In a recent Times article, Winnie Hu explores the widespread educational application of iPods. While highly publicized higher education initiatives have made most of us well aware of the device’s potential for teaching and learning in the academy, the implementation of the iPod is becoming quite pervasive in a variety of primary and secondary educational contexts as well.

Hu reports that a number of schools in New Jersey have been handing out the portable digital player to help bilingual students with limited English ability sharpen their vocabulary and grammar. For example, next month the Union City district will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey’s poorest urban school systems.

In a relatively short amount of time, the iPod has firmly established itself as an invaluable tool for teaching and learning in and outside the classroom. How long it will take the iPhone, which holds even greater educational potentiality, to follow suit?