Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Maroon 5 Makes Room on the IPod for Schoolwork
For Samantha Greene's parents, there was no getting around it: she had to have an IPod this year. Everybody at school was getting one.
At the Brearley School, a private school for girls on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Samantha is in the eighth grade, the IPod went from a "want" to a "must have" this year when its use was incorporated into foreign language and classics courses. For about 300 girls in grades 7 through 12, the IPod is now required to do homework and classroom assignments.
I cant believe how much things have changed since i was in grade school.. I remember getting the supply list for my classes and it only asking for us to buy a pen,pencil and notebook. Now schools are requiring parents to buy their children $269 iPods.
I guess there is a positive side and a negative side to this story. First off the positive side of this story that they also stated in the article was that when a student records his or her voice while reading a textbook,etc they will better comprehend what they read when they go back to listen to it. Hearing it in there own voices will make then understand it better.
In my own opinion, although it can be very positive in some ways it can also be negative in other ways meaning that any student can go home and download music they like and could listen to it during class instead of listening to what the teacher has assigned you to listen to for class lectures and assignments
At the Brearley School, a private school for girls on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Samantha is in the eighth grade, the IPod went from a "want" to a "must have" this year when its use was incorporated into foreign language and classics courses. For about 300 girls in grades 7 through 12, the IPod is now required to do homework and classroom assignments.
The 20-gigabyte iPod required by the school sells for $299 at stores but was made available to students for $269 through Brearley with Apple's education discount. Nonetheless, only 117 students purchased the device through the school, and 95 rented it from the school at a cost of $50 per year. The rest owned them already.
I cant believe how much things have changed since i was in grade school.. I remember getting the supply list for my classes and it only asking for us to buy a pen,pencil and notebook. Now schools are requiring parents to buy their children $269 iPods.
While Apple says Brearley's mandatory-iPod program is the first it has heard of at the secondary-school level, there have been comparable efforts at universities. This fall Duke issued an iPod to each of its 1,650 incoming freshmen and has tried to incorporate the device into several courses, including music, language and engineering. Last year, Georgia College & State University began lending the devices to students for use in several humanities courses.
I guess there is a positive side and a negative side to this story. First off the positive side of this story that they also stated in the article was that when a student records his or her voice while reading a textbook,etc they will better comprehend what they read when they go back to listen to it. Hearing it in there own voices will make then understand it better.
In my own opinion, although it can be very positive in some ways it can also be negative in other ways meaning that any student can go home and download music they like and could listen to it during class instead of listening to what the teacher has assigned you to listen to for class lectures and assignments
