The iPod… No Shiny Metal Object Here

Although when most people hear iPod they think “music,” the iPod is quickly becoming known as a portable learning tool that allows 24/7 access to text (teacher notes, articles, etc.) audio books, learning objects, digital flash cards, speeches, images, lectures, personal calendars/ scheduling, video, and curriculum-created and automatically delivered content or “pod casts” AND as a device that allows the users to design their own news/information feeds from their own or others’ blogs/web environments, take their own photos and images, record their class lectures and presentations, create their own digital repositories of notes, study languages, and experience curriculum-related music. While other hardware/technology has come and gone, what will keep the iPod an evergrowing resource for education, is the flexibility of storage, transmittal and delivery for content–created by faculty, staff and students, and delivered by vendors for purchase and subscription–and the use of this expanding rich content environment for all iPod users. Specific curriculum uses in education now include: