iPod Touch Schoolwide Implementation

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Parker-Jones on March 5, 2009 at 6:41pm

We too are using iTalk. It work great for recording and syncing. We've used a the Macally iVoice III microphone with great results (The Macally iVoiceIII Microphone for iPod is a compact and convenient tool that adds voice recording feature to your iPod. Plug it into the 30-pin dock connector on your iPod and control all functions on your iPod. An excellent added feature of the iVoiceIII is that it also has a stereo line-in jack that lets you record from other audio devices. )

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Parker-Jones on March 5, 2009 at 6:47pm

We've been sending iPods home with elementary students in our district for 3 years now with great success. Three factors have helped our success: 1. they only go home for 1 night at a time, 2. parents have to sign a form stating their financial responsibility, and 3. we do not send home any cables with the iPods and tell the parents that they are not to connect the iPods to their home computers.

Our student population is very diverse and the iPods are going home with all students regardless of their socio-economic level. We've found a good success rate especially with our ELL/ESL population. We just started this year sending home iPod touches with our students, previously we sent home the classic/video iPod and the square Nanos.

Modeling expectations with students is a big factor in making sure students bring the iPods back and how well they takening care of the iPods.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Wells on March 6, 2009 at 3:46am

Very cool Kathy, thanks for sharing. I agree that modeling/discussing expectations is really important for use. As we planned for school-wide use there had been lots of concern at the onset. Clear expectations have made the work successful. At this point we are using the iPod Touches within the school environment but home to school is something we'd love to see to for all of our students.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Pascoe on March 17, 2009 at 1:44pm

Great ideas all.
Do you have a form or AUP that you can share?

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Permalink Reply by Susan Wells on March 23, 2009 at 9:50am

We do have student use forms. I'll ask our tech coordinator, who is a member and has posted here, to attach some of what we're using. I'd love to see others as well.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Pascoe on June 1, 2009 at 12:52pm

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Gary Symons on March 17, 2009 at 8:59am

Hi Tom, I saw you were trying out Poddio. I'm the guy who developed it, and we are working on ways to make it more useful in the education arena. For example, a teacher in my town is using Poddio to record her school band, and select the parts she wants students to work on. We're adding a feature where she can send these shorter segments to all the student's email addresses all at once, right from her iPhone or iPod Touch.
We also make some mics that might be handy. A $20 mic with no gain control, and we'll be selling a high-end mic with gain control, which is actually made by Blue Microphones. Locally, you can likely get a Belkin or Macally mic, which connects to the docking port, but neither have gain. Anyhow, we're interested to see how teachers are using these programs, and what features they'd like to see. Any thoughts like that on your end?

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Permalink Reply by Tom Olson on March 26, 2009 at 6:32pm

Hi Gary,
I've not been on the Forum for a couple of weeks, but have had a chance to use Poddio on my Touch during that time. It's a great app, easy to use, and I'm going to show and suggest it to my language teachers. I especially like being able to upload files directly from the Touch over the network. This eliminates an issue with syncing the Touches to a Mac, then copying the sound files to the individual teachers computers. This is especially helpful for the one language teacher who has a PC, we can upload directly without having to worry or involve the Mac. I think there are many places in school where there might be interest in having a flexible recording studio in the palm of their hand. We use the Blue Snowball mics and like them, so I'd be interested in checking out the higher end mic.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Symons on March 30, 2009 at 9:57am

Hi Tom,
We have had band teachers using the Poddio, but we never even thought about language teachers. That's a great idea. So good, our management team would like to offer you a way to implement a trial free of charge. This is something we're doing with broadcasters as well.
We have a way of sending you a number of free Poddio applications through a coupon code. If you're interested, we could send you a couple of dozen codes by email, and these could be loaded onto your iPods. As well, for those who don't have mics, we have a very cool little microphone coming out that's only $20, much cheaper than the Belkins, Blues or Macallys.
Your language idea blew us away, as we realized you can actually create entire lessons on your students' iPods, downloading them either through the share function or sending them by email. By the way, emailing of sound files will be on the next version, which is being submitted to Apple this week. I also have a pre-production version of the Blue mic I can send out if you want to do this trial. the advantage is better sound, stereo recording, and manual gain control.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Symons on March 30, 2009 at 10:02am

Hi again,
I had another thought. What is not obvious on Poddio is that you can link multiple iPods together in a network, using the sharing function. You must have WiFi in your school for this to work, or there is an interesting work around I can tell you about, if you don't have WiFi.
This function allows several people to download files at the same time. To do this, go to the sharing screen as usual, and press 'Start Server'. If you want, put in a user authentication code, so everyone in the neighbourhood can't log on.
Your students then press Start Browser on their screens, select your iPod by name, and type in the authentication code if necessary. They can then select the file you want them to download, press the download button, and that's it. Gives you a very nice, easy way to send a language lesson on a mobile device.

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Permalink Reply by Derek Keenan on June 1, 2009 at 7:39pm

I have a feature that I would love to see, as your program is AMAZING but for one feature that I can't find elsewhere. I want to be able to actually create a podcast episode and upload to a server from any given device. What I am thinking of is having my class record their own episodes, edit and then each post an episode to our classroom podcast. Mini lessons and the like. Also, the ability to send recordings from ipod to ipod to combine would be amazing...Perhaps something the new OS can allow. Of course being able to add photos from the iphone/touch into the podcast would be fantastic too, but probably well out of possibility right now as I don't even know what that editing would look like. Would be great to have the podcasting feature though if you could figure out a server connect and RSS creation tool.

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Permalink Reply by Cory Tressler on March 8, 2009 at 10:56am

Thanks for these posts. We are looking at piloting iTouch programs in a few elementary and middle school settings and these posts are quite insightful.

What age would you start an iTouch pilot program? I was thinking 3rd or 4th grade. Any thoughts?

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