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 student 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."

Rates

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?

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I can think of Departments that have OS specific requiremetns (Specifically Windows). Mind you, this is because the applications they require students to use are not available for other OS's. Engineering programs routinely have this trouble.

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I didn't know that the iPod or iPhone was limited to one OS. That's so very odd...

Oh wait, it's not. Get off you anti-Apple soapbox and grow up a bit.

This is similar to a grant awarded to the 7-8 Jr. High School I teach at to give every student a Palm for a year. Didn't work too well, but then again, the software we had wasn't what we needed, we had minimal support, and 12~14 year olds are considerably more immature than college freshmen... Well, maybe not that much less mature, but you get the point.

Re:Rates

Normally I would have stayed clear of this Apple vs. anti-Apple discussion. However, a sort of irrational bond with my stolen Nokia E65 has prompted me to make the following comments:

• A Symbian S60 based smartphone (and there are quite a few out there) has the advantage of being easy to synchronise on Windows, OS X, and Linux with minimal adjustment (the last I knew of the iPhone, you had to jailbreak to be able to do Linux. If this is not true anymore, please ignore this comment).
• S60 is an established, stable, platform and is used by more than just Nokia (Panasonic, LG? Some others I cannot remember). All APIs are publicly documented and parts of the source are available to developers (AFAIK).
• Nokia has announced that it plans to open-source Symbian and the associated platforms: S60 and UIQ.

With all this, I would have chosen an S60 phone to work with. It also has the other advantage that if you feel that the phone you've chosen at the moment doesn't quite cut it, you can just provide a more powerful phone later, because S60 is going to be around a long time. You can keep going forward with the same software.

The slightly more expensive Nokia N96 matches up to the iPhone in most departments, I think, and it is possible that a much less expensive phone will meet the students' needs. Still, maybe they find it more convenient to code with Apple software, in which case the whole argument is moot.

Re:Rates

They do have their choice of music player and phone. The students would just have to buy it themselves. The purpose of this program isn't to provide a music player or a phone. The purpose is to provide a mobile platform that provides support for their custom apps, a web browser that's usable for research on the go, and a video player that integrates with iTunes U for podcast video content of lectures and support material. You could halfway do some of that with a device from another manufacturer, but you'd have to work at it and it would always be a kludge. Think of it as the school providing a learning tool that just happens to come with your choice of a free music player or a free phone.... :-)

P.S. AFAIK, iTunes should work in recent versions of Wine, complete with iPod/iPhone syncing.

Re:Rates

Abilene has had this program for a long time now. They piloted it on the original iPhone, and were Apples poster-child for demonstrating the iPhone as a platform.

And no, in their case, it makes no bloody sense at all to allow multiple-OSs. They have developed the iPhone to the hilt, integrating everything from school maps, class schedules, class notes, recordings of classes, messaging, notices, etc., all into one integrated platform. There is no way they could have accomplished the same thing on mobile devices if they had to support mixed platforms, without making it both harder to use, run slower on mobile devices, and a support nightmare. The iPhone provided them an ideal opportunity, and they took it. More power to them.

Could they have gone open? Sure. If Android had been available already, perhaps they would have gone that direction. But you can be sure that even if they went open, they would have settled on ONE platform for the same reasons as noted above.

Coming...

...to ebay in 3...2...

Re:Coming...

Personally, I would be seriously pissed if I knew that some of my tuition was going to pay for an iPod/iPhone. I don't want an iPhone because Verizon has been working perfectly fine for me so far and I'm not about to switch. I don't want an iPod touch since since, after all, I've been perfectly content without an mp3 player at all. Great, it might be useful to some classes when a professor decides to integrate it into their class. How many classes are going to require this? Would a laptop (which I already own) suffice instead? I don't really don't want to get stuck with a single company force feeding me their products because of the university I attend. Give me some third party options at the very least. What gets me so epically pissed is that they pass it off as ACU paying for it when we know where that money comes from: tuition aka students.

Granted, I have some classes where internet access is more or less a must, but I'd rather have a nice, full keyboard and a reasonable screen that I can put my own software on rather than being shoved a piece of hardware required by the university. Give options, don't mandate one (or two nearly identical) devices.

Why not give them WoW accounts too?

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!

Re:Why not give them WoW accounts too?

And beer, don't forget the beer.

What about those monthly fees?

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.

Much better to give them a Eee PC

It would be much more productive to give them a lightweight PC and free, Campus-wide WiFi so they can call people via VOIP.

Re:What about those monthly fees?

Just...read the article. Okay? Answers all this. They didn't just do this at random; the question of laptops is discussed.

One example of what they're doing: (from the first page, I think): an interactive map, useful for the new students to find their way around campus in the first week.

Okay, another example: used for real-time polls conducted in classes.

Not necessarily anything that couldn't be done with a laptop, but please, read the article and then we can have a semi-intelligent discussion on the actual issues?

Intriguing Idea

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.

ESR would be proud

The Cathedral [apple.com] versus the Bazaar [google.com].

Why all the hate

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.

Yea, free happy meal toy with your diploma.

Get a free happy meal toy with each and every degree.

Who pays?

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.

So Much For...

So much for telling the students to turn their cell phones off in class.

And they get away with it...

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....

Donors

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.

Re:And they get away with it...

Well, that depends on whether your goal was to have the Feds fund a really nice stadium, a brand-new library building full of Internets, a student body full of iPhones, and HD projectors in every classroom.... or simply providing young adults with an affordable high-quality college education. At a minimum it's not really proving that good at addressing Affordability.

Re:It's crap like this...

No I think it is due more to poor administration of funds.

In my undergrad this was the case:
Every Department gets a budget. If they don't fully use that budget then the next year their budget will get cut. This created an effect where departments will wast money on a whole bunch of little things just so they can get more next year. So say the computer science department will need to find a way to spend 20k each year so they will have money budgeted for when their computers actually get out of date.

Then there are professors who keep their door locked and closed during their office hours so they won't be bothered (while they are getting paid)

Spending millions of dollars on these big events to attract politicians and other big names to boost up the prestigious level of the college. Putting in new "High Tech" Buildings where they just need some more internet cable spread across the building...

It's idiots like you...

Can we get some realistic math for once? Attending a private school like ACU costs close to $110K for four years [acu.edu]. 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.

Re:Who's sleeping with who?

Pssst. There nothing in Christianity that would prevent someone from going dancing, unless by 'Christianity' you mean something other than living your life according to the principles espoused by the figure known as 'Christ' in the Gospels and accepting that same person as your 'personal Lord and Savior' (whatever that may mean for you).

Full disclosure: I was once but am no longer Christian; however, I understand more about Christianity than most people who would call themselves 'Christian'.