Monday, August 18, 2008

You can tell a lot about a person...

...by what's on his / her ipod. 

This morning I was trudging along at the gym...dead ipod....when my gym buddy took off, she offered me hers.  Now, she is a powerhouse...always pushing herself, and when I got a chance to listen to her tunes, I can see why.  There is tremendous power in music.   As a matter of fact, you may have seen this story on Good Morning America about how the Olympic athletes use music as a way to push themselves through a workout, or prepare themselves mentally for an event.  Several times during the Olympic I saw reference to the Olympic athletes and their dependence on the music that they can easily carry with them for motivation and inspiration.





Jeff Leow, a medical student from Australia, has an interesting post that features some medical studies that looked into the link between music and motivation to exercise. It includes a short description & diagram of the brain, but it got me thinking about the connection that physical exercise and music has on student motivation as well...There has been research conducted and many  books &  articles  written about the role of music and music education in brain development and motivation
...did you know that there are over 100 uses for ipods, yet portable music players are often considered to be "disruptive technology" and not permitted for use in many schools.  You have to wonder whether the recent publicity surrounding the Olympics is going to have any affect on school policy for portable music players...or if it should :)


5 comments:

  1. I have NPR Podcasts on mine. Wonder what that says about me? :-)

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  2. I went to the gym last night and forgot my ipod and really wanted to turn around and go home. I'm so unmotivated without the music and it seems to last longer.

    What would my ipod say about me? That I went to high school in the 80s so I love all of those 80s songs!

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  3. Someone would think I was weird if they looked at mine. I have eclectic tastes, for example: John Denver, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Peter Paul and Mary, The Carpenters, The Eagles,Celtic music, Musical Show Tunes (Rodgers and Hammerstein), NPR (Wait Wait Don't tell me, Gestalt Gardener), Garrison Keillor, Educational Podcasts, Lion Brand Yarncraft podcasts. I had to constantly fight with admin about letting my special ed students listen to music with headphones while they worked. This helped them from being distracted in the classroom and calmed them down.

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  4. Good post, Kristin. You wrote about something that I noticed but I didn't make the connections you did. Phelps was always listening to his iPod right up until the time he got in the pool.
    Wonder what he listens to.
    I have to explore that link to 100 uses for ipods.

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  5. Great post and very relevant as school begins again and we launch another discussion about bringing these devices to school. Your resources are awesome and I'm going to use them to help validate some of the reasons to at least get a pilot going at a few schools in our district; which is something I've been thinking about for awhile. Thanks for a thoughtful post.

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