100 New Mexico high-school students get a free Zune

In a strange event, about 100 students from Fort Sumner High School in New Mexico recently raised their rights hands and proceeded to make a promise "to take care of their Zunes." You see, this school was one of two in the nation that are taking part in a new project that introduces recordable lectures that will offer students another option to study. The teachers can use either audio or video, depending on their preference. In some cases this makes a lot of sense, and at least one student claims that it has been helpful with her Spanish class, because;

"Instead of thinking, 'How did she say all these words?' I have it right there with me."

As you would imagine this could be a recipe for misuse, but the students do also have some rules to go along with their new players. While they are allowed to use them for personal reasons aside from studying they have to follow a campus wide "grandma-rule," which means they are not able to use their Zune to watch or listen to anything that their grandmother would find inappropriate. The school also has some areas that have been set as "No Zune Zones" and the teachers also have the right to do periodic or random checks to make sure the material on the player is what it should be.

While the teachers do not think this will be the best or final answer to get kids to learn or be more willing to study, they are at least hopeful and at least one teacher was noted as saying that while it may not be the "next great thing" it "is another tool." It also goes a little further though, because in some cases the students are educating the teachers as well, a small group that has been given the nickname of the "Zunies" have been helping the teachers create the podcasts that they are using as lessons.

So while it may not be a perfect teaching tool, it does seem to offer some benefit in that the education goes both ways. It should be interesting to see the results of this testing period and see if they decide to further expand this to additional schools in the future.

[Yahoo! News]

Comments

[Sam Zebian]

I think this is a genius idea and should be used in all schools.

[steveballmer]

The little angels!

[Christy]

My son was one of the lucky 100 who got the opportunity to test one of these Zunes out, and found that it is what he really wanted to have as his own, not only for personal use, but insisted that this little tool was actually a teaching tool that helped him out with school. He had to turn this zune back to the school here in Fort Sumner for the Summer months and was not too happy about that. We decided to purchase him one of his own for his birthday and really and truly does enjoy it! He will be a Senior this year here at Fort Sumner High School and I am sure he will find this little device to be very beneficial for his last year of High School. I hope that as he goes off to college next year that he will be able to use this little device to help him out with his college classes as well.