Thursday, May 31, 2007

IPOD Thoughts

First of all, I would like to announce that Joe and Dave are my new favorite people!
I sped home today and loaded the entire third season of The Office onto my new video iPod. Maybe, this is not exactly educational, but the goal is to get me to understand, troubleshoot, and over-all manage using this iPod as an educational tool. What better way to get started than to watching Michael's debacles?
After loading the iPod to the iTunes on my home computer, I began to wonder about sharing the iPod as a team and with our students. I currently have a shuffle and an iPod mini, all of which no longer work for me because I don't have the same computer (or I've encountered the famous Apple battery issue)
Luckily, my best friend married a network security guy who works for an internet company! After talking with him it seems like we need to make some management decisions about how we use the iPods. This iPod will now only work with the iTunes on my home computer. I can't get audio or visual files using this iPod on my new laptop. Which means, if we wanted to store content on the iPods as we shared them, we couldn't. It will only read one iTunes. However, my friend told me that if we reset the iPod each time we switch computers (or users) it will reattach itslef to the new computer. Or we can elect to use another program other than iTunes.
I'm hoping someone has some insight into how this could work and how we can manage the content that we are using on the iPods.
Also here is the wiki post on ipods: wiki iPod post.
Here is a link I stumbled across on WIKIHOW, it is a how-to on sneaking an ipod into class. It could be something to share with your class the first day of school! I think Deborah Pickering and the Vocabulary people could call it wide reading!
Check out the IPOD shared document and add your own links and advice

6 comments:

Mr. Tomas said...

I think our kids can write some posts on sneaking anything into class!!

I actually have no idea how to use one of those things. Im still stuck to the old fashion radio.

Have fun watching the office, love that show, I once had a boss who was sooooo much like Michael it's scary.

Jeff Lewis said...

Joe and Dave really know how to make friends huh? I too am a new BFF.

I had the same thought about using this ipod on a particular computer. I already have a library of music on itunes for my ipod (an old non-video 20 gig). What if I plugged the new one into my computer. Would my library download onto it?

I too need to download and start playing with it. I am wondering if having a dedicated external hard drive like Dave had at today's meeting would be worthwhile for storing exclusively audio and video files for the ipod.

Joseph Miller said...

Tonia,

Awesome post! Can't get enough of Steve Carrell as Michael, pure genius.

That is absolutely correct about the sharing. I hear there are ways around this, but I do not think they are easy and probably violate the software license. What do you all think would be a good management method?

I hear from my Apple contact that there is supposed to be a cart released for iPods (like the laptop carts). This would enable quickly putting content on all the iPods at once and would facilitate charging.

I definitely Jeff is right and we need to get all of you external hard drives for sharing content and backing up all that is vital!

Any other ideas?

Joe

Fred Kreienkamp said...

I have always viewed iPods as toys rather than tools. I need to rethink this now.
I did a search for teaching with iPods and found a few interesting things. They have been used to develop reading fluency and collecting data for math.
Some good ideas are at the Apple Learning Interchange:
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/search.php?collectionID=714
Enjoy your iPod!

Calli said...

I know our students will be very much into the idea of technology in the classroom. However, implementing it in such a way to enhance their learning, and motivating them to comply will be key. This is a great opportunity for sharing and learning as we go. I firmly believe that true learning takes place with the person that "does the doing". Therefore, there will be lots of learning going on in the classrooms I work with. It's time to get started.

KL said...

So, it sounds like you all got iPods at the last session while I was freezing my ... on a 6th grade field trip in Estes Park. Ya gotta love Colorado weather! Do we get a make-up session?