The Odyssey, Oral Storytelling and the iPad

Today I had problem: I have students who are going to spend the next month reading The Odyssey, a book which I failed to fully appreciate when I was a college student reading it for the first time. I wondered how the high school students are going to be able to a) read the book without relying on Sparknotes, Cliffnotes, or other summaries of the text and b) get more out of this than if they were to just read it to themselves and not comprehend a good fraction of the narrative.

Here's my solution: technology.

How I got there:
Fortunately, I have MP3 files of the audiobook of The Odyssey that I bought for my dad years ago. I had planned to read along with the story using the audiofiles in order to experience the story as its original audience did, by hearing it from an oral storyteller. I had originally thought about posting the files somewhere online where the students would be able to access them, but the Fair Use Policy doesn't feel like enough license to do that. Then, I thought about putting the files on CD for students to burn to their own hard drives, iPods, etc. Finally, I remembered how my school is lending me this iPad and how I haven't been sharing it enough with the office (how surprising!). So here's the new plan:

1. Burn the audiofiles for all of The Odyssey onto the iPad.
2. Download the same edition for iBooks.
3. Lend out the iPad to teachers and students in the office when I am not around.

They can use it to curl up and read and listen to the text read aloud as they follow along. Presumably, hearing it performed will add more meaning than their straight internal narration with all of its stumbling for pronunciations of ancient Greek words and names. Then, we'll see if this is a better reading experience for any of them than the more traditional alternative.

I think it's crazy that it takes a very modern piece of hardware to inspire a teacher ask students to listen to an epic poem.

Addendum:
The NY Times had an article on how children may read more with access to e-readers.
I liked these stats:

About 25 percent of the children surveyed said they had already read a book on a digital device, including computers and e-readers. Fifty-seven percent between ages 9 and 17 said they were interested in doing so.

And:

Many children want to read books on digital devices and would read for fun more frequently if they could obtain e-books. But even if they had that access, two-thirds of them would not want to give up their traditional print books.