21st Century Teaching

We had a substitute teacher in math class on Friday. We took a quiz that took about 30 minutes to finish.  12 minutes isn't enough time to start and finish a new lesson so we had "free work time" to read, draw, or do homework.

I was waiting for the infamous question of
     "Can we use our iPods?"
And sure enough it was asked before we even started the quiz.
This sub was an older lady and her answer was
    "Yes, but if I was your teacher there wouldn't be any of those things in this building.  All they do is distract people and cause interruptions to learning"

I realize in this case they were for entertainment purposes but my question is this
     "Does she know they are educational tools too?"

I use my iPod everyday for school purposes.  In fact, I couldn't imagine a day without it.  At the end of the day it's dead and ready to be charged again.

• I take notes
• look up information
• Take pictures of directions to reference back to later
• Access the wiki for assignments
• Make movies
• And it's been used as props many times

I have one last question, Does that sound distracting?