What toy, er, "academic technology" would you give an incoming freshmen class? AThere's an interesting article on this topic in the Chronicle with discussion. Apparently, laptops are "so last year," even though they guarantee that every student at least has access to a modern computer and, if we assume they ship with integrated wireless LAN, access to the internet. As someone who has suffered through 8 years of college without a laptop, I know just how useful these gadgets can be. It's become a common sight to see at least one graduate student typing away on a laptop during class, and occasionally (though rarely) I see a freshman using one. Quite a shame. I know if I had access to the kind of "Daddy's Money" some of these students enjoy, I'd make extensive use of a good laptop (including a microphone I could stick up near the prof and make digital recordings to share on P2P networks.)

The article is mostly focused on Duke's iPods, which seems more of a marketing ploy by Apple than anything else. Can we say "iTunes," everyone? Yeah, let's uh...pay for what we can get for free. Apparently, some of Duke's administrators think that giving out the pods makes their students seem more "with it," though I think that purpose could have been better served if they had been given Gameboy Advance SPs or, even better, the open source GP32 portable gaming unit. How "with it" would you be if you were emulating a Colecovision in class? The article also mentions universities giving out "key drives" and others contemplating Power PCs. I'm shocked that there's no mention of giving out those portable ebook readers with their hardwired IP routines.

I think the most valuable gadget we could give an incoming freshmen class would be a few hundred bucks off their tuition. That's right. Give them a break and let them consider buying their own iPods if they so desire.

I don't want my university doing my Christmas shopping for me, thanks.

This is an update to this earlier post about Duke Univeristy's decision to giveaway free iPods to its incoming freshmen.