The I-Pod Craze

Big article in the Cap Times today on the i-pod craze among the college set in Madison. At the very end of the article is the following note;

"Talk and twitter: Not all students using MP3 players are listening to music. Some of them listen to podcasts from their instructors, said Meg McCall, senior marketing specialist at the Division of Information Technology.

Eighty instructors or departments have received $800 grants to start using podcasts as part of their curriculum, McCall said. Some may simply choose to put their lectures online, but most are creating supplemental material for students to download, she said.

Students in Professor Mark Berres' class, for instance, are downloading 132 songs to their iPods. The students won't be rocking out, however. Berres is an avian biology professor; the tunes are bird songs.

"You could be familiarizing yourself with birdcalls while walking down the street," McCall marveled.

Or perhaps students could unplug and simply listen to the birds.

E-mail: anathans@madison.com
Published: May 6, 2006