iPods Come to Alabama Elementary
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 7:28PM 
Third and fourth graders in Mrs. Adams' class at Albertville Elementary School in Alabama were teased with "The Surprise is Coming" on their classroom website. The surprise was a class set of iPods, a charging cart, and accessories! Diane Adams' gifted classroom is one of the first in her district to be outfitted with technology from $750,000 worth of funds that will be spent on technology over the next three years. I read about Diane Adams' class in the Sand Mountain Reporter.
One of the first things the iPods were used for was sharing enhanced podcasts. As I've commented before on newspaper articles like this one, it seems that the iPods are not necessary for the enriched learning taking place. However, if the iPods weren't there for students to consume each other's great productions, those projects may not have happened at all or may not have been as "cool" and exciting to do. There's extra motivation when students know what they create on a computer will end up on an iPod. But, those same products can certainly be consumed on a computer--teachers don't need thousands of dollars worth of iPods to have their students create podcasts, movies, and slide shows.
As you probably know, iPods can do much more than just play music and videos. Diane Adams' students are discovering just what iPods are capable of. As one Albertville's students explains:
"When we first heard about the iPods, I thought, 'why are we going to listen to music in class?' I never knew you could do stuff like this!"
Reader Comments (2)
Tony-
I am in Alabama as well and we are beginning an iPod pilot with students who have special needs as well as some at risk learners. I love your sites and I could not find your email to ask a question so I will ask it here. If I supply some of the iPods but I have students who have their own and would like to use them, how do I go about downloading some things at school without erasing everything on their iPod. I know I can do it with the ones i have but I am not clear on how to make that work. Can you help me out?
Madi,
You'll want students to manually manage their audio and video so they can add to their iPods from more than one computer. Episode #8 of my Learning in Hand: iPods podcast tackles this issue in detail.
http://learninginhand.com/blog/2008/01/ipods-episode-8-manage-manually.html" REL="nofollow">http://learninginhand.com/blog/2008/01/ipods-episode-8-manage-manually.html
Have a great school year and make learning so awesome with those iPods!