What the new Apple products could mean for education

Today, Steve Jobs announced updates to the iPod line of products, and while it didn't go quite as far as I'd hoped (I want an iPhone that can actually replace my 60 gig iPod), the product and pricing changes could be welcome news for tech-savvy educators.

First up, the previous flagship product, now called the iPod Classic, can store up to 160 gigs of music, video, and whatever else you can pack in there. 160 gigs. I didn't even have a computer that held that much until this year. It is now feasible for departments or teachers to pack all the audiovisual stuff they need onto one small storage device, and with the help of a projector and some speakers it can replace your classroom TV, DVD/VCR, and boombox. Maybe you can even replace the A/V room in your school library with a teacher's lounge.

The new flagship product, the iPod Touch, is basically an iPhone minus the phone. With its wifi capability, I have to wonder if VoIP capabilities might be possible. This product may have some use in the classroom as a new internet-connected handheld computer, though it maxes out at 16 gigs of hard drive space.

What I'm most excited about (education-wise) is that the iPod nano now has a screen to play video. 4 gigs for $149 or 8 gigs for $199. It's now much more feasible to have a classroom set of video-enabled iPods to send home video and audio for students to use as they study. Whether you might want to put on United Streaming clips for your science class, or documentaries for your social studies class, or authentic-language videos for your foreign language class, or even if you just want to put PowerPoint presentations on there on the topics you've been covering, the sky is the limit and class time can be freed up for interaction.

Ah, Apple. Thanks again.