Professor iPod

It's still not clear how the iPod touches would be used at Culbreth Middle School. And school officials know that students may use the iPod touches more to download the new Jonas Brothers single than to tap the riches of human knowledge. But Principal Susan Wells says that to dismiss the technology as a distraction or a gimmick ignores today's tech-driven world.

"It's a world we better figure out, because we can't ask our students to come into a classroom, put those things aside and sit in a row and think we're interesting," she said.

"We're just not that interesting."

Guidelines a Must

If the project wins funding, Culbreth's teachers, administrators and students during the next year will develop courses for which iPod Touches are central to the curriculum. Other schools could follow Culbreth's model.

Early ideas include letting students get arts credit by taking online guitar lessons in which they can watch a video of a guitar instructor on their iPod and practice at home. Physical education teachers might give take-home fitness assignments for students to track their stats -- calorie intake, number of sit-ups they can do in a minute, etc. -- and create a podcast demonstrating certain exercises.

E.D. Hirsch, a retired professor at the University of Virginia's School of Education who has studied the erosion of "cultural literacy" among schoolchildren, said the devices could be useful if teachers set clear guidelines for their use and delineate exactly what students are to learn from them.

"There has been a tendency to use technology as a substitute for curriculum," Hirsch said from his vacation home in Maine.

"Technique and how-to ideas have taken the place of deciding what it is, exactly, we want these children to learn," he said. "But I have nothing against the technology if it's in the service of grown-ups facing their responsibilities to decide what the students need to know precisely. If they did that, these technical gadgets will be valuable."

Private Funding

The Culbreth program, which requires private funding and school board approval, continues a trend in both K-12 and college levels. Some middle schools in New Jersey have lent iPod touches to students learning English as a second language. Culbreth is looking to become the first K-12 school to equip every student with an iPod touch.

It's contingent on a private source that Bryan Setser, executive director of N.C. Virtual Public School, a state agency working with Culbreth on the project, hopes to secure. Setser said he can't disclose who the benefactor is until the deal is done.

Culbreth has bought 35 iPods: 15 for teachers and administrators and 20 for students in Advancement Via Individual Determination, a program for college-bound students who need extra help.

If private funding can be obtained to foot the US$230,000 bill, every student and teacher will have an iPod Touch by winter break. Students could take them home but would have to return them at the end of the school year.

Iredell Experience

Students at South Iredell High School in Statesville, N.C., have used iPods in class for two years, and the school wants to expand its 25-iPod pilot program, said Tim Ivey, the school's focused learning community director. Some students have produced movie trailers for novels in English class. Others have composed and recorded their own music on the devices.

"It gives kids a chance to use things they already use in real life and make that connection in school," Ivey said.

He said there haven't been problems with students goofing off with the iPods.

"The kids see it as such a privilege," Ivey said. "That's something they don't want to abuse."

Wells said teachers will set boundaries for iPod use, just as they do with calculators. Students who misuse the iPods by, say, watching music videos in class could have them taken away and have to make do with the school's desktop computers, she said.

A Ban in Idaho

Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho, banned the use of all iPods last year when they suspected students were using them to cheat. Principal Aaron Maybon said some students would record audio of them saying answers to test questions. Then they'd wear a baggy sweater with the iPod concealed underneath and run the ear buds through the sleeve to their wrist. When they needed an answer, they would rest their head on their hand.

"We did have to take a hard-line approach to that," Maybon said. "You can restrict all kinds of stuff and you can drive yourself nuts trying to police all of it. They [Culbreth] are probably kind of opening themselves up to something."

Wells said Culbreth teachers are eager to start using iPods in class.

"These teachers say this pilot signals their commitment to our students to meet them where they are, as opposed to where the teachers are comfortable," Wells said.

"They state their commitment to teach 21st-century skills, because technology is the future for students and teachers."