Wednesday, July 05, 2006

iPod as a training aid in sports

A colleague of mine sat down in my cubicle this morning and told me about a recent story where Major League Baseball pitchers are using the iPod Video to review video of opposing batters from previous games. A quick search found this article online. Why am I posting a baseball story on this e-learning blog? Because it is clear to me that the iPod is being used as a training aid in the case of the baseball pitchers and those using it say they like it as well. As this quotation from the article demonstrates, the same reasons why iPods are useful in distance education drive the reasons why iPods are useful in this sports setting:

"They can do it on their time, they don't have to be here or they don't have to be behind a desk watching a laptop. They can be at home, on the airplane or even in their locker," Rockies video coach Mike Hamilton said.

We’ve often heard reports of the iPod having numerous applications as an educational tool in formal education settings and it’s nice to see this overlapping into other areas such as training aids. This portable iPod technology has potential for future developments that are very relevant to distance education. Stay tuned to what they think of next! In the meantime, instructors should practice their podcasting skills (*grin*).

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