IPods Fast Becoming New Teacher’s Pet, from the Washington Post

From the article:

At some schools, the rules are clear: Kids can chill out to downloaded music on portable players, but once they’re inside, iPods and other learning distractions must be stowed in backpacks or lockers and kept there. At Jamestown Elementary School in Arlington, Camilla Gagliolo took another approach. Rather than fighting the fad, she’s capitalizing on it by giving students iPods and re-imagining them as a learning tool.

THIS is what I was hoping to get from that Saturday IATE session. I was hoping for some stories on using iPods and mp3 players with students. Cool multimodal things. The students in Gagliolo’s class are highly involved, integrating their own podcast productions with what is going on in class and at the school. In ways, the story reminds me of Hilve Firek’s story on Saturday morning of her students asking to play on the computer, and for them play was creating their own class newspaper. Sigh… Maybe next year.