iPod brings new challenges to K-12 schools
updated 11:00 am EST, Mon December 5, 2005
iPod brings new challenges
Apple's iPod is offering , as the player becomes more ubiquitious and offers more features, such as video playback. The iPod is touching off a debate on technology in schools and the new generation white-earbud-adorned students: some schools ban the use of electronics throughout school day, while others try to circumvent problems of enforcement and the possibility of cheating, by allowing certain electronics, according IndyStar.com: "In a school with 4,000 students, I would bet that 75 percent of them have something like that. It makes it hard to police when you only have 250 teachers and some teachers turn (students) in, and some teachers don't."
"As teachers and administrators face rising demands to improve student performance, they see new challenges coming to the classroom in the form of personal technology -- like some iPods that can play video as well as audio."
The growing use of iPod in education curriculums and the ability to get students excited about technology are cited by some administrators as the main reason to allow students, while some believe the issue to be about trusting students to make good decisions.
Mark Gibson, the new media teacher at Lawrence Township's Indian Creek School, used iPods last year with some of his students who were creating audio projects.
"What's fun is the adaptability of the iPod and the fact that you can use these as a communication tool," Gibson said. "It's one part of the whole technology picture, one device they can use when it's appropriate to use it."
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2004
Absurd Education System
Trusting 5-10 years olds to make good decisions. You can hardly trust 20 somethings (of which I'm one) to make good decisions all of the time. Whatever happened to people first proving they can be trusted. You know, demonstrating you're responsible. There is no legitimate reason for a student to be using an iPod during school hours.
As far as enforcement. Tell rebellious teachers that they work for the principal and that if they don't like his/her decisions then they can seek employment elsewhere. Send a letter to parents stating that iPod like devices will be confiscated for the remainder of the year if they are found on school property. Then actually do it. The parents are the ones who paid for it. They are the ones who know that $1 is made up of 100 hard earned cents, not the kids, so they are the ones who are not going to want that expensive pacifier confiscated.
But in a society where you can't tell a kid he/she has failed and needs to repeat a year for their own good, where you can't even use red pen when marking a paper to have your corrections stand out, where the only thing kids really learn is that everything is someone else's fault and that society owes them everything, do you really think most school administrators really care about this iPod issue?