The first day back after the holiday break is complete. At dinner, we talked about what happened today. My daughter, who is involved in a class iPod project, mentioned they had a class discussion about developing some iPod use guidelines. Naturally, I was interested to hear about the dialogue. I took the role of the reporter, prompted the discussion with a couple of questions, but mainly tried to sit back, and listen to a student version of the outcome of the class discussion.

My transcription of the conversation:

• Be prepared
  • The unit and headphones should be at school each day, fully charged
  • Required apps must be installed timely, as required
  • Units will be kept on the desktop ready for action
  • Be responsible
• Manners and etiquette
  • Be considerate of others. Give them your attention when they are talking or presenting. The iPod should NOT be a distractor.
  • Use when asked (there may be non use activities)
  • Text communication will not likely be required
• Applications and Content
  • Apps should be appropriate for school. Any games should be educational (problem solving etc.)
  • No illegal music
  • Note: I must admit the last comment made my heart smile – nice to see copyright as part of the discussion!

To me, it sounds like they had a good discussion and captured the important points. My daughter seemed confident that this approach would work well. I think this set of guidelines would work well for adults too, especially the point in blue italics. 🙂

~ Mark