Mac Lab Report

An Apple (iTunes Bottle Cap) for the Teacher

- 2004.04.29

Back in the old days, kids used to bring an Apple (the fruit) to leave on the teacher's desk to curry favor.

These days, it's a winning Pepsi bottle cap for a free iTune.

I've had at least five winning caps dropped on my desk by students who drink Pepsi but don't use iTunes. (At least they didn't go to waste like 95 million other bottle caps.) I suspect some of them think it's silly to pay for online music and are merely humoring me, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless.

So what did I buy?

Let's see... I got two tunes from the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou?" the Coen brothers masterpiece starring George Clooney. (My wife says: "Whaddaya know, Clooney can actually act like someone else besides Doug 'Neck Twist' Ross!")

In addition, I picked up "Where My Heart Will Take Me," the Star Trek Enterprise theme song. (I am a Total Geek, I admit it. Let's move on.)

Two caps left. Oh, the humanity!

It's kind of weird living in the future.

I remember being amazed at being able to push pixels around the screen. Now I'm buying electronically encoded music that is stored on a hard drive. Wow. Someday I'll be able to tell my grandkids about way back when the only thing you could buy online with no material goods changing hands were music files and pictures.

Here's a quote for you to share with others:

Apple's iTunes - Nicer than a Piece of Fruit

Now if I could only get someone to leave a 20" Cinema Display on my desk...

Jeff Adkins is a science teacher who isn't afraid to state his preferences in computing platforms. In his classroom he has everything from a beige All-in-One to a a G4 XServe, and they all work together nicely. He calls himself the "poster child for technology integration" in the classroom. He was the 2006 Outstanding Educator of the Year for the California Computer Using Educators (CUE) organization. He also maintains a site for astronomy teachers at www.AstronomyTeacher.com.

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