We actually use the iPod (or similar) to help difficult child 3 focus on schoolwork and not get distracted by background noise. In priimary school (elementary) he had a CD player and headphones, so when the worksheets were handed out, he would be given his CD player and sat at a desk with only a wall to look at, so he could tune out the sounds of other kids. If the teacher needed to get his attention she would put her hand on his shoulder and make sure she got eye contact. The music we chose was easy-listening and classical, no lyrics. Instrumental only.
At difficult child 3's after-school tennis class, a girl who comes is always listening to her iPod while she plays. I can hear the leakage from the ear buds. She's still playing tennis, running around the court. So it would be possible to listen to music while doing PE.
I wouldn't be asking for the iPods to be confiscated. They are not the problem. The problem here, is the kids are in aclass and not working on that class. THAT is the problem to work on.
Confiscate the iPods and the kids will still be idle. They won't voluntarily do homework in a room full of other kids getting hyped up on boredom. I speak form experience - we used to have study room programmed in to our high school timetable. "Free Periods" were to be spent in the study room, we had special desks to help us concentrate on our work. We could work on any subject we had outstanding work for, we could use it to do homework during school hours instead of having it build up and have to be done at home.
Did we do this? No way! Of course a couple of swots did, occasionally even I did. I remember rehearsing a speech I had to give, and helping rehearse another classmate, during this time.
In the last 18 months of my high schooling, we had a new principal who was a real grouch (and totally out of touch). He took to prowling the corridors to catch out any kids doing the wrong thing. He regularly invaded our Study Periods to catch us out in our frequent card games (bridge and five hundred). Any visiblecards would get confiscated - which totally ruined the rest of the deck. We took to buying the same pattern of cards so we could make up new decks from the remnants of old partly confiscated ones.
But one memorable day in Study Period, I just happened to be working for a change. We had just done our Trial HSC (the HSC is our final, state-based high school matriculation/university entrance exams) and I was going over topics I knew I needed to study, for the main exams coming up in a month's time. But my mates (a group of boys I regularly played cards with) were engaged in a side room designing paper aeroplanes. In walks the principal like an avenging angel. I kept my head down but listened in. This principal really didn't know us kids, he didn't have a clue who was who. he went right up to the boy with the most elaborate paper plane in his hand. "And how did you go in YOUR trials, son?" said the principal belligerently, clearly expecting an embarrassed mumbled reply. Unfortunately, he'd picked on the class Brain, a guy I was going out with at the time and who I am convinced had strong Aspie tendencies.
"Well, sir, I came first in Maths, first in Science, first in...[a string of subjects mentioned]... and equal first in 2nd level English. Because of tiimetabling issues I wasn't able to do 1st level English so I haven't quite managed school Dux, but I am overall second."
The princicpal rocked back on his heels for a second while the rest of us surreptitiously watched with delight. Then the principal got his belligerence back. "Well, Son... [spoken like 'boy' to an African-American] ...you may be a big fish in a little pond here, but you're going to have to make your way in the world. You will need to WORK and make plans for your future. Here you are goofing off - I'll bet you haven't had a thought for your future plans."
"Well, sir," said my friend, "I've already been accepted into the officer training program with the navy. They'll put me through university and an Engineering degree, I'll be a Sub-Lieutenant in the Australian Navy in four years' time. I've been on a training program scholarship for the past 12 months. I believe they will help me with Post-Grad studies too, if there is anything form my studies that I want to follow up. I am interested in computing also, sir. You might recall the speech I gave to the school about my attendance last month at the special program run by the department of education."
The principal turned on his heel and walked out, totally not seeing the game of five hundred that had been happening in the far corner, frozen into a tableau when he entered.
The poor bloke - he had picked the one kid who really did have not a care in ther world because he always scored 90% or more in any exam he did. This was a kid who read textbooks for fun but who also enjoyed spending fun times with his friends.
The moral of the story - it's two-fold. First, removing apparent sources of entertainment and distraction (such as the principal confiscating loose cards) only increases the kids' determination to 'beat the system' and continue having fun.
Second, often the problem is elsewhere. In our case, the problem was unsupervised 'free time' in the timetable, due to bad planning. In your kid's case, the problem is an apparently slack teacher not using the set class time to teach that class.
Kids won't voluntarily do schoolwork, especially in lower grades, if there are other kids around having fun. Even the brightest kids will goof off (and need to sometimes).
As with our principal - it's vital to KNOW the situation more accurately, know the people involved and find out what is REALLY going on. Or not going on.
Marg
I already told him that he shouldn't need an afterschool break if he's spent the last hour just listening to music! He didn't like that thought at all! 
