iPods can Teach

The classroom band on electronics might be over for good now. When I was growing up there was no uses of any pagers, phones, or cd players in classroom because they cause to much of a distraction for students but now they are learning that they can actually help the students education, well not pages but phones and ipods. With the new advancements in technology it looks like students or going to not have to hide that ipod anymore.
iPod and iTunes, mobile learning is changing education in a big way. In Hudson County teachers have been handing out the portable digital players to help bilingual students with limited English ability sharpen their vocabulary and grammar by singing along to popular songs. Also there is the Union City district that will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey’s poorest urban school systems. But these devices are not just being used for their original music purpose with the internet connection that they have student have access to podcast put on the schools websites by the teachers also they can use it for research purposes to. iPod and iPhone devices are becoming people’s portable computers so they can come to class with the Internet in their pocket. Students have 24/7 access to content, so they can connect and study when they want, where they want.
At Duke University they are using the iPods as a place to set up peer reviews and audio feedback on them. Julie and Vicki noticed that when they gave students feedback on their writing, audio feedback was more time-efficient and seemed to be of higher quality than written comments. So listening to things has show to be more education than reading them.
The draw back to iPod education is students using them for other purposes in the classroom or students loading answers or formulas onto the iPod so they can cheat on test. But cheating and distractions are going to happen in classrooms anyway the job is just to limit them by making education fun for the students. I think that using iPods would be fun for the students to so it will limit the distraction and it will be a great information tool to be used.