I had an interesting time In my Internet Based Testing Test of English as a Foreign Language Class, which is abbreviated as IBT TOEFL. Yes, the word "test" is in the name twice, so the class MUST be important. The class is for high school level students that are intent on studying in an English speaking university abroad. The class material (Sample .PDF) is used to prepare students for testing that they would encounter while applying for a foreign university. I’ve previously taught a course with similar materials used for integrating writing and reading skills. This class focused on integrated speaking skills.
Since it was our first class with a new book, I spent the class explaining how we should prepare our notes, how to create summary of a topic, and necessary details when writing a summary. We went through the two pages of material fairly quickly. I was reluctant in getting into heavy amounts of new material, I decided we should to practice our skills for today. I grabbed an English language newspaper, pulled out a few articles, then prepared copies for my students.
They were given a moderately short article, six to seven paragraphs, then were told to read for three minutes. They needed to write notes and prepare a summary to be given immediately after the reading. One of the articles was this piece about "Mp3 players not compatible with Microsoft Vista". I gave them their three minutes, they read the article, and returned excellent summaries.
After the summary, one of my students asked, "I was thinking of buying an iPod. What do you know about putting music on iPods?"
It’s too bad she got me started on iPods with five minutes left in class, because if you get me started talking about Digital Rights Management, you are probably going to get an earful. There is a reason I read "Anything but iPod" when I want to research new players I might purchase. The girl didn’t know anything about the process of downloading music or files. She used soribada.com to purchase music directly for her phone, but wasn’t sure how or where you could purchase .mp3 files using her computer.
I explained the tight integration between using iPods and the iTunes software. There are ways around such things, but I digress. Clearly, if the girl didn’t know how to download an .mp3 file by herself, then all the tips and tricks I could give to avoid DRM were going to be lost on her. What she was most upset about was the fact that iTunes sells music. She thought she’d have to buy all the music she put on her iPod. I explained that if she wanted to rip files from her own collection of CDs and put them on the player herself, she could.
She replied, "What if I just want to download free mp3’s and not pay for them? Can I do that? How do I get music I want to listen to for free?"
Yeah, like I was going to answer a question like that while on camera being recorded.
Instead, I asked her why she would want an iPod when it didn’t seem to really fit her needs. Korea has excellent non-DRM friendly players that would do exactly what she needed, and are much cheaper. My next media player will certainly be Korean, and that’s after exhaustive searches, price comparisons, and feature by feature breakdowns. They do what I need, and I’m a far more demanding customer. I think she came to her senses after I chatted about both sides of the iPod, good and bad.
