There are a number of posts from individuals interested in using iPod Touches for teaching and Learning. At Culbreth Middle in Chapel Hill, NC we began a pilot this past August to place the iPod Touch in the hands of staff and students.

Our staff development for faculty to roll out the new technology centered on teacher coaches leading their groups in exploration through professional learning communities.

Our AVID students use the iPod Touch in the AVID classroom and in all other courses. They have piloted this program, using the iPod Touches daily for note taking, keeping individual agendas, translation for world languages, and accessing research through the Internet. In addition, our AVID students use many of the apps that teachers sync with these mobile devices. As student leaders, they’ve understood their responsibility to work and share this learning tool in collaborative groups.

This winter we were able to add iPod Touch labs for each of our seven interdisciplinary teams and two labs for our exploratory and resource teams. The interdisciplinary grade level iPod Touch labs are housed with each team and shared among the four content teachers (math, language arts, science, and social studies). These teachers plan together so that their students have access throughout each day. They access the internet as needed and use many apps as well.

Teacher current app favorites include: WordBook, Thesaurus, USA, Countries, Brain Tuner, Blanks, Whiteboard, CoinToss, Lose It!, Word Warp, FlipBook Lite. Of course they are using the included apps: Calendar, Calculator, Notes, Clock, YouTube throughout each day.

We held an iPod Touch Day last week with visitors from all over the state and from across the country. We even had a group from the UK come see our students and teachers in action with the iPod Touch. With almost 400 iPod Touches now in use at Culbreth, we’re happy to share what we’ve learned and what we’re learning.

Tags: Touches, iPod

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Do you use iPhone Config Utility to do this, or just copy preferences from a backup when devices are new?

At our school, the students use their own iTouches, so they know the password to get onto the wireless network. The problem you mentioned wouldn't exist for us, as anyone can access the wireless network.

If it is done manually, the students can simply copy the Wi-Fi preferences from another device -but they would need to know the password.

I am interested to hear from schools who have used the iPhone Configuration Utility to deploy iPods, and how successful that has been. The deployment of large numbers can be time consuming, and I wonder if this saves time over imaging devices in iTunes from a backup.
We use the config program. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time, never considered doing it from a backup though. That might save some time. Any down side to doing it all from a single backup?
SonicPics, normally $3.00, is free today. Wish I knew about it earlier so I could have posted it.
Just checked it out on Australia and US iTunes stores... it's not free right now, about two hours after your post.

There is, however, a lite version...

Maybe your post was only moments before 'today' ended? (I'm in Australia)
It closed about 45 min after I posted. I was updating the software on wife's Touch and I missed it for her. Not really a big deal since she probably wouldn't use it and she pretty tight about letting the kids use her device.
Thanks. Isn't it funny how we get excited about saving a couple of dollars!

If someone told me that Photoshop was on sale for $50 off the regular price, I wouldn't care. But saving $2 or $3 on an app = WOOT!!!

There needs to be a name for the app bargain hunter... app shark... snapper... hmmm perhaps not clever enough...
Dale, I think you know about this, but for others that don't...

Check out the Twitter hashtag #edapp. Lots of us are posting our favorite apps. SonicPics is actually my favorite app! I got a heads-up from the developer it was going to be free April 1st, so I tweeted about it and tagged my tweet #edapp. #edapp is a good way to discover new apps and when apps are on sale--but sales usually last only 24 hours.

Here's more info about #edapp (including what the heck is a hashtag).
Hi Tony, just found out out about #edapp a couple of days ago. My wife just gave me an iPhone for my 40th.
This is really helpful information Tony. Thanks for posting!
Just wanted to introduce myself to the thread and mention our iPod Touch Program. Hoping to help and be helped as we've learned a lot in the process.

My name is Scott Walker, and I teach at Bate Middle School in Danville, KY. Around January we started a pilot to see how well the iPods would work with our school culture. We purchased 83 devices and Sync Cart. There are three classes of students that have the iPods in hand. They carry them through the day and take them home at night. We have a decent budget for apps and sync them as we find new ones. The students are allowed to sync their own music/movies to them, and more recently their own apps. They're aware that in the event that we need to resync them, their apps will need to be reinstalled through the ipod touch. We have turn in days to check for issues or content/apps that are inappropriate.

Probably one of the best uses we've worked out is the use of Google Docs to create forms. The forms can be in the form of tests, bell ringers, etc... The teachers receives a detailed spreadsheet with all of the answers. Great for reflection and getting an at-a-glance look at the students learning.

So far so good. We've been able to implement several strategies for the apps, and most everyone is thoroughly enjoying the process.
I would like to find out more about how you used the google forms with ipod touches. We are on google apps so is it just a matter of sending them out via student's email?
Using Google apps automatically gives students a login with which to access google forms.

If the kids use a web browser to check email, then the form will be visible in the email (if you select this option when emailing the form to them). If not, it is accessible by a link.

It works fine on an iPod touch. We have used Google forms to vote for subject choices, student representatives and sports leaders. we are also going to use a Google form to gather data about bullying and safety at school.

The collation in a spreadsheet is excellent, and the reports it creates provide a pretty good snapshot of your data.

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