An iPod in Every Child's Backpack

iPods are everywhere these days, but there are some people that believe they could be used for much more than simple entertainment.

Recently the legislature of the state of Michigan proposed a bill that was said would have put an iPod or other style of MP3 player in every student's hands for the next school year. The uproar and negative comments that the announcement brought with it has since influences lawmakers to backtrack a bit, saying that the whole proposal was being misconstrued. Regardless of their real intent, the issue has brought up some interesting conversations, most of them focused around whether or not the use of iPods and other kinds of individualized digital media have a positive or negative impact on student learning. In the music classroom I think there can be no doubt that, if properly planned and carried out, the use of recorded music on MP3 players can help to teach many important concepts, and more importantly, allow students to progress through this learning at their own pace. Other attempts and studies in individual classrooms other than in music have also show very positive results, but these occurrences are fairly rare and seemingly restricted to only the most technologically savvy of classroom teachers.

My point in making this observation is that iPods, laptop computers, and other kinds of educational toys are only as good as the teachers providing the instruction on them. Most teachers would agree that they have no idea how to make an iPod be anything more than a distraction in class. To push such an initiative would require far more than simply giving the iPod to the student, it would require a complete and total retraining of the educational staff to help them come up with meaningful, productive ways to use the technology. Until that happens, the idea of an iPod for every student in a school district is a very expensive pipe dream.