iPod MBAs

How I wish they had it forty years ago. Even now I have nightmares about getting up at 7.00 in the morning for the first lecture at 8.00am every day, head still heavy with sleep. But I will have to settle for simply being envious of the spoiled youth of today.

In a story called Turn on your iPod and learn, Matthew Symonds of the Independent writes, "If you ask a college student about the current favourites on their iPod, you might expect to hear of artists such as Lady Gaga, British Sea Power, or maybe even Michael Jackson for the newly nostalgic. Ask the same question on the campus of the Warwick Business School and you might be surprised when students remove their earphones to tell you that they are catching up on macroeconomics and analysis of the credit crisis, or that they are reviewing the latest thinking on creative management."

Disgusting. They don't even have to attend lectures!

Warwick, Stanford, MIT, Oxford and University College London are among those providing mobile learning with educational audio and video files, or podcasts, so students can study at their own pace, wherever and whenever they want. The courses and research material are provided by the universities professors and can be downloaded from the iTunes University, a free education area within the Apple iTunes.

You want to know what is worse? "... new research suggests that university students who learn by downloading a podcast lecture achieve significantly higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person ..." and the results are even better for those who listen to the podcasts more than once. And you can still listen to your favourite U2 album when you are bored, and one will be wiser, or care.

The Independent