iPhone becoming a requirement for more and more college students

For a couple years now, several schools have been offering up iPhones to incoming college Freshman. Will specific phone technology be the next standard thing on the “required” list for students soon?

One of the latest schools in the US to make owning either an iPhone or an iPod touch an actual course requirement is the University of Missouri. All journalism majors have to have one according to the school. The school maintains that they will be a minimum requirement for course work, and will be used to deliver orientation info to freshman, and also send out other course materials. These course materials will be able to be downloaded from the iTunes University, which is a free part of the popular iTunes store.

Some other schools that either give them out, or include their use in the program are Harvard University, Abilene Christian University, University of Maryland, Stanford University, University of Maryland (College Park), and Oklahoma University.

Now, Japan has caught on as well. And they are using it to make sure that people get to class. Are you watching Big Brother? Around 550 people-both students and staff- are going to be getting free iPhones through SoftBank. This is all part of the University’s Mobile & Net Society Education and Training program. Or, you could say it’s all a part of wanting to make sure they know where you are at all the time, given what they are using it for.

Aoyama University administrators will be using the phone’s GPS hardware to determine if a student is on campus, and if they are being good boys and girls and attending class. I guess doing it the old fashioned way of taking attendance is so passe. They do say they will also be using them to send assignments and low-level tests through the iPhone.

OK…now this just raises the question…are they going to turn off that handy-dandy little GPS function when the student isn’t at school…or do they get to follow Johnny all through his date for the evening? The program is set to all systems go for this Fall.

What do you think? Would you want one if it was given free if you knew the school was using it to track you around campus? Your thoughts?

via:intomobile