I wish more schools and teachers thought like this. Instead of trying to purge their building of electronic devices like iPods, some are trying to find ways to use them for teaching and learning.
Using little more than an iPod and a school computer, Gagliolo and her students have been making podcasts — online radio shows that can be downloaded to an iPod or other portable MP3 player. Avidly discussing their favorite iPod colors and models while they made recordings of their poems and book reports the other day, the fifth-graders bubbled with ideas for future subjects.
Look at the many students in your classes who daily make use of a variety of incredibly sophisticated communications tools. Rather than fight a losing battle to block students from using these technologies at school, we should embrace their use for good rather than evil. Or something like that. :-)