US students 'required' to buy iPhones
Funding loophole favours fruity firm
What you need to know about cloud backup
A North American college has urged new journalism students to buy iPhones, exploiting a funding fiddle to promote the gadget as a learning aid.
According to a local newssite's report, incoming students at the Missouri School of Journalism (MSJ) will now be sent a letter telling them to buy either an iPhone or iPod Touch before course starts.
Students who refuse to buy one of the Apple devices won’t be booted off the course. The school’s only labelled the iPhone and iPod Touch as a "required" course tool so that students can apply for funding.
“The reason we put 'required' on [the letter] is to help the students in financial need,” said Brian Brooks, Associate Dean at the Missouri School of Journalism.
But why Apple gadgets specifically? The answer isn’t clear. Brooks hinted that MSJ lectures are recorded as MP3 files so that students can listen to them later. MP3s can be played back by a wide range of devices that don't have an Apple logo attached to them.
“There’s been some research done that shows if a student can hear that lecture a second time, they retain three times as much [information],” Brooks added.
Maybe, but that's a question of the availability of the information, not branding. And why not simply 'require' students purchase any MP3 player?
The MSJ’s been an Apple addict since 2005, when it started urging students to buy Macs because “by the time you purchase photo, audio and video software for a PC, you probably will have spent more than you would if buying a comparable Apple computer”. ®
COMMENTS
Go for it.
I say go for it. The better the educational market penetration of any single device for use in studies, the more likely we will begin to see applications for edcuation created (and approved by apple). Frankly, the iphone and ipod touch are two platforms with very tight api and user expereince is repeatable across the breadth of the machines. Cant get that with win mobile handsets, palm handsets and even PC's. Every damned one of them has quirks or usability issues worse than 1/2 battery life the apple devices may have.
BTW, I'm a win mobile user, I know an application written for one win mobile phone doesnt always work on every phone.
@ Mark Dowling
And using/recommending a device other than Apple would have resulted in better journalism?
I don't think so!
Journalism covers all channels of media
@ Mark Dowling
many people automatically assume "journalism" equals "newspapers"... which is only a tiny aspect of what the Mizzou J-School teaches... tv, radio, the web, and now location aware appications so it shows the professors are very forward thinking to bring ipod touches into the mix, years before everyone in society has them.
check it out... you'll be surprised how much iphone development is going on at the J-School.
http://rji.missouri.edu/projects/student-competitions/index.php
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
What you need to know about cloud backup
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
