Using I-touches in the Choir Classroom

I'm just starting to really utilize these I-touches this semester, so I'll be trying to incorporate them into my curriculum as much as possible.  Here's my dilemma:  I only have 12 I-touches available, and most of my classes have 30 or so students in them.  I know I'm going to have to set up some kind of rotation or stations that only 10 or so students at a time can attend while the rest of us continue the rehearsal.  At all times, I must find a way to continuously introduce the material being worked on in the stations into the actual rehearsal so the relevance can be incorporated into a meaningful application of the curriculum.  In other words, "I gotta make them use what they're learning on the I-touches every day during my rehearsals!"  This means I'll have to plan very carefully what I want them to study on these things.

I think it's extremely important for today's students to use technology in their learning environment, because our world will only become more dependent on technology skills as time passes.  The last 5, 10, 20 years have proved that.  We must hold these students accountable for every station/center we create in order for them to be able to handle this progress.

I know in my class all I-touches will come with tuners, metronomes, pitch-pipes (ha! that's a good one), I mean digital pitch (tone) generators, theory apps, sight-reading apps, etc.  All music we're doing will be loaded on every device, and I-touch docking stations that play the music on speakers will be a must (those could be used for breaking up class into sectionals and having students work in smaller groups).

I also will seek out the more knowledgeable students who may already know a bit about these devices.  They will serve as my "tech" crew.  I will have a few from every class, and have back-ups for them as well.  These leaders can hold after school sessions to help others in this type of learning environment.  I really want to try and make this a "technology-based learning environment".

Of course, when it's all said and done, they have to let all that technology go and just SING!  How ironic!