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Next month, the Union City district will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey’s poorest urban school systems. The effort has spurred a handful of other districts in the state, including the ones in Perth Amboy and South Brunswick, to start their own iPod programs in the last year...
But even as students have been told to leave their iPods at home, the school here in Hudson County has been handing out the portable digital players to help bilingual students with limited English ability sharpen their vocabulary and grammar by singing along to popular songs.
Pedro Noguera, a sociology professor at New York University who studies urban schools, said that more districts were using new technologies like iPods to connect with students. For instance, he said, teachers have designed video games around history lessons and assigned students to re-enact novels and plays on YouTube.
Quote:
“You know the No. 1 complaint about school is that it’s boring because the traditional way it’s taught relies on passive learning,†Mr. Noguera said. “It’s not interactive enough.â€
In many affluent communities, iPods have evolved into an essential accessory for students. In 2004, Duke University led the way by outfitting its entire freshman class with iPods that were preloaded with orientation information and even the Duke fight song. While Duke no longer gives away iPods, it maintains a pool of them that are lent to students for classes. Last spring, 93 of the 2,000 or so courses at Duke required iPods.
NY Times wrote:
The Union City district, which has a $197 million annual budget, places a priority on bilingual classes because more than one-quarter of its students are learning basic English skills. District officials said the stakes are high; 4 of the district’s 12 schools have been identified as needing improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind law, largely because not enough bilingual students have passed the state reading and math tests.
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