How could a teacher use an iPod?

[tofu]

My mom teaches elementary school. Her district bought 30G iPod Photo's for all the teachers. So my mom asks me, "what am I supposed to do with this?" I explained how mp3s work. She already knows about digital photography. I basically told her that she could think of it as a 30G HD that she can carry around. What else can I tell her?

So here's the question for the smart people of randi. What creative educational things can a teacher do with an iPod? My mom is very ethical. She's not going to keep it at home. She wants to use it in class. If you have any ideas, please post them.

Thanks

 

[Mercutio]

It was suggested to me to use it as sort of a large portable hard drive. If you work at home and at school, this could be a great way of keeping everything in one place.

eta: I don't have one, so I don't actually know how well it works for this. It is just what the campus computer people told me.

 

[Kiless]

I'm planning on getting one.

At the moment, I have a 'no name' sort of brand one, that I play music on, but it has (as all have) the added advantage that I can plug it into computers and get copies of my assignments et al and take them home and work on them there.

In the past, I've emailed assignments home to myself or done print outs (and then rewrote them... sigh) and had endless troubles with floppies (broken, wiped, lost, flawed, borrowed by careless students, you name it).

Essentially, I view mine as a more resilient floppy that I can carry around with me that doubles as a music player. Small and goes in any computer.

When I go to Japan, I'll be using my iPod as my music player but also use it as a backup storage for photos I take, that I can then email from any computer to my email account at home. I like backups. After losing info on floppies, especially reams and reams of my own programs and work collated over years of English teaching.... I REALLY like backups.

 

[CFLarsen]

Whatever brand you get, get one with as big a harddisk as possible!

Carrying a versatile harddisk around has its benefits. You want that huge PPT-presentation from the lecturer? Want to share your clips of Randi, or show people how Geller, Browne and van Praagh does it? Plug it in and transfer it.

Incidentally, audio books are becoming the craze, along with Podcasting. Don't underestimate.

 

[Kiless]

Whatever brand you get, get one with as big a harddisk as possible!

Carrying a versatile harddisk around has its benefits. You want that huge PPT-presentation from the lecturer? Want to share your clips of Randi, or show people how Geller, Browne and van Praagh does it? Plug it in and transfer it.

Incidentally, audio books are becoming the craze, along with Podcasting. Don't underestimate.

Actually, wouldn't mind some advice myself:

So -

Get one with a large hard-disk,
One that does podcasting...
Is it easy to play Mp3s on an iPod or does it have to be in some sort of 'iTunes' format before you can use it?
What sort of batteries does it use?

(Yeah, I'll go do some googling.... pardon me....)

 

[CFLarsen]

Actually, wouldn't mind some advice myself:

So -

Get one with a large hard-disk,
One that does podcasting...
Is it easy to play Mp3s on an iPod or does it have to be in some sort of 'iTunes' format before you can use it?
What sort of batteries does it use?

(Yeah, I'll go do some googling.... pardon me....)

That might be a good idea. E.g., "podcasting" is not what you think it is...

 

[tofu]

Carrying a versatile harddisk around has its benefits.

So, can I just plug it in to any XP or OSX machine and it will recognize it as a harddisk? I thought I would need special software at least on XP.

The thing is, I still don't think that's going to be useful to my mom. She keeps her files on an iBook and backs them up to CDR. She doesn't go to presentations or anything. She just goes to her classroom. If she's carrying the laptop around anyway, I don't think the iPod helps.

Maybe there is some educational podcast that she can subscribe to and then... what? let the kids listen to it through headphones? Using speakers might disturb the rest of the class.

I've found a couple of directories that list pod casts. One is inside of iTunes and the other is Odeo. Can anyone recommend some for kids - somehow I don't think I should suggest letting 8 year olds listen to NPR every day, they'd go home crying I bet!

 

[CFLarsen]

So, can I just plug it in to any XP or OSX machine and it will recognize it as a harddisk? I thought I would need special software at least on XP.

USB, baby.

Maybe there is some educational podcast that she can subscribe to and then... what? let the kids listen to it through headphones? Using speakers might disturb the rest of the class.

She could start podcasting to her classes. They could go online to download whatever she uploaded.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I'm a bit surprised that an education authority spent the money to buy these without any idea of what to do with them. Or was this a corporate freebie?

Never actually seen an ipod. It's just a portable hard drive with sound and vid codecs, right, like the Archos Jukebox range from four years back? A large portable store for files?

Personally, I wouldn't let primary schoolkids within ten feet of a portable hard drive I ever wanted to use again. It seems like an odd thing to give to teachers.

Maybe she could put it up as a prize for the best behaved class member over the next month?

So- what's podcasting then?

 

[CFLarsen]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting

 

[webfusion]

shut out the noise

While the classroom is in full pandemonium, kids doing what kids do (loudly) -- you can sit there and listen to music, blissfully isolated from the madhouse around you.

 

[Lisa Simpson]

She can play music for the whole class through any audio device that has an 'aux' plug. My son's fifth grade teacher liked to play classical music while they had silent reading time. Do they have any music education?

Kiless--any mp3 can be put onto an iPod, but not .rm .wma stuff that is proprietary to another company.

 

[tofu]

Originally posted by tofu
So, can I just plug it in to any XP or OSX machine and it will recognize it as a harddisk?

USB, baby.

Someone mentioned using the iPod as a generic storage device like a USB flash drive. In order to do that in a way that's useful, you'd have to be able to plug the iPod into any computer (yes, obviously a computer with USB baby) and have it "just work" the way a flash drive just works.

Unfortunately, I just tested this on XP and it doesn't work that way. XP poped up a message that said, "an iPod has been detected, please install the iPod software"

 

[CFLarsen]

Someone mentioned using the iPod as a generic storage device like a USB flash drive. In order to do that in a way that's useful, you'd have to be able to plug the iPod into any computer (yes, obviously a computer with USB baby) and have it "just work" the way a flash drive just works.

Unfortunately, I just tested this on XP and it doesn't work that way. XP poped up a message that said, "an iPod has been detected, please install the iPod software"

That's Apple for ya. Don't get me started.

 

[kevin]

The iPod can't record without additional hardware being bought, so if the intention is to use it to create podcasts then it won't work as is.

The iPod will work as an external drive, but the feature will need to be enabled first. You do that via the iTunes software (Windows or PC). On Macs you'll get asked if you want to sync the ipod to the computer, just say no and it'll mount as a normal drive. Windows may tell you to install the iPod software, but you can clear that dialog and it should still mount as a drive (although it may conflict with network drives, don't get me started on Microsoft's drive mounting issues).

If the original version purchased was the Mac version then it'll only work on Macs until the drive is reformatted. The Windows one will work on both. They may have switched to Windows formatting on all the new iPods but I'm not sure about that.

As for things to do, why you can play Doom on it!
http://www.ipodhacks.com/article.php?sid=1481

If it's a photo model you can actually do presentations from the iPod instead of carrying around a computer.

The iPod can also hold calendar reminders and provide alarms as well as hold text notes. It has a nice big clock on it (how long until this class ends?).

It's a pretty decent display only PDA (very limited input capabilities).