just donate them... LOL!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Blatant corporate sponsorship. No wonder these kids think that Apple invented the Internet and the GUI.
Coming up next: Student suspended for listening to MP3's. Administration cannot decide whether it was because it was a Samsung phone or because the music was not sold by iTunes and subject to their DRM.
- - - Non Caffeine Drink or Drink Error
So then I guess it really is the "Jesus Phone."
Get a free happy meal toy with each and every degree.
One thing that is interesting is that there are a large number of Roman Catholics that do acknowledge that. But other than that, every branch attached to Protestantism seems to follow the concept that the bible speaks the truth, and scientific theory is as theoretical as the theory that there are tunnels in the north and south pole that connect in the center of the earth. I completely disregard anything related to religion in my life. And that includes the so called morals from religion. I guess I'm good enough that i don't need to follow any rule to get that tolerance is the key to many issues.
Usually it's the donors who give a large chunk of building costs that decide the new facilities should be super-fancy.
And they have to one-up each other too, so you could also blame the competition.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
Can we get some realistic math for once? Attending a private school like ACU costs close to $110K for four years. A fancy $300 PDA doesn't even begin to account for that.
Also, colleges now rely heavily on the web and email for communicating with students. Bulletins, class schedules, online study materials, web-based paperwork... It's efficient and cheap. This works better if everybody has a standard device that works the same way with the campus WiFi network. Usually, colleges accomplish this by making all the students buy a standard laptop or tablet.
That route makes sense to me, but I can guess why the ACU people went the PDA route. People take their PDAs everywhere, so ACU can get information out to the entire student body quickly. That makes for a convenient fact to cite when parents want to know what the school is doing to prevent another Virginia Tech.
Does the iPhone replace a more expensive student "necessity?" Most universities either explicitly or implicitly require a computer, and in most cases, a notebook. I read the article and found no mention of a traditional pc, though I'm sure they're used. I graduated from college in 1988, when you had to go to "the computer center" to use a pc that cost several thousand dollars. Can I reimagine it now, just toting around a little iPod Touch? More connected, fantastically more portable, AND cheaper? Hell yeah.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
The title made me worry that we were only allowed to have a single iPhone per person. And I thought it was just some more unnecessary University restrictions.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How time flies. That's almost 1/3000th of the Earth's age ago.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
ACU pays for the hardware
No they don't. Whoever pays the students' fees pays for it, plus any admin charge the university adds for overseeing the moving around of the money.
I really don't see any issue. It's a private institution doing an experiment that just might work out for other institutions. Also for those who read the article it mentions that the apps are designed so that in the future one could go with a different phone. So once again audience, where's the problem?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Yeah and it seems that ignorant and stupid-as-fuck athiests should not be let out of cages as it seems they are all socially inept. Until they acknowlege that:
People believe something different than them (GASP!)
They dont know everything like they want everyone to believe they do.
There are people way the hell smarter than they are that believe in God.
The hate that spews forth from their mouths (It's only the noisy idiots that we notice) only makes them and anyone else that says they are an athiest look like nimrods or idiots. How about shutting the hell up for once? You ramble on about how there is no God more than some evangelical christians do! Bla Bla Bla SHUT UP!
From your friendly neighborhood christian.
I wonder how many of these students will become Apple iStore customers? Will they start buying iPhone apps and songs?
It's similar to issuing laptops in high schools. No costs for textbooks and easier to manage... This is actually a great idea
... is basically doing the same thing ( http://www.oc.edu/apple/ ). They are also offering the choice of a Dell, MacBook, or MacBook Pro. Many of the students here chose the iTouch (including me) simply because they didn't want to pay the expensive monthly fees for the iPhone. My service charge would be $90 per month. I just can't afford that price being a student having other debts to pay off (like college tuition). OC released an enterprise app for our iTouch/iPhone that lets us track things such as events going on, which laundry machines are open (through LaundryView), etc. I think it's pretty neat, but I'm not sure if it's worth the price tag.
The real headline should be something along the lines of freshmen class of Abilene Christian University all required to pay for brand new iPhones.
When I read the "New York Times Says Thin Clients Are Making a Comeback" headline, I thought of cellphone/pda apps. Considering books cost me around $300 a semester back in 1996-2000 and all the other ways that the university tried to leech a buck off my family, I'm not surprised that a college is doing something like this. This sounds and looks like a decent killer app for cell phones/PDAs.
I'm kinda sad though. I'd have thought that we'd have figured out how to get all this done, and my kids using this in elementary school right now. I'm really sad that colleges are just now getting there. I remember back in 1998 when my college just started their web app for signing up for classes. It was much, much better than their telephone system that they'd used before hand. We loved it.
My kids public school has a web app that'll show their 9 weeks grades and an event calendar. O.k. it's nice that they have anything, but still as a parent and tax payer, I'd want all their text books to be in pdf and able to be saved, viewed, printed, quoted from anywhere. I'd also want teachers grade books and PTA meetings online as well. There is a part of me that thinks class rooms need forums or a school running their own version of facebook, yet geared more along the lines of keeping track of all of a student's progress, projects, entire school history, homework, quizes, & test history for everything there, and doing it as a glorified year book. Especially to pound it into the student's head, that this is to make you and us look "good"! ;)
I didn't know that the iPod or iPhone was limited to one OS. That's so very odd...
What, Linux is now a viable OS for the iPod? you can run Windows on your iPhone? there's a Touch-enabled QNX port coming?
I'm sure some of those lucky kids are really looking forward to running Ubutntu Mousy Mastiff on their shiny new toy.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I'm not sure I'd call Unitarian Universalist Christian, exactly. Christian roots, certainly... But I don't think I'd consider myself Christian.
But other than that, every branch attached to Protestantism seems to...[think]...scientific theory is as theoretical as the theory that there are tunnels in the north and south pole that connect in the center of the earth
You have to love generalizations. I actually attended ACU and received my CS degree in 2003. There are many, many protestants out there that interpret the Genesis account of creation as more of a parable rather than scientific fact (basically it is to say God is in charge, not the means through which the universe came into being). I can specifically say that this view is widely held by all of the scientific faculty at ACU. I took astronomy as an elective and in class it was taught that the universe was 12-14 billion years old. Saying that all protestants think the Earth is only 6,000 years old is just like saying all Muslims are terrorists.
A couple of years ago, perhaps in retaliation over ESR's publication of the Halloween Documents, Bill Gates apparently used one of the back doors in NT to "borrow" time on the gov'ts orbital mind lasers. Alas, ESR was not wearing his tin foil hat, and now he has sadly been reduced to a raving fucktard.
He _was_ right about Aunt Tilly, but I hope he didn't buy stock in Linspire... Rest in peace, you crazy diamond you.
Be proud of yourself. Why are you afraid of hiding your identity? You understand the parent is an atheist the same way you are a monotheist. You are being very general when saying that all atheist religions are full of nimrods. The parent is not the representative of all atheist religions, and as a person who would get labeled as an atheist (or heathen/satanist in the USA) I disagree with him. The one question I have for you is if another myth in the judeo-christian book is proven false - will you leave your religion and be a person dependable on his or her self for life (like myself), or would you follow the next evolution of christianity? A completely optional question to answer, I've just been curious on the answers of people of any mono-poly religion would give.
'nough said.
Like Nokia or Android or Eee PC stuff?
"Board of Regents owns Apple Stock!"
"C'mon baby, President of the University needs a new yacht!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So much for telling the students to turn their cell phones off in class.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
ahh, a pickpocket's heaven. no matter who you grift, you'll atleast walk away with a $200 ipod!
If you have an iPhone/iPod Touch you can check out their mobile site at m.acu.edu. Of course you have to have an account to log into the myMobile section.
Of course its affordable, as it gets more expensive the government chips in more and raises the limit of the loans it will back.
That has been the problem with college level education and health care. As soon as the government stepped in and started paying for things at set rates without asking questions the competitive market failed. The price of admission became "cost + what the government was willing to chip in".
We have some of the best tax payer funded education in the world but too many don't realize who is really paying for it. I know in my wonderful state that reviews have shown a growing portion of the budgets are professor pay and retirement costs, funny the endowments are just rolling over the cash and not helping more students.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
ACU teaches that the earth is round, revolves around the sun, and that life evolved via natural selection. The astronomy course I took here didn't even mention the possibility of the earth being young; it was the Big Bang, 4.6 billion year old Earth, etc. "Alternatives" based in pseudo-science and an over-literal reading of Genesis were not even on the table. I've also never had a Bible professor even suggest that the Bible should be treated as a science book - every single one I've talked to on the subject regards the Creation account as metaphorical.
So every student on campus will have an easy to steal and easy to sell item in their possession at all times? Where can I submit an application? Seems to be a lucrative business opportunity. /paranoia
I know a lot of you will be complaining about the associated costs with giving all of the students an iPhone, but I'll point out (as an Abilene Native) that I'd be very, very surprised if anyone that actually attends ACU would bat an eyelash at another bill. Those kids are RICH rich.
except for the 3G radio? What about the fact that ONE IS A PHONE!
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Well the article describes a system developed for the iPhone but as a webpage. Sure it's hard to develop cross platform on the web, but you can usually suppport more than one plattform without much problem.
iPhone may be the Messiah joining everyone under one god.. Dunno if that makes it sane to bet everything on Aramaic to spread the gospel.
Everyone's saying this is a waste of money, but with tuition as much as it is, this is a drop in the bucket compared to what the students will be paying for their degrees. Do you think anybody will notice if their tuition went up 300 bucks over 4 years to cover the cost of these devices, that may have many benefits for their classes, such as easy class lookup and registration, online syllabus and course notes that are available with you all the time, and so on and so forth. When the teachers could rely on everybody having access to this stuff instead of just a few students, teachers can actually use the devices to improve their classes.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Doesn't Abilene, TX need cell phone service first?
ACU has a tradition of taking calculated risks when it comes to how they do business as an educational institution. This quality is what puts ACU on the map consistently as a leader in education. There are lots of other universities who have tried to pull off programs like this, and many have succeeded. ACU gets this large amount of publicity because it simply is an Apple product that has significant penetration into the student population. Having been involved with the rollout plan for when/how this project was to mature, it could have happened sooner. However, ACU made the decision to wait until there was enough software designed to make this more than just a toy/promotional tool. In fact, the semester before these were handed out several research groups were formed consisting of both students and faculty to determine how these devices could be used most efficiently and even begin to work on their own coding projects to achieve these goals.
These calculated risks are not just in how they were to be used in an educational setting, but also in the technology implementation. It was a significant challenge to provide that large a scale of wireless access. Having worked on it, I must admit that wireless deployment is an artform in how you balance capacity versus coverage with hundreds of environmental factors affecting your decisions. There are many great pieces of software to try and assist you making the optimal placement choices, but they frequently require large amounts of time for data entry for only a minor change in quality. When it boils down to is still the same procedure that has been used for years; deploy 90% of AP, turn it on and survey it, then use the remaining 10% to fill in the holes you missed. Sofar, most of the risky decisions that were made appear to have payed off and leave only a known portion to be expanded in the future.
I'm proud to have graduated from this university in May and have the privilege of working with the IS department for several years.
There's nothing like good ol' books.
I'm sure they'll get replaced one day by something else, much like human's reproductive organs (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/14/046251) down the line, but until then they remain truly portable and energy efficient, last more than a day (depending on the consumer) and are quite possibly much better in making that information remain where it's intended. And as an added bonus generally save you the hassle of needing to rotate and use a magnifying glass ;)
yes of course...this is a private religious college, not a public university...giving each student a 'free' ipod or iphone is nothing more than marketing
how do I know? I went to a school just like this: Cedarville University. Cedarville's marketing gimmick actually made sense while I was there (I was a freshman in '97): they had computers with high speed internet in every dorm room. It really helped us become computer savvy (NESticle, Napster, etc...) and helped the lower-income students whose parents couldn't afford a private college AND a new computer.
Liberty University did the same thing only they installed a chairlift for skiing/snowboarding in winter and mountain biking in summer.
Bottom line: it's all marketing, and it gets figured into the tuition
Thank you Dave Raggett
Don't bash it until you have watched the video.
http://www.acu.edu/technology/mobilelearning/researchers/video/index.html
1 iPhone/student at ACU makes much more sense than 1 iPod/student that Duke has been doing for a while now. Besides, watch the Video. See if it will change your mind.
(full disclosure: ACU is my Alma Mater)
I like the idea as a tech geek but at the same time I realise there is a massive down side to giving students PDA like devices. About two years ago there was a study (cant seem to find the link) that showed students who used PDA's had a massive reduction in memory recall efficiency. It makes sense though, the human brain is not static and builds/removes synaptic links as they are needed (a good example is language and young children), thus if the students do not have to recall facts from their memory anymore but just query their iPhone then their brains will not build the extra synaptic links needed for efficient recall. So my personal view is that giving iPhones to students as a learning aid on one level is clever but long term is dumb.
What is the meaning of your sig? By breaking the large word down using spaces, I can get the following translation out of Google: "I'm tired, unfit people the simple error search tree following are created". I realize that adding spaces may change the meaning somewhat, so I'm not surprised to get a meaningless sentence back out. From what I can piece together this has something to do with finding the cause of an error by using a search tree. But I could be way off.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Heh. It means, "I'm tired of brainless troubleshooting-tree following monkeys." In other words - they don't use their heads. If the troubleshooting tree says to do something, they do it, no matter what, even if they tried it 10 times already, and it didn't work.
For some reason the a-umlaut got screwed up.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
It's not a phone, it's a platform for the latest killer app... ...GunmanTracker.
When any iPhone detects gunfire, it reports its position to a central server, which then creates a Google Maps mashup that shows the location of the gunman on all other students' iPhones.
If the iPhone is being carried BY the gunman, the phone is supposed to shock them like a taser would. Unfortunately in testing all the power that could be mustered from the battery would just tickle at best, and there apparently wasn't any way to replace the battery with something more powerful.
Even if they could replace the battery, it turned out that GunTracker was trivially defeated by the DontTaseMeBro app, although that was quickly pulled from the app store.
paintball
They're going to losing their iPhone/iPod at the frat party, so why not provide them a barf bag to save the rug in the dorm room when they return?
As a raised protestant(creation as a parable) who has since become a pinball between agnostic and athiest, I know about the different types of Christian faith and the relative numbers of various sects.
I believe that the rights of fundamentalist protestants and catholics to believe as they wish should be respected, however, I am deeply offended that they are pandered to by politicians because they scream so loudly.
Should I so desire, I believe it is my right to scream every bit as loudly, about how ignorant, intolerant, and quite frankly un-Christian MANY(not saying most) of the fundamentalists are. I am interested in the idea of not allowing certain fundamentalists access to technology. My problem would go away in short order, if the fundies who are ID fanatics, or anti evolution could be denied the benefits which have arisen from the science they struggle against.
Here is a spear, and a flint and a bit of steel, go forth make a living for yourself.
I am being a bit ridiculous I know.
They need to create a new "I am rich" application.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
At least it is a more open platform, has a very nice screen to display content and is quite cheap if you go for the N800...
Did the money magically appear from out of nowhere or did ACU tack the money onto the tuition somehow? I mean really. That iPhone which typically costs $199 at an Apple Store when connected to the expensive AT&T plan probably cost each student closer to $600 on their tuition.
Wouldn't it have been better to use the money more productively and made "A Web Enbabled Mobile Device" a prerequisit?
Of course it's a University that declares math and science irrelevant, so I'm guessing it was actually a message from God that the Uni should deploy the Jesus Phone.
Blah blah, and they said giving students calculators to use in 6th - 8th grade would hurt our math skills.
They were just jealous they had to do their work by hand. And I got great math insights... see I have this theory that there are really some big or as I like to call them "fat 2" out there, where 2 + 2 ~= 5
If I had not had my calculator all them years, where would I have gotten great insights like that!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
...this year's CS freshmen of the University of Helsinki got their hands on EeePC 900s with eeebuntu GNU/Linux.
They're "just" on loan, though, and recoverable if the students don't progress in their studies, but there's also the detail about Finnish university education being tax-funded anyway, so there's no tuition to hide the cost in...
Guess that means the students don't have to "buy" this one themselves. I guess maybe if they are on a full scholarship this is true.