Maryland may be giving its freshmen free iPods for the classroom, but officials at the University of Wisconsin aren’t sure if the trend really sparks students’ desire to learn.

This semester, the University of Maryland at College Park gave 150 incoming freshmen an iPhone or iPod touch. The university allowed students to choose between the two devices and only requires students to pay for the phone plan, if applicable.

UMD associate professor of psychology Kent Norman said almost every student can carry around an iPod or iPhone and take notes on them, respond to questions posed by professors and take pop quizzes, even in classrooms not equipped with computers.

“Your dream comes true,” Norman said. “All students have the connectivity with the material and the rest of the students in the class.”

But UW officials say professors plan to continue to explore the usage of podcasts in the classroom and are not yet ready to convert the majority of UW’s digital initiatives strictly to iPhones.

“Technology is a support for some kind of teaching and learning,” said Christine Lupton, manager of UW Engage, part of the Division of Information Technology providing support for faculty. “But is not the best way to spend all resources, because it does not always work for everything.”

Lupton said UW professors are not shying away from new technology and are looking at iPhones as an educational tool to assist students by developing games for history and current and political events as well as campus maps.

For now, DoIT Communications Director Brian Rust said the emphasis at UW is using the iTunes platform of portability as supplementary classroom material in the form of podcasting.

Lupton said DoIT is encouraging more professors each year to use podcasts throughout their course, adding last year, 80 professors participated in the program.

The benefit of podcasts is students in language classes can listen to the pronunciation of native speakers, repeat lectures from large classes and even compare bird songs from their iPod to what they might hear in the field.

“There is no technology that solves everything for everybody,” Lupton said. “Podcasts are not a replacement of being in class, but students can play a recording back if they are hard of hearing or listen to the lecture more than once.”

Other universities have taken a different approach. This fall, Oklahoma Christian University, Abilene Christian and Freed-Hardeman distributed the devices to students to use in the classroom, while others like Stanford University are using a student-run company to develop a map and directory for the iPhone.

But at Maryland, iPod technologies are already in full swing.

Norman said he is interested in iPods in the classroom because they represent the latest technology — a platform he has been committed to for the last 18 years.

Currently, Norman said UMD is redesigning its web portal for the iPod so students can log into everything on campus. Next year, plans are already in the works to develop these applications not just for academic purposes but to benefit campus life as well.