Dental Students Launch
iTunes U Initiative
Profiles in Success: School of Dentistry, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI — On Friday nights, many college students toss their books aside, plug in their ear-buds, and press “play” on their iPods. Students at the University of Michigan’s (UM) School of Dentistry are no exception. But instead of listening to hip-hop tunes, members of an ever-increasing study group gather to review class presentations and listen to audio recordings of lectures. Thanks to a new, student-launched iPod initiative, digital content in a host of subjects is now available to the future dentists.
In 2004, first-year dental student Jared Van Ittersum was frustrated. Feeling that he was sometimes missing key points during lectures, he sought a way to reinforce what he’d heard. Thus, through a collaboration with staff from the School’s Office of Dental Informatics, three pilot studies were completed with 60 volunteer dental students. The team compared students’ preferences for reviewing video content streamed on the web, electronic presentations with the lecturer’s associated audio, and audio material that could be played on an iPod or other portable listening device. Overwhelmingly, the students favored the flexibility and mobility of iPod, and the ease of downloading audio content.
“Our students have come to think of iTunes as a really great time management tool.”
— Lynn Johnson, Associate Professor of Dentistry and Director of Dental Informatics and Information Technology, University of Michigan, School of Dentistry
“We looked at server logs, we did a survey of the entire class, and we conducted a few focus groups,” says Lynn Johnson, associate professor of dentistry and director of dental informatics and information technology at UM. “We were amazed to see that almost two-thirds of the students showed a preference for using the audio-only content, as opposed to the video files. They liked the mobility of the audio material, and its ability to be played back on an iPod.”
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