Drexel, iPods and videos: good PR coup or cutting-edge academic initiative?

As you know – unless you’ve been on a deserted island for the past week – Apple orchestrated a nice press campaign for the brand new member of the ever-popular iPod family, the iPod Video.

With the right mix of secrecy and leaks before the official unveiling by Apple’s CEO Steve Job last Wednesday, the launch of this year’s must-have toy has resulted in a lot of media coverage and online buzz.

At a time when more and more higher ed institutions are succumbing to the iPod’s marketing and academic charms, the arrival of the new iPod Video is probably going to raise the bar in what a university needs to offer to its students to keep up in the competitive cool-factor race.

According to “Drexel U. to Hand Out Video-Playing iPods,” a post from The Wired Campus Blog – the blog maintained by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Drexel University was already game just 2 days after Job’s announcement:

“Earlier this week, Apple unveiled the latest version of its popular music player, a model that can play videos on its tiny color screen. And already, officials at Drexel University say they’ve come up with a plan to give the devices to the 33 students enrolled in their online master’s program in higher education.
[…]
According to William Lynch, the school (of Education)’s director: Students, he says, will be asked to edit their own research journal using podcasting technology.”

Earlier today, Dan Karleen from Syndication for Higher Ed asked the right questions in a post judicially titled “Drexel gives away more iPods, but for what?”

“Your post quotes a source at Drexel as saying that this giveaway will “up the ante.” Which ante is being upped? Is there a connection between upping the ante and students being “asked to edit their own research journal using podcasting technology?” Can you provide some more information about the connection between editing online journals and video-capable iPods?”

I guess an article is probably in the works at The Chronicle, and we will all get more info about this new program sometimes next week.

But, I cannot stop thinking that the announcement of this cutting-edge academic initiative at Drexel’s School of Education is definitely a very nice (planned or not) move to build some buzz for the school using the media frenzy around this new toy.