iPods for med students

The University of Derby has handed out iPods to 35 radiography students to provide them with an alternative method of learning. The devices are pre loaded with informative tutorials and it is hoped that they will be more useful than the traditional textbooks. They will be expected to return them after their first two years... what you didn’t think they were going to keep them did you? :)

Whilst reading this article, I did overhear someone else’s comment which was something along the lines of ‘whatever next’ and ‘kids these days have it far too easy’. The integration of technology into the educational system has been ongoing for many years so why is it still such a difficult thing for some people to grasp? During my time at high school (which was not long ago!) blackboards were being replaced by interactive whiteboards, it was preferred that most assignments should be word processed as opposed to handwritten and teachers were starting to use email to provide feedback to students about the work they had submitted. At university, podcasts of lecturers are readily made available and we can observe anatomy classes etc via video calling and so forth. I remember during my undergraduate degree, a particular lecturer Dr Bill Ashraf, was very keen using technology in his lectures and was even pushing the department to find the funds to enable us all to have iPods during our time at uni.

My point is technology is developed to make things easier for us and help with our day to day lives/ learning etc and yet there are some people that find the whole thing very daunting and tend to cling to their old ways. By not moving forward with the times, inevitably some people back will be held back and at a disadvantage them in the future. Surely it is better to keep an open mind from the beginning rather than resist change?